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The first people who are known to make contribution to the development of thoughts about the economic issues and made them the part of the society philosophy are the ancient Greeks, mainly Plato and Aristotle. Although their overall contribution to economic though is rather unimportant, many seeds for later developments can be found in their writings. The early philosophers lived in a society characterized by self-sufficient peasants, thus the focus of their economic thoughts lay upon micro-issues like household efficiency. Later, the growing differences between the rich and the poor draw the focus to a more advanced macro-perspective which addressed the social coherence of the whole city-state and the impact of the distribution of private property. Property rights have not been much identified in ancient times, although there were many doctrines in the Old Testament. There have been strong philosophical intimations of it in the work of Aristotle.
In his Politics Aristotle addresses the question of the soundness of Plato's communism in the Republic. Plato held that at least within the ruling class of a political community, there may not be any private property, or indeed privacy, at all. The organization and administration of the city-state became the basis for his analysis. This city-state consisted of separated castes with a strict division of labor in an ancient class structure. There was private property of land, trade and even already the use of money. Plato realized that the rising inequality between rich and poor was exaggerated and threatened social coherence, and he clearly figured out the importance of property as a key driver for human behavior.
In his eyes, markets serve as catalysts for these differences in society and therefore rejected them. Thus, the result of his analysis proposed interventions by the state and the church to control markets and to guarantee a certain amount of farming land for everybody, while the maximum property of land should also be limited. Aristotle, his pupil, extended Plato's view on private property. For him it was the decisive element for the class structure of a society. Furthermore, he also realized that private property is needed because in that case people do care more about it. In addition, it loosens distribution problems through decentralization.
As he proposed fair exchanges, he didnt oppose markets, on the contrary he even saw them as a device against the mentioned powerful merchants. In The Politics Aristotle cities the abolition of the private property and addresses Plato's attempt to eradicate to indian. He doesnt defend the right to the ownership but rather he says that private property is a necessity to the development of the individual moral fate and his / her well-being. Aristotle says that property should be common, but in general, private. He also states that when the responsibilities are distributed, people will not accuse each other for what is their property and what is not. He says: But for the sake of virtue, property shall be, in respect of its use, the proverbial common things of friends.
Aristotle defense the private property not because of the independent individuality, but because it is the basis for the personal perponsibility towards ones self and others. In short, his idea was that the communal ownership leads to reduction of responsibility and a corresponding lack of care for and attentive involvement with whatever is owned. Though Aristotle made this observation nearly twenty-five hundred years ago, its truth is evident today as we consider the condition of, say, public beaches or bathrooms or roadsides.
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Research essay sample on Private Property Class Structure
