His thesis is, in a word, that what private capital can accomplish for the enrichment of itself alone, state capital can accomplish to better advantage for the enrichment of the whole citizenship,[486] a doctrine which strikes a truly modern socialistic note.
We shall not try to distinguish between the actual ideas of Xenophon and those which he reports objectively as Socratic.
On the Xenophontine authorship of the _Revenues_, cf. Croiset, _op. cit._, IV, 393 and notes; Christ, _Griechische Literatur-Geschichte_, 4th ed., pp. 367 f. and notes. Other authorities are cited there.
The οἰκονομικός, at least, the first extant, devoted to private economy, and especially agriculture, but revealing practical interest in the details of the production of wealth. Cf. _infra_ for further discussion of _Economica_ in Greek literature.
For some qualifications, cf. above, Introduction.
_Econ._ i. 2: οἰκονόμου ἀγοθοῦ εἶναι οἰκεῖν τὸν ἑαυτοῦ οἶκον; cf. 3: τὸν ἄλλου δὲ οἶκον. οἶκον is used of one’s entire property (5).
_Mem._ iii. 4. 6; cf. further above, p. 9, n. 4. Cf. Ruskin, _Pol. Econ. of Art_, I, 12: “Precisely the same laws of economy, which apply to the cultivation of a farm or an estate, apply to the cultivation of a province or an island.” Cf. the story in Hdt. v. 29 on this idea. Espinas (_Revue des Etudes Grecques_, XXVII [1914], 111) contrasts Xenophon, to whom the royal administration is a greatly expanded private economy, with Plato’s absorption of all private economy by the state.
_Econ._ i. 7-15; cf. 10: ταύτα ἄρα ὄντα τῷ μὲν ἐπισταμένῳ χρῆσθαι αὐτῶν ἑκάστοισ χρήματα ἐστι, τῷ δὲ μὴ ἐπισταμένῳ οὐ χρήματα. Cf. p. 23 and notes on Plato and Ruskin. H. Sewall (“Theory of Value before Adam Smith,” _Publications of the American Economic Association_, II, Part III, p. 1) says that the conception of value (ἀξία) as a quality inherent in the thing was not questioned, but Xenophon seems to question it here. As she observes, n. 1, the term originally meant “weight,” at first weight in money, as well as actual worth.
_Unto This Last_, beginning; cf. preceding n. 1; Ruskin took _Xen. Econ._ as the foundation on which he built all his own economic studies. Cf. _Unto This Last_, Pref., Vol. XVII, pp. xlix and 18; Vol. XXXI, Introd.; pp. xv ff. It was the first in his _Bib. Pastorum_. Cf. his Preface to his translation of the _Economicus_; _Arrows of the Chace_, Vol. XXXIV, 547; _Letters_, II (Vol. XXXVII, 350). In _Mun. Pul._, IV, 105 (Vol. XVII, 230); also on pp. 288 and 88, he refers to Xenophon’s “faultless” definition of wealth, citing _Mem._ ii. 3. 7. Cf. also Vol. XXXI, pp. xvii and 27. Fontpertuis (“Filiation des idées économiques dans l’antiquité,” _Jour. des écon._, September, 1871, p. 361) thinks this is at bottom the true theory of value.