Household and Market: On the Origins of Moral Economic Philosophy

Abstract

This article explores a neglected area in political philosophy and moral economic theory: the origins of normative economic theorizing in classical Greek philosophy. That theory is a critique of the market and the acquisitive life in light of an alternative location of the economy in theoikosor household oriented towards the securing of the good life. Its core elements of the well-ordered community, the good life, and of the foreignness of economic activity to these ends are analyzed here. The article concludes with a critical appraisal of this theory, and an examination of its value for political philosophers concerned to find a non-rights based approach to the economy.