Essays
AN ANTIQUE STRATEGY OF DEVELOPMENT POLICY (ON XENOPHON’S WAYS AND MEANS)
Zvonimir Baletić
; fellow of the CASA, Zagreb, Croatia
Abstract
Xenophon was the first Greek philosopher to clearly separate the economic phenomenon from morality, law and politics, defining it from the standpoint of efficiency, deprivation and welfare. These traits of Xenophon’s approach are particularly pronounced in Ways and Means. In this essay he presents an integral discussion of possibilities to increase income of the state of Athens, focusing only on issues pertaining to the boosting of economic activity as source of the state’s income and the source of its security. Thus it is rather a development study, a strategy of economic growth, an evaluation of economic power and of ways of increasing it, and, to the extent of our knowledge, it is the first such treatise in history. Although its intent is to provide practical instruction on development policy, it is not conceived as a set of suggestions regarding actual steps to be taken, but as an integrated plan of development, the consistency of which is ensured by theoretical understanding of economic processes and by sober insight into the entire internal structure and external relations of a particular state (Athens) with its surroundings. The predominant evaluation criterion is economic efficiency and citizens’ welfare, i.e. the narrower economic criterion, by which a state’s development policy is to be judged.
Keywords
development policy; economic power; citizens’ welfare; Athens
Hrčak ID:
41521
URI
Publication date:
9.10.2009.
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