Miscellaneous Notes on Oikos Nomos, Aristotle

First, a definition, courtesy of American Heritage Dictionary:

Economy, from the Latin oeconomia, from Greek oikonomia, from oikonomos, manager of a household: oikos, house + -nomos, managing. Meaning:

1. The careful or thrifty use or management of resources, as of income, materials, or labor.

2. The management of the resources of a country, community, or business

Aristotle on Economics, McKeon page 1011 Nicomachean Ethics (Bk. V: Ch.5)

"money" (nomisma), law (nomos)

"… (A)ll goods must have a price set on them; for then there will always be exchange, and if so, association of man with man. Money, then, acting as a measure, makes goods commensurate and equates them; for neither would there have been association if there were not exchange, nor exchange if there were not equality, nor equality if there were not commensurability. Now in truth it is impossible that things differing so much should become commensurate, but with reference to demand they may become so sufficiently. There must, then, be a unit, and that fixed by agreement (for which reason it is called money); for it is this that makes all things commensurate, since all things are measured by money."

Politics, Book 1 Chapters 3 – 13 Household Economy.

Household Management

"(B)efore speaking of the state we must speak of the management of the household."

Page 1141 "There are two sorts of wealth-getting, as I have said; one is a part of household management (oikos nomos?), the other is retail trade: the former necessary and honorable, while that which consists in exchange is justly censured; for it is unnatural, and a mode by which men gain from one another. The most hated sort, and with the greatest reason, is usury, which makes a gain out of money itself, and not from the natural object of it. For money was intended to be used in exchange, but not to increase at interest. And this term interest (tokos, lit. "offspring") which means the birth of money from money, is applied to the breeding of money from money, is applied to the breeding of money because the offspring resembles the parent. Wherefore of all modes of getting wealth this is the most unnatural."

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