Polis and Exchange: about Aristotle's Conception
Marinovich Lyudmila P.
After some decades of discussion between «modernist» and «primitivists» the latter came to dominate almost completely. Only recently they have been seriously challenged by new discussions of the problems of ancient economy in western scholarship. Of special importance for the solution of these problems are Aristotle's economical views. This subject is not new for classical studies. But in the recent period its analysis has been strongly influenced by the "primitivist" concepts, represented e.g. in the works of M. Finley. It is also important to be independent of a narrow Marxist approach, which sees in Aristotle rather a predecessor of K. Marx than an original thinker. The article analyses the following questions: different kinds of exchange depending logically and historically upon different types of social organization; the problem of the birth of money and monetary circulation considered in the light of labour division in polis and its foreign connections; autarchy, which for Aristotle does not imply renunciation of economical ties; two kinds of acquisition art: economics and chrematistics; his views of trade and usury; and the relations between Aristotle's theory and the realities of his time, particularly trade development and trapesites' activity. Aristotle realized the corrupting influence of the developing commodity-money relations on the polis community, because they undermined its homogeneity. Will it be too daring to consider this inner contradictory character of the process (well understood by Aristotle) as an immanent opposition of polis and city principles in classical Greek society?