Quotes About Chrematistics

Back in Ancient Greece, when Xenophon first came up with the term economics, he described the practice of household management as an art. Following his lead, Aristotle distinguished economics from chrematistics, the art of acquiring wealth—in a distinction that seems to have been all but lost today.

Aristotle who, recall from Chapter 1, distinguished economics, which he saw as the noble art of managing the household, from chrematistics, the pernicious art of accumulating wealth. 'Money was intended to be used in exchange but not to increase at interest,' he wrote in 350 BCE; '. . .of all modes of getting wealth this is the most unnatural.