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Antipeponthos and reciprocity: the concept of equivalent exchange from Aristotle to Turgot

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Abstract

In modern discussions of reciprocity the concept is distinguished from that of self-interested exchange. In the problem of value in exchange, however, as set up in Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics the concept of reciprocity (antipeponthos) as equivalent exchange was central in commercial transactions. The paper discusses (1) the concept of antipeponthos in Aristotle, (2) how issues of trust and inequality of services provided were dealt in Aristotle and (3) the trajectory of the concept of equivalent exchange from Aristotle to Turgot.

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Notes

  1. See the note of W. L. Newman (1887, II: 233–4) on the relationship between the two texts.

  2. For Aristotle’s economic thought see Blaug (1991), Lowry (1987), Baeck (1994), Meikle (1995), Theocarakis (2006). Giorgio Gilibert (1998) fits different paradigms into the Aristotelian framework.

  3. For example Soudek (1952) sees Jevons in Aristotle. Other neoclassical candidates include Alfred Marshall (Gordon 1964), Francis Y. Edgeworth and Hermann Heinrich Gossen (Jaffé 1974). The relationship between Aristotle and neoclassical analysis is discussed forcefully and persuasively in Meikle (1995).

  4. See “anti” in the Liddell-Scott-Jones Dictionary entry “C. In Composition”, meanings 3 and 4.

  5. Both in the original and that revised by William Moerbecke. The same term is used by Buridan (Aristotle 1496–1500).

  6. For the translation of Aristotle in Latin see Dod 1982 and Marenbon 1998.

  7. Referring to Bertrand de Born in the ninth bolgia of Inferno. The term is rendered in English translations of Dante as “counterpoise” (Longfellow), “law of retribution” (H.F. Cary), “counter-penalty” (Allen Mandelbaum) and “counter-suffering” Robert M. Durling. In the notes to Dante’s Durling translation “contrapasso” is explicitly related to NE “5.5.1132b” and a reference to Aquinas Summa Theologiae IIa IIae, q. 61 a. 4. (Dante 1996, p. 448). See also Ferrante (1994, ch. 6).

  8. I have no knowledge of a printed edition of the much earlier (12th c.) translation by Hermannus Alamannus (Herman the German).

  9. Specifically in Book 6, Propositions 14, 15, 16, 19 and, 30, in Book 10, Proposition 22, in Book 11 Propositions 34 and 36 and in Book 12 Propositions 9 and 15. In Book 6, Definition 2 reads: antipeponthota de schemata estin, hotan en hekaterô tôn schêmatôn hêgoumenoi te kai hepomenoi logoi ôsin. Henry Billingsley translates this as “Reciprocall figures are those, when the termes of proportion are both antecedentes and consequentes in either figure.” (Euclid VI. def. ii. 153b). Simson points out, however, that this does not make sense and argues that this is a later addition by Hero (Euclid 1781). Heiberg agrees with Simson and puts the definition in brackets (see his comment in Euclid 1970 p. 39). See also Sir Thomas L. Heath note on Definition 2 of Book 6 in Euclid (1956, p. 188f).

  10. Euclid 1570. On the Billingsley translation see Heath (1956, vol. 1). The dating of the word is from the Oxford English Dictionary. According to the OED the word “reciprocity” entered the English language much later (1766).

  11. Duarum virium connexarum quarum (si moveantur) motus erunt ipsis antipeponthôs [in greek] proportionales, neutra alteram movebit, sed equilibrium facient. (Varro 1584).

  12. In NE he uses the geometrical proportion for distributive justice and the “arithmetical” proportion for corrective justice.

  13. Soudek (1952) evokes the notion of a third kind of proportion by referring to the Pythagorean Archytas of Taras (Tarentum). Cf. Lowry (1987, ch. VII). Rothbard (1995, p. 16) writes that Aristotle’s NE 5.5 passage “should be dismissed as an unfortunate example of Pythagorean quantophrenia”.

  14. The title of Hecht’s (1966) edition of Boisguilbert points this out. On his economic theories see Faccarello (1999).

  15. Diceosina is a rendering of the Greek word dikaiosunê meaning justice or righteousness.

  16. As Bruni and Porta (2003, pp. 373–4) point out the Thomistic influence was strong on Genovesi. The doctor angelicus was himself active as a professor and teacher in the University of Naples. Genovesi is also Aristotelian in seeing the purpose of the state in providing public happiness [eudaimonia and pubblica felicità] (Bruni 2006).

  17. The work was written in 1766 and published anonymously (as “Mr. X”) in the Ephémérides du citoyen in three parts. The quotations are from the first English translation (Turgot 1793), available online from the Library of Economics and Liberty.

  18. Turgot 1769. On the dating of the article see Meek (1973, p. 77).

  19. Below (1769, p. 93) he notes that the “introduction of trade increases the wealth of both, i.e. it provides a greater quantity of enjoyments with the same faculties.” The notion that commerce increases wealth is especially marked in Condillac (1794/5, pt 1, ch. 6).

  20. The notion of equivalent exchange is also found in James Steuart (1767). Thus in the Preface to An Inquiry into the Principles of Political Oeconomy he writes “The principal object of this science is to secure a certain fund of subsistence for all the inhabitants, to obviate every circumstance which may render it precarious; to provide every thing necessary for supplying the wants of the society, and to employ the inhabitants (supposing them to be free-men) in such a manner as naturally to create reciprocal relations and dependencies between them, so as to make their several interests lead them to supply one another with their reciprocal wants.” In Book I, chapter XIV he states: “The political oeconomy of government is brought to perfection, when every class in general, and every individual in particular, is made to be aiding and assisting to the community, in proportion to the assistance he receives from it. This conveys my idea of a free and perfect society, which is, a general tacit contract, from which reciprocal and proportional services result universally between all those who compose it.” Even more forcefully the post Ricardian socialist John Bray (1839, p. 51) writes “We may talk of morality and brotherly love, and of doing as we would be done by; but it is certain that men can never dwell together in unity, and love each other as brethren, unless they have one common end in view, and there be amongst them a perfect reciprocity of benefits; and it is equally certain that no such reciprocity can exist where there are unequal exchanges, and inequality of rewards for equal services.” See also the analysis in Marx (1847, chapter 1, part II).

  21. But this notion was there in Turgot (1769) and even earlier in Galiani ([1750] 1751, I.2. p.27).

  22. ho gar anthrôpos ou monon politikon alla kai oikonomikon zôon (EE 7.10 1242a23–4).

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Acknowledgments

I wish to thank the organisers of the Verbania Reciprocity Conference for their hospitality, Professor Pier-Luigi Porta who was the discussant of my paper at the conference for his very helpful comments and Professors Luigino Bruni and Yanis Varoufakis for very stimulating discussions on the concept of reciprocity. I also like to acknowledge my considerable intellectual debt to Scott Meikle’s work on the economic thought of Aristotle.

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  1. Department of Economics, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Pesmazoglou 8, Athens, Greece

    Nicholas J. Theocarakis

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Theocarakis, N.J. Antipeponthos and reciprocity: the concept of equivalent exchange from Aristotle to Turgot. Int. Rev. Econ. 55, 29–44 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12232-007-0030-5

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