The book that is going to come out of Ober's 2019 Sather ...

The book that is going to come out of Ober's 2019 Sather lectures is going to be so great: Josiah Ober: Agamemnon���s Cluelessness: Economic Rationality and the Alternatives. https://tinyurl.com/dl20191121: 'Among the many goals of Politics book 1 is to put chr��matistik�����as expert knowledge of a particular relationship among production (poi��sis), exchange (allang��/metabl��tik��), and consumption/possession (kt��sis), all characteristically involving coined money���into the normatively correct place in his naturalized hierarchy of value. The critical conclusion is that chr��matistik�� (or one specific type of chr��matistik��) is a subordinate part of oikonomia. It is not ���according to nature��� (kata phusin) but rather a techn�� arising from practical experience (empeiria) . It aims the possession and increase of wealth, at accumulation of money, as an end. That accumulation is by its internal logic unbounded and unconstrained, insofar as wealth denominated in monetary terms has no natural limit. Chr��matistik�� thus is a matter of maximizing a single resource (one thought to give access to all other resources), rather than optimizing or satisficing in respect to other values. It is at once contrary to the true end of human existence, a prevalent approach to the management of material goods, and (at least potentially) an essential instrument for both the oikonomos and the politikos. Among the delicate tasks of book 1 of the Politics is, then, to demonstrate that Aristotle knows enough about this dangerous and vulgar (phortikon) instrument to specify its proper uses, while avoiding appearing to honor it as a science worthy of a detailed treatment...

#noted #2019-11-21