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Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780300212778 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Yale University Press |
| Publication date: | 05/12/2015 |
| Pages: | 232 |
| Product dimensions: | 4.90(w) x 8.10(h) x 0.80(d) |
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Austerity
The Great Failure
By FLORIAN SCHUI
Yale UNIVERSITY PRESS
Copyright © 2014 Florian SchuiAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-300-20393-6
CHAPTER 1
Austere ideas for austere societies from Aristotle to Aquinas
Although the word 'austerity' derives from the ancient Greek [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] ('austeros'), Aristotle (348–322 bce) probably had little use for it. Originally, the term had meant 'dryness of tongue', but in Aristotle's lifetime it was already used to refer to harsh or rough conditions. However, like many of his fellow philosophers, Aristotle led a privileged life. His independent means allowed him to keep his tongue moist with the best that Greece had to offer, including the famed wines of his native Chalcidice in northern Greece. Also in other respects Aristotle was no stranger to the finer things in life: the ancient biographer Diogenes Laertius tells us that 'he was conspicuous by his attire, his rings, and the cut of his hair'.
Aristotle's own comfortable lifestyle hardly seemed to make him a likely voice against excesses of consumption, and yet he raised his voice against them repeatedly. Confusingly, however, he also praised generous expenditure on other occasions. If Aristotle were living today he might well be criticised for inconsistency or for entertaining double standards, but the ambiguities of his views did not raise many eyebrows in his times. His was a fundamentally different society from ours and in order to understand his perspective on luxuries and austerity we first need to get to know the world in which he lived and consumed.
No-growth societies
Aristotle was born in 384 bce in Stageira, near modern-day Thessaloniki, where his father was the personal physician of the king of Macedon. Young Aristotle received the privileged upbringing that was reserved for the scions of the elite in this period. For the later part of his education he was sent south to Athens, to attend Plato's academy, of which he remained a member for almost two decades. After quitting, he travelled to different parts of the Greek world.
At age 45, Aristotle followed his father's example and entered the services of the Macedonian dynasty: he was called by Philip of Macedon to become the tutor of the king's son, the future Alexander the Great. This employ lasted until 335 BCE, when he returned to Athens and opened his own philosophy school, the famous Lyceum. This second Athenian stay, which lasted for twelve years, was one of his most prolific periods. In these years he wrote the two works in which most of his comments on consumption can be found, the Nicomachean Ethics and the Politics. He left Athens only after Alexander's death in 323, when he feared that his association with the Macedonian dynasty would make him the target of public anger. However, despite his hurried departure, Aristotle did not become homeless. He retired to a country estate north of Athens which he had inherited from his mother, where he died one year later.
The most salient feature of Aristotle's life was stability. True, he travelled widely, but his itineraries never took him beyond the Greek world. This is also true of his thinking, which always remained essentially ethnocentric. His views on the non-Greek world consistently betrayed a strong sense of superiority. One might object that Aristotle lived through what was arguably one of the most turbulent periods of Greek history. Although comparatively small, the Hellenic world experienced great upheavals. First, during the reign of Philip, the northern kingdom of Macedon became the dominant power in the region, putting an end to Athenian independence. Subsequently, under Alexander, Macedonia expanded to the east by conquering territories in Persia and even further afield. Some of these events directly affected Aristotle, for example when he had to flee Athens after the death of Alexander. In some respects, Aristotle's life may therefore be seen as quite eventful. Certainly he was no ivory tower philosopher.
Nonetheless, in other respects his life and that of many of his contemporaries also exhibited remarkable stability. Most strikingly, there was hardly any change in terms of his social position and economic condition. His father had been the personal physician of a Macedonian ruler and four decades later Aristotle became the tutor of the same monarch's grandson. And while Aristotle, as an outsider, was excluded from political participation in Athens, hardly any restrictions were placed on his economic rights. Even when he had to leave Athens against his will, he did not become destitute. His inherited wealth continued to afford him a privileged lifestyle that was similar to the condition into which he had been born and in which he had lived for most of his life. He died in social and economic circumstances that strongly resembled the ones into which he was born. His legal status remained similarly stable. He was born 'Macedonian' and despite his prestige and the long periods during which he lived in Athens he never acquired citizenship rights there. Nor did he think it strange that legally he remained a foreigner even after decades of residence in the city.
This strong element of continuity was not peculiar to Aristotle's life. Stability characterised the life of most of his contemporaries. However, only a very small number were fortunate enough to remain fixed at a similarly high level. More often, contemporaries were born as small landholders, artisans or slaves and this remained their economic, social and legal condition throughout their lives.
There was much short-term fluctuation in economic welfare as a result of harvest failures. But in the medium and longer term, economies were remarkably stable. Not only did sons mostly embrace the professions of their fathers, but there were also hardly any major changes in the ways that people worked from one generation to the next. This period and much of the Middle Ages were largely devoid of major technological and organisational innovations such as those that drive economic expansion today. Farmers used the same tools and techniques throughout the periods of Greek and Roman dominance, and much of Europe still used the primitive Roman plough well into the Middle Ages. Manufacturing employed only a fraction of ancient populations and here, too, innovation was rare and the traditional ways in which artisans worked, as well as the products they made, were subject to very little change. None of the innovations that revolutionised economic life in later periods and that generated the ability to produce vastly more with the same amount of human labour occurred in the ancient world.
Socio-economic stability was a hallmark of individual lives and consequently of contemporary societies as a whole. In the same way as most men died with a fortune roughly comparable to the one they were born with, so most societies did not become significantly richer or poorer over a generation or even over longer periods. The only exception to this may be the Roman Republic, but its increase in prosperity was mainly due to the plundering of occupied territories and had little to do with home-made economic growth.
The exact levels of contemporary economic growth are unknown, but the existing estimates are sufficiently accurate to give a sense of the order of magnitude. Today, most economic historians think that economic growth in the ancient world ranged on average from 0.05 to 0.1 per cent per year. Such increases are minuscule compared to the levels of growth that are considered normal in the modern world. Moreover, we need to remember that the level of economic output was low in the first place. The goods and services represented by 1 per cent of growth in a pre-industrial society were only a tiny fraction of what 1 per cent of growth means in terms of additional wealth and use values in today's advanced economies.
When we look at the social and economic development of ancient societies we find a near complete lack of economic growth and of social mobility. In other words, in Aristotle's day people knew from experience that the size of the pie changed as little as the size of the share that was assigned to them. It is in light of this reality – radically different from ours – that we need to read Aristotle's seemingly contradictory comments on consumption and abstinence.
Of necessities
In many respects Aristotle was truly a 'worldly philosopher'. He had a clear opinion on the political questions of the day and his writings display a genuine curiosity about all aspects of life. Therefore, when he enquired into the question of how humans might attain happiness it was perfectly clear to him that this was not only about putting aside enough time for leisure and the cultivation of friendships, but that there was also a more prosaic dimension to this question. 'Neither life itself,' he pointed out in the Politics, 'nor the good life is possible without a certain minimum supply of the necessities.' Much of his thinking on ethics then centred on the question of balance. In his Politics, but even more extensively in his Ethics, Aristotle discussed the question of how much that 'minimum supply' of material goods was that allowed men to live the 'good life'. Material excess, as much as material want, was likely to prevent men from attaining this ideal state. This view is hardly surprising given the central position that the notion of the 'golden mean' occupied in classical philosophy. All classical Greek philosophers, including those of the often misrepresented Epicurean tradition, rejected hedonism and advocated a measured approach to consumption and pleasure.
Temperance was therefore one of the principal virtues described in the Ethics. In book III, Aristotle explains that temperance was mainly about avoiding excessive bodily pleasures, specifically the 'touch and taste' sensations caused by the consumption of physical objects. Pleasures of the mind such as 'love of honour' or the 'love of learning' belonged to a different category, as did the more fleeting sensations of enjoyment caused by 'objects of vision' or 'hearing'. The notion of temperance applied to pleasure that was caused by what we might term 'consumer goods': physical objects that were owned by the consumer and at least to some extent used up in the process of enjoyment.
Aristotle is most concerned about the pleasures of eating and the excesses of those he calls 'belly-gods'. However, while he is clear that over-indulgence is 'culpable', Aristotle is tantalisingly imprecise about how much is too much. Being a man of the world he did not fail to acknowledge that a certain amount of physical wants – including those of the 'bed' – were natural and should be satisfied. But on the whole, Aristotle advised, 'the appetitive element should live according to reason'. The reader who is looking for practical advice on acceptable levels of consumption in this part of the Ethics is bound to remain frustrated by the philosopher's vagueness.
More specific answers can be found in book IV of the Ethics, where Aristotle turns to the 'virtues concerned with money'. For Aristotle, the appropriate level of expenditure was not merely a matter of balancing accounts. His judgement depended crucially on what was bought by whom and for what purpose. No matter whether an individual was contributing to the welfare of the community in a very substantial way by paying for a 'trireme' – a state-of-the-art contemporary warship – or in a smaller way by contributing to an official mission to an oracle or religious game, or whether he was simply furnishing his house or throwing a wedding party, the same maxim applied: 'we [should] have regard to the agent as well [as to the expenditure] and ask who he is and what means he has; for the expenditure should be worthy of his means, and suit not only the result but also the producer.'
Aristotle's answer to the question of how much expenditure was right was thus a resounding 'it all depends'. Most importantly, it depended on the means and status of the individual in question. 'Right expenditure' resulted when object and extent of expenditure were in harmony with the social rank and the wealth of the man footing the bill and of those enjoying the benefits of his expenditure. In practice, Aristotle's recommendations meant that everyone was to consume according to their place in society. In his eyes, the austerity of a rich and respected man would have been as deplorable as an excessive level of ornamentation in the house or on the dress of a humbler man. This way of looking at consumption may be contrary to our notions of equality and equity, but it was typical of the highly hierarchical societies of the ancient and medieval worlds. The underlying spirit is captured well in the Roman phrase 'quod licet iovi, non licet bovi' ('Gods may do what cattle may not') that was also used as a proverb in medieval times.
As with spending, Aristotle also made an important distinction between different ways of making money. Here, too, it was crucial for him that economic behaviour remained attuned to the natural order of society. Indeed, our term 'making money' would hardly have satisfied Aristotle, whose ideal was that of a man who spent out of the wealth he rightly owned, trying to use it wisely, but not trying to increase it. Just as he frowned upon spending above one's station, trying to earn more than one was due was suspect.
Aristotle distinguished between natural and unnatural ways of acquiring goods. The most natural way of acquiring goods was to extract them directly from nature. Farming, hunting, mining and other means of harvesting the bounties of nature were acceptable methods of satisfying material needs. This is hardly surprising, given that this was the manner in which the vast majority of contemporaries went about securing their livelihood. Barter was also permitted, but only as long as the objective was not to increase one's wealth but to reduce waste by exchanging goods that one possessed in excess for others that one lacked. Where the objective of exchange was to increase one's wealth it became trade, which Aristotle condemned as unnatural and reprehensible. As with consumption, the concern was to avoid economic behaviour that was not in harmony with traditional social structures.
Aristotle's main question was different from that on the minds of many people today. He was not concerned with increasing prosperity. Rather he contemplated the question of how to make good use of whatever amount of wealth one was entitled to by tradition and heritage. Perhaps betraying his privileged upbringing, he wrote in his advice to the wise household manager: 'Wealth should be at hand from the start.' To ask how the wealth of an individual or of society as a whole could be increased was an 'unnatural' question for Aristotle.
Should we then dismiss Aristotle's arguments as cynical? Was he merely attempting to add a veneer of moral respectability to a social and economic status quo that was above all beneficial to members of the upper classes like him? He wanted and advocated a system that kept him and his peers in place. There is clearly a conservative element in Aristotle's outlook: in traditional societies, like those of ancient Greece, individuals who consumed more or less than they were supposed to were a threat to stability. Low growth rates meant that there was not much additional wealth generated each year. Anyone who hoped to expand their consumption, that is have a richer lifestyle and possessions, could only do so by taking resources from someone else. Today one person's pay rise is not necessarily linked to another person taking a cut. However, if productivity increases are minuscule, as they were in ancient Greece, then the economy is largely a zero sum game. In such a static context, moderation of appetites was not only good moral advice, it was crucial for the functioning of the social and political system.
Aristotle did not consider whether or not the hierarchies and institutions of his time ought to be accepted or contested, or whether they were just or unjust. For him, the fundamental structures that were at the root of the social order of his time were given by nature: man was by nature a 'political animal' (i.e. an inhabitant of a Greek polis), the state was an institution given by nature, and nature also made humanity in pairs of unequals such as 'master and slave' or 'husband and wife'. He saw the order in which he lived as a natural one. Consequently, the task set before mankind could not be to question the natural order, but to understand it and live in harmony with it.
It would be ungenerous to criticise Aristotle for failing to foresee the possibility of radical change in the ways in which humans organised their interaction. Our knowledge of history warns us against thinking of our own world as 'natural' or immutable. But Aristotle did not witness or know about the kind of revolutionary changes which turned European societies on their heads in later centuries. Today we know that our world is the product of a long chain of social, economic and political revolts. And many still find it hard not to think of themselves as living at the end of history.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Austerity by FLORIAN SCHUI. Copyright © 2014 Florian Schui. Excerpted by permission of Yale UNIVERSITY PRESS.
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Table of Contents
Introduction 1
1 Austere ideas for austere societies: from Aristotle to Aquinas 11
2 Austerity v. reason: from Mandeville to Voltaire 31
3 Austerity for capitalism: from Smith to Weber 48
4 Austerity for stability: from the Great War to the next 66
5 Austerity can wait: Keynes 87
6 Austerity for the state: Hayek 113
7 Austerity for the planet: green ideas of consumption 145
8 Is greed good? 167
Notes 190
Bibliography 195
Acknowledgements 202
Index 204