oikonomikos

The word "economics" was derived from a work by the philosopher Xenophon (431- c. 360 BC), who was influenced by Pythagoras. His tract Oikonomikos described how to efficiently organize and run an agricultural estate.

It must, I should think, be the business of the good estate manager at any rate to manage his own house or estate well.

He argued that complicated tasks could best be carried out through division of labour. An advantage of cities such as Athens, which was growing rapidly in size and complexity, was the availability of a variety of specialists. In smaller towns, people had to carry out more tasks themselves, which was less efficient.

While this conclusion predated Adam Smith's thoughts on the same topic by a couple of millennia (seep. 60), in a slave-based society the coordinating of these specialists was a task for the estate manager, not the markets.

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