Abstract
Abstract
Holding that the pursuit of glory, power, and wealth is a source of endless frustration, creating lives that ultimately are unsatisfying and self-defeating, Diogenes espoused extreme poverty. He claimed that the wealthy see themselves as continually needing more of everything and live in permanent fear of losing what they have, while poverty teaches one to be secure with little and self-sufficient, hence free from anxiety. Testimonia about Diogenes’s economic treatise, On Wealth, suggest that it can plausibly be taken to be part of a shift on the part of ancient Greek philosophers away from emphasizing sound management principles (oikonomia) to exploring the basic moral assumptions of a household, on the one hand, and the proper government of cities, on the other. Additionally, Diogenes transformed the practice of begging into a reciprocal economic arrangement: in return for asking for alms, he dispensed moral instruction.
Publisher
Oxford University PressNew York
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