José Luis Cendejas Bueno - Plato, Aristotle, and Locke on the accumulation of wealth and natural law

jpe:11552 - Journal of Philosophical Economics, January 18, 2024, Volume XVII - https://doi.org/10.46298/jpe.11552
Plato, Aristotle, and Locke on the accumulation of wealth and natural lawArticle

Authors: José Luis Cendejas Bueno ORCID1

  • 1 Université Francisco de Vitoria = Universidad Francisco de Vitoria

The possibility of a growing accumulation of wealth, what we now refer to as economic growth, was something already considered by Plato, Aristotle and Locke, under the concept of chrematistics. In this paper we show how the economic thinking of these authors cannot be fully understood without considering the intimate relationship they establish between politics and property accumulation. In addition to continuities and ruptures in the arguments, there can be seen a growing understanding of the phenomenon of economic growth in such a way that, when we arrive at Locke, an evident paradigm shift can be appreciated. This change is rooted in the contributions of scholastic thinking for which the acquisition of property through human labour or industry enjoys legitimacy according to natural law.


Volume: Volume XVII
Section: Articles
Published on: January 18, 2024
Accepted on: January 10, 2024
Submitted on: July 6, 2023
Keywords: Platonic communism,Aristotelian chrematistics,Lockean theory of property,Scholastic economic thought,[SHS]Humanities and Social Sciences,[QFIN]Quantitative Finance [q-fin]

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