POLI 441 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Nationstates, Mercantilism, Usury
16 Jan 2018
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A brief intellectual history: mercantilism in britain, the french physiocrats, henry martyn and adam smith, adam smith and the invisible hand. Strategic trade policy: us and japan: the gatt/wto. Ancient greece: 4th c. athens, agricultural society, most households self-sufficient, plato"s republic. "the result [of such a division], then, is that more things are produced, and better and more easily when one man performs one task according to his nature, at the right moment, and at leisure from other occupations. Idea of specialization as early as plato: two decades later, xenefon links division of labour to size of the market, aristotle, context: no "economy" as distinct social sphere, oikonomike =/ economics. Instrumentality is spurned: work is means to an end, valuable things are valuable for their own sake, like philosophy, usury: "makes a gain out of money itself, and not from the natural object of it" (aristotle) "no bounds to riches have been fixed for man (solon)
