Description
Book SynopsisArmed with some of the most thoroughly documented case studies and the richest variety of source material from the ancient Greek world, Michael Leese argues that the evidence demonstrates that ancient Athenians achieved the type of long-term profit and wealth maximization that have been argued as unique to the modern industrial-capitalist system.
Table of Contents
- Introduction
- Chapter 1: Hunger in their souls: profit and wealth maximization in Athenian thought
Introduction: Aristotle on chrÊmatistikÊ.
- Oikonomia as chrÊmatistikÊ.
- The good money-maker: a character sketch
- Frugality and calculation
- Risk, safety, and profit in economic decision-making
- The insatiable hunger for wealth
- Conclusions
- Chapter 2: Making money in the oikos: strategies for diversification and profit
- Timarchus’ father Arizelos: a strategy of short and long-term profit
- Demosthenes the Elder: profitable choices for long-term growth
- Ciron: a diversified estate geared towards long-term growth
- Stratocles: a balanced estate of high and low-risk properties
- : the acquisition of cash-generating enterprises
- Adeimantos’ estate: craft production and cash crops
- General patterns of diversification in ancient Greece
- Conclusions
- Chapter 3: Money-making strategies on specialized estates
- Introduction: all your eggs in one basket
- Nicias, Kallias, and long-term profit-maximization in silver mining
- The silver rush in fourth-century BCE Athens
- Lysias’ father Kephalos: manufacturing, wartime profiteering, and an economy of scale?
- Bankers: high-risk specialization and attempts to diversify
- Diodotus: specialization in high-risk, high-profit moneylending
- Conclusions
- Chapter 4: Profit, Trust, and Deception in Ancient Greek Maritime Trade
- Introduction
- Price sensitivity, flexibility, and versatility in an uncertain trading world
- Information networks to secure the greatest profits
- A race against the clock: maximizing transactions to maximize profits
- Crime does pay: breaking contracts and laws to make more money
- Weak inter-polis contract enforcement: take the money and run
- Contracts, friends, and family: protecting oneself on the open market
- Conclusions
- Chapter 5: Maximization in the Ancient Greek Economy
- Introduction
- Psychological impulses to maximize wealth in Greek thought
- Broader patterns of wealth acquisition: unjust seizure of wealth
- Diversity of personality types
- Safety, honor, and social mobility: the benefits of wealth
- Conclusions
- Bibliography
