No Response<br><br>-
Several interesting remarks which in modern times would have a place in
a treatise on Political Economy are scattered up and down the writings
of Plato: especially Laws, Population; Free Trade; Adulteration; Wills
and Bequests; Begging; Eryxias, (though not Plato's), Value and Demand;
Republic, Division of Labour. The last subject, and also the origin of
Retail Trade, is treated with admirable lucidity in the second book of
the Republic. But Plato never combined his economic ideas into a system,
and never seems to have recognized that Trade is one of the great motive
powers of the State and of the world. He would make retail traders
only of the inferior sort of citizens (Rep., Laws), though he remarks,
quaintly enough (Laws), that 'if only the best men and the best women
everywhere were compelled to keep taverns for a time or to carry on
retail trade, etc., then we should knew how pleasant and agreeable all
these things are.'