interests of life are to be preserved, it must always be kept subservient. First things must be placed first, both by the individual[571] and by the state.[572] PRODUCTION It is often asserted that Aristotle denied the very existence of a problem of production.[573] This statement has been based primarily on certain passages in the _Politics_.[574] These passages, however, are not a denial of the importance of production. Their purport is merely to show that the chief aim of life is not to produce or to provide wealth, but to use it for the advancement of life’s highest interest. From this standpoint, both acquisition (κτητική) and production (ποιητική) are subordinate arts.[575] So far is Aristotle from giving no place to production, that a later chapter of the _Politics_ is devoted to the consideration of the scheme of supply, including production.[576] To be sure, he does not lay much emphasis on genuine production in his enumeration. Industry is barely mentioned, while agriculture is discussed in detail. His “free-holder” is a consumer of the gifts of nature, rather than a real producer.[577] He classifies the truly productive employments that work for themselves (αὐτόφυτον) as those of the nomad, the farmer, the brigand, the fisherman, and the hunter, and makes those that live by barter (ἁλλαγῆς) or trade (καπηλείας) parasitic.[578] In another passage, finance, strictly defined (οἰκειατάτη), is limited to all forms of agriculture, and even the hired labor (μισθαρνία) of industry is included in unnatural finance.[579] Aristotle has thus often been compared to the physiocrats, who distinguished between creative and parasitic classes of workers, upheld the “natural” order as the ideal, and eulogized agriculture and the “extractive” industries as the only productive ones. As Souchon[580] has observed, however, the resemblance is only superficial. Yet the fact that he fails to see that exchange is productive of a time and place value, and the fact that he includes hired labor, skilled and unskilled, among the unnatural activities, are sufficient evidence that he had only a superficial grasp of the principles of production.[581] But the frequent assertion that he includes brigandage and war among the productive arts is unwarranted, for he classifies them only among the acquisitive means.[582]