3. _Confusion of economics with ethics and politics._—The assertion that Greek economic theory was confounded with ethics and politics has become a commonplace. The economic ideas of Greek thinkers were not arrived at as a result of a purposeful study of the problems of material wealth. All economic relations were considered primarily from the standpoint of ethics and state welfare. “The citizen was not regarded as a producer, but only as a possessor of wealth.”[8] Such statements are too commonly accepted as a final criticism of Greek thinkers. Though the confusion was a source of error, and caused Greek economic thought to be one-sided and incomplete, yet some important considerations should be noted. _a_) The Socratic philosophers are our chief source for the economic ideas of the Greeks. Too sweeping conclusions should not, therefore, be drawn from them as to the general attitude of the Greeks. Xenophon is much freer from the ethical emphasis than the other Socratics. Thucydides is entirely free from it, and very probably his standpoint came much nearer being that of the average Athenian citizen. _b_) The confusion was not merely with individual ethics, for Greek moral philosophy always had the welfare of the state for its goal. Indeed, the basal reason for this close union of economics, ethics, and politics is the true idea that the state should rise above internal strife, and unite all in a care for the common interest.[9] _c_) The standpoint of the Greek philosophers is certainly no more to be criticized than is that of the so-called orthodox political economy.[10] They represent two extremes. If the Greek theory did not give to wealth its full right, and was open to the charge of sentimentalism, the Ricardian doctrine, with its “economic man,” which eliminated all other ideals and impulses, was an unreal and pernicious abstraction. Of the two errors, the Greek is the less objectionable, and is more in accord with the trend of economic thought today. The best economists are now insisting more and more on the Greek idea that economic problems must be considered from the standpoint of the whole man as a citizen in society. Modern political economy “has placed man as man and not wealth in the foreground, and subordinated everything to his true welfare.” “Love, generosity, nobility of character, self-sacrifice, and all that is best and truest in our nature have their place in economic life.”[11] “The science which deals with wealth, so far from being a ‘gospel of Mammon,’ necessarily begins and ends in the study of man.”[12] “Es soll kein Widerspruch zwischen Ethik und Volkswirtschaft bestehen, es soll das Sittengesetz für die Wirtschaft gelten und in ihr ausgeführt werden.”[13] Such strong statements taken at random from modern economists should serve to temper our criticism of the Greek confusion. Plato’s definition of economics, as suggested by one of the most recent