Under the heading "In Ancient Greece":
The oikos (household) was the base unit for the organization of social, political, and economic life in the Ancient Greek world. The person in charge of all its affairs was the oikonomos.[2][3] The oikos was composed of a nuclear family as well as extended family members such as grandparents or unmarried female relatives.[3]
Their note [3] links to household, Greek at Oxford Research Encyclopedias, which reads in part:
The household (oikos) was the fundamental social, political and economic unit of ancient Greece, though its precise links into larger political and economic structures changed regionally and over time.
Let me grab that sentence and emphasize that the way the oikos fits into "larger political and economic structures" differed regionally and changed over time. Regional differences are to be expected, I think, but the "changed over time" thing strikes me as important. It ties in to economic evolution both within human lifetimes and on the scale of civilization.
The OxfordRE article continues:
At one level it [the oikos] was a co-resident group, many (though not all) of whose members were kin or affines (related by marriage)... Though a nuclear family (parents and children) might form the household's core, there is considerable evidence for the regular appearance of stem families (nuclear family plus a grandparent) and various kinds of extended families, especially incorporating unmarried female relatives (aunts, sisters, nieces, cousins, etc. ). The senior man in the household usually took charge of ‘official’ relations with the outside world and acted as the head of household (kyrios).
So the ancient Greeks had a word for "head of household" and a different word for "household manager". But really, the household manager was "head of business operations".
What had me confused for many years (until I was out with the dogs the
other day) was that the old Greek "oikonomos" is always translated as
"household manager". No connection to business activity is ever
indicated. I finally made the connection myself when I realized that in
that time and place, the home base of most business activity must have
been the home. The point is, the
word that means "household manager" was used to identify a key job
title in "the primary unit of economic organization", the oikos, the home-based business. And now I think I finally figured it out.
Back to the Wikipedia article:
In addition to family members by kinship or marriage, slaves or metics [foreigners] might have lived and worked within the household. Wealthy households would have had many slaves and metics working for them.[3] The oikonomos of the household would have played a role in directing the labor of the slaves and metics...
A small oikos would have had only a few household slaves known as oiketai.[8] Of the oiketai, the men might have had the responsibility to work in the field. In a larger oikos, many slaves would be entirely dedicated to agricultural work. This is generally considered to be less favorable than work in the house itself.
The "oikos" was the household, but it was really more like a small business; ancient Greece was like a society of small businesses; and where we have "employees" working for "employers", ancient Greece had slaves working for the household manager. And this, for me, turns today's "wage slave" notion into something a bit closer to a valid economic concept.
Wikipedia:
The oikos was the primary unit of economic organization within the ancient Greek world... An oikos was expected to be self-sufficient in what it produced for itself.[9] Thinkers such as Aristotle considered the self-sufficient oikos to be the fundamental, indivisible constituent of the polis. In order to be a true oikos, it had to be entirely self-sustaining it what it produced and consumed...
So Aristotle saw successful small business as the fundamental element of the Greek society of his time. Carrying that thought to its logical conclusion, for him the economy was of the greatest importance.
For me, also.
Note [9] links to economy, Greek at Oxford Research Encyclopedias. It reads in part:
Greece itself was not a single entity, but a congeries of more than a thousand separate communities. One should therefore speak of Greek economies rather than the Greek economy... Our ‘economy’ is derived from the ancient Greek word oikonomia, but this meant originally and usually the management of a private household (oikos) rather than that of a ‘national’ economy (see household, greek).
See? This is a perfect example of defining "oikonomia" as the management of a private household
while giving no indication that the private household was typically the
location of some small business, and no indication that the
head-of-household was the entrepreneur-in-charge.
But they do note the distinction between private household economy and national economy. This is the distinction I was trying to emphasize in the previous post, regarding individual households versus "society as a whole". The distinction is an important one, because the economics of the private household slash small business, in our day, is microeconomics; and the economics of the national economy is macro.
I picture society in ancient Greece as similar to feudal Europe: a society of self-sufficient manors, but smaller and more numerous than manors, consisting of households and estates. Economic thought in both feudal society and ancient Greece focused on the small unit, the manor or the oikos, the "primary unit of economic organization". That economic thought would have been a version of microeconomics.
Macroeconomic thinking first arose, it would seem, in 1615 with Antoine de Montchrestien
and his notion of political economy:
Montchrestien demonstrates that this knowledge of human nature can be used to promote the wealth of the people and the power of the monarch...
The science of commerce in general is thus essentially different from political economy, which aims to be a source of inspiration for “good government”.- Jérôme Maucourant in The ambiguous birth of political economy: Montchrestien vs. Cantillon
Where Maucourant says "good government" I would say "good policy".
The conclusion reached in my previous was this: The word "household" is always used when the meaning of oikonomos is given. But the guy with that job title managed the household business. I picture this as the decisions of one individual directing the business activity of one firm: in other words, again, it is a version of microeconomics. Political economy, on the other hand, is macroeconomics, and it becomes relevant only when the economic unit is not the personal property of its leader.
Today I reach the same conclusion, based on old Greek words rather than on thoughts that pop into my head while I'm out with the dogs.
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