Wealth, Commerce, and Philosophy

Foundational Thinkers and Business Ethics

Eugene Heath, Byron Kaldis, Eugene Heath, Byron Kaldis

• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9780226443997
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Philosophy History & Theory

The moral dimensions of how we conduct business affect all of our lives in ways big and small, from the prevention of environmental devastation to the policing of unfair trading practices, from arguments over minimum wage rates to those over how government contracts are handed out. Yet for as deep and complex a field as business ethics is, it has remained relatively isolated from the larger, global history of moral philosophy. This book aims to bridge that gap, reaching deep into the past and traveling the globe to reinvigorate and deepen the basis of business ethics.Spanning the history of western philosophy as well as looking toward classical Chinese thought and medieval Islamic philosophy, this volume provides business ethicists a unified source of clear, accurate, and compelling accounts of how the ideas of foundational thinkers—from Aristotle to Friedrich Hayek to Amartya Sen—relate to wealth, commerce, and markets. The essays illuminate perspectives that have often been ignored or forgotten, informing discussion in fresh and often unexpected ways. In doing so, the authors not only throw into relief common misunderstandings and misappropriations often endemic to business ethics but also set forth rich moments of contention as well as novel ways of approaching complex ethical problems. Ultimately, this volume provides a bedrock of moral thought that will move business ethics beyond the ever-changing opinions of headline-driven debate.

Chapter 1

Wealth and Commerce in Archaic Greece: Homer and Hesiod

Mark S. Peacock

Throughout much of history, wealth and commerce have had a dubious moral status, and those who accumulate wealth or pursue commerce have often been vilified. Many scholars assume that all thinkers of early Greece were, like Plato, wary of activities linked with trade or commerce. This essay reassesses this assumption in the context of archaic Greece (ca. 800–500 BCE), for which Hesiod’s Works and Days and Homer’s epics are the most important literary sources. Homer and Hesiod invoke notions—wealth, trade, and labor—essential to the ethical evaluation of commerce; their considerations provide a contrast to ideas, prevalent in later, classical times, that are used routinely as sources for discussions in business ethics.

After offering methodological comments on the use of Hesiod and Homer as historical sources, I dedicate the section thereafter to Homer, and the following to Hesiod. While Homer reflects the “higher” end of the spectrum of social status by focusing on the archaic aristocracy and their values, Hesiod aims “lower” by issuing advice to the small, independent farmer. There are thus contrasts between Homer and Hesiod with regard to the nature and acquisition of wealth and the role and status of commerce. I question the common view that Hesiod and Homer hold commerce in low repute. Although there are elements of a critique of commerce in both poets, Greek prejudice against commerce does not manifest itself fully until the classical period, with authors such as Plato, Xenophon, and Aristotle, whose views I compare to Hesiod’s and Homer’s.

Historicizing Hesiod and Homer: Methodological Remarks

Hesiod’s and Homer’s works contain much “pure fiction”—for example, the gods on Olympus and superstitious tips on farming. That the poets and their audiences might have believed such “fictions” does not bring us any closer to the “real” history of the societies the works reflect. Nevertheless, classical scholars attempt to reconstruct a “world” of Hesiod or Homer by emphasizing textual, archaeological, and comparative resources.1 Scholars abstract from aspects that are obviously fictional or elements that have been deliberately “archaized,” such as the use of bronze (rather than iron) weapons in Homeric battle, and focus instead on the background values and institutions of the works without which the texts make little sense. One example is the institution of gift giving, mentioned by Hesiod but revealed in greater depth by Homer. That neither Hesiod nor Homer explains gift giving in detail implies knowledge of the practice among the poets’ audiences, a knowledge that presumably came from the societies in which they lived or from a recent past.2 The nature, use, and acquisition of wealth likewise form part of the background to Hesiod and Homer that reveals something about the societies the poets describe.

A further methodological point regarding the use of Hesiod and Homer as historical sources comes from the study of oral poetry. Oral poetry is usually passed down over generations, yet a bard who recites poetry infuses that recitation with references to the society in which he or she lives. Oral poetry is not static. Consequently, one bard will recite a saga or epic differently from one who recited the “same” tale generations previously;3 in fact, the same bard tailors a performance to a particular audience. If the foregoing holds true of the poems of Hesiod and Homer, then their work will shed light on the epoch in which they were transcribed or on a small number of generations prior to transcription. In the case of Homer, the latter part of the eighth century is a common estimate of the epics’ transcription (with some passages being added later and the Iliad preceding the Odyssey, perhaps by a generation);4 Hesiod is later, just after the turn of the seventh century, a date that a few scholars see as more likely for Homer.5 If they tell us anything at all about history, then, Hesiod and Homer inform us about these centuries of the early archaic period.

Wealth and Commerce in Homer’s Epics

Odysseus’s swineherd enumerates his master’s wealth (aphenos) as follows: “Twelve herds of cattle on the mainland. As many sheepflocks. As many troops of pigs and again as many wide goatflocks.”6 He thereby reveals the agricultural basis of Homeric wealth. The number of slaves belonging to the household (oikos) would also constitute wealth, as Odysseus divulges when, disguised as a beggar, he boasts that he once “had serving men by thousands.”7 Apart from livestock (and the land on which they are kept) and slaves, wealth in Homer consists of precious objects that often circulate among the elite as gifts, prizes, or compensation. Examples include robes, weapons, and utensils made of gold and silver. These items have not only intrinsic value but also a “biography”; rather than describe the appearance or qualities of Agamemnon’s scepter, for example, Homer writes:

Powerful Agamemnon stood up holding the sceptre Hephaistos had wrought him carefully. Hephaistos gave it to Zeus the king, the son of Kronos, and Zeus in turn gave it to the courier Argeïphontes, and lord Hermes gave it to Pelops, driver of horses, and Pelops again gave it to Atreus, the shepherd of the people. Atreus dying left it to Thyestes of the rich flocks, and Thyestes left it in turn to Agamemnon.8

Although Homer sometimes describes only the material properties of valuable items,9 their history confers as much value as their material properties; the status of those who previously owned or wrought such items increases their value. The passage quoted also gives us insight into the movement of wealth, a subject that I bifurcate into internal (within a community) and external movement (between different communities).

Wealth: Internal Movement

A community (dēmos) occupies a region in which a number of oikoi (aristocratic households/estates) are situated, each oikos headed by a “king” (basileus). Of these kings, one is the leader, not only of an oikos, but of the community. The community’s leader is often dubbed a primus inter pares, the pares being the other “kings,” each of whom heads an oikos.10 The Phaiakians, for example, are ruled by thirteen kings, of whom their leader, Alkinoös, is foremost.11 Odysseus’s community is larger than the Phaiakians’ to judge from the 108 suitors, all from noble families, who woo his wife.12 What makes a particular household’s king the leader of the community is his superior skills in speaking or fighting, and his superior wealth, as Homer’s description of Alkinoös’s and Odysseus’s magnificent houses (dōmata) makes clear.13 A leader is expected to lead prudently, to ensure the security and prosperity of his community, and to manifest heroism in war.14 Wealth moves to the leader of the community for various reasons, and his household’s wealth will swell as a result of being leader.15 The community, for instance, can grant the leader a plot of land (temenos).16

The movement of wealth within a community takes many forms and is related to the community’s political system, to which I attend forthwith. The leader hosts communal religious feasts that involve the consumption and distribution of sacrificial meat.17 There is also a system of tribute payment whereby the leader recoups costs he has borne at the expense of the public (dēmothen).18 This system falls short of regular taxation, for the payments cover extraordinary, not routine, expenses, such as the costs of war and of providing hospitality to strangers or to guest-friends (xeniē).19 Wealth can be allocated by the leader to subordinates in return for acts of supererogatory service or heroism on the battlefield, though these, too, are extraordinary payments.20 There are also more humdrum acts of service that members of a community provide. Each king, for instance, sits in his community’s assembly, an informal political gathering in which opinions are exchanged and policies agreed upon. Whether, though, the kings are rewarded (and how) is not clear.21

The leader’s rule is not absolute, and his opinion can be overridden by the assembly.22 The leader’s authority is closely linked to the distribution of wealth over which he presides. Subordinates withhold obedience when their leader is perceived to take more than his fair share: Agamemnon, commander of the Greek forces at Troy, faces revolt because he is deemed to be less heroic than others in battle but claims the greatest spoils of war.23 The source of wealth to be redistributed within a community is war or raiding (about which see the next section); it is the leader’s responsibility to acquire wealth through these means, and because this acquisition is a communal effort, subordinates expect a share of the booty. The relationship between the leader and his people approximates to “balanced reciprocity,”24 whereby the leader “give[s] as good as he gets,”25 and each party expects a roughly equivalent service of the other, although reciprocation does not have to be immediate, as in Marshall Sahlins’s ideal type of balanced reciprocity.

As this analysis suggests, the internal movement of wealth is effected via redistribution rather than commerce, or market exchange. Indeed, Moses Finley claims that market exchange is not attested between members of the same community.26 The only excepti...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Foreword: “While Conforming to . . . Law and . . . Ethical Custom”: How to Do Humanomics in Business Ethics
• Introduction
• 1  Wealth and Commerce in Archaic Greece: Homer and Hesiod
• 2  Aristotle and Business: Friend or Foe?
• 3  Confucian Business Ethics: Possibilities and Challenges
• 4  The Earthly City and the Ethics of Exchange: Spiritual, Social, and Material Economy in Augustine’s Theological Anthropology
• 5  Thomas Aquinas: The Economy at the Service of Justice and the Common Good
• 6  The Ethics of Commerce in Islam: Ibn Khaldun’s Muqaddimah Revisited
• 7  Hobbes’s Idea of Moral Conduct in a Society of Free Individuals
• 8  John Locke’s Defense of Commercial Society: Individual Rights, Voluntary Cooperation, and Mutual Gain
• 9  As Free for Acorns as for Honesty: Mandevillean Maxims for the Ethics of Commerce
• 10  “Commerce Cures Destructive Prejudices”: Montesquieu and the Spirit of Commercial Society
• 11  Hume on Commerce, Society, and Ethics
• 12  The Fortune of Others: Adam Smith and the Beauty of Commerce
• 13  Why Kant’s Insistence on Purity of the Will Does Not Preclude an Application of Kant’s Ethics to For-Profit Businesses
• 14  Tocqueville: The Corporation as an Ethical Association
• 15  J. S. Mill and Business Ethics
• 16  Karl Marx on History, Capitalism, and . . . Business Ethics?
• 17  Friedrich Hayek’s Defense of the Market Order
• 18  The Power and the Limits of Milton Friedman’s Arguments against Corporate Social Responsibility
• 19  Beyond the Difference Principle: Rawlsian Justice, Business Ethics, and the Morality of the Market
• 20  Commitments and Corporate Responsibility: Amartya Sen on Motivations to Do Good
• Contributors
• Index