The oikonomia represents a moral duty rather than something to economize on. To put it in phenomenological terms, order referred to the sense of having as a task the correspondence of life and world, not the minimization of the burden of economic life in an already well-specified world. In this sense, one spoke in the stoic tradition of the verb oikoiein, referring to the act of appropriation. The oikos is the world to be appropriated.
Hence some persons are led to believe that getting wealth is the object of household management, and the whole idea of their lives is that they ought either to increase their money without limit, or at any rate not to lose it. The origin of this disposition in men is that they are intent upon living only, and not upon living well; and, as their desires are unlimited, they also desire that the means of gratifying them should be without limit. … [A]nd so there arises the second species of wealth-getting. For, as their enjoyment is in excess, they seek an art which produces the excess of enjoyment.
Till Düppe, 2009
Hence some persons are led to believe that getting wealth is the object of household management, and the whole idea of their lives is that they ought either to increase their money without limit, or at any rate not to lose it. The origin of this disposition in men is that they are intent upon living only, and not upon living well; and, as their desires are unlimited, they also desire that the means of gratifying them should be without limit. … [A]nd so there arises the second species of wealth-getting. For, as their enjoyment is in excess, they seek an art which produces the excess of enjoyment.
Aristotle, 350 B.C.
This entry was posted by Stephen McLaughlin, on
21 December 2008.
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hi stephen,
this aristotle passage i read and re-read in college, and it informed many papers i wrote. funny how, in retrospect, we see the things which stuck with us out of the multiplicity of input we all receive.
to make money, but only a modicum of money, 'because life is not for making money but for living -- this injunction of aristotle's stuck with me, and grew and developed in me, in the 5 years since i poured over The Ethics in the library. not that i've learned to live purely, but that it's become something like a norm that i try always to bear in mind.
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jacob.hellman@gmail)
(friend of vladimir)
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