Ancient Greece’s Legacy for Liberty: Economic Freedom in Athens

Personal freedom had a strong economic and commercial dimension as well; and in the eyes of Benjamin Constant, this was no coincidence. It is precisely because Athens “was of all the Greek republics the most closely engaged in trade,” Constant wrote, that “it allowed to its citizens an infinitely greater individual liberty than Sparta or Rome.”¹

Indeed, Athens’ democratic system arguably owed its very existence to trade. On the one hand, the social mobility arising from commerce led to shifts of power within the aristocratic ruling class, as aristocrats with lower status sometimes acquired more wealth than their higher-​status colleagues, and sought to translate that wealth into greater status. On the other hand, that same social mobility increased the wealth and clout of the middle class, who could now afford weapons and armor, and so could usefully be appealed to as allies in the aforementioned power struggles within the ruling class. As aristocrats vied to offer greater and greater bribes, concessions, and power-​sharing to the commoners in order to win them over to one aristocratic faction against another, they shifted the balance of power farther and farther toward the commons until they had inadvertently undermined their own standing and empowered their social “inferiors.”²

Moreover, given Athens’ reliance on naval power both for trade and for war, the poorest Athenians, despite their inability to afford the military equipment of a hoplite, were still crucially needed for rowing ships, which gave them enough of a bargaining chip to guarantee their inclusion along with the middle class in the new expansion of political power. Thus aristocracy evolved into democracy without anyone’s having planned it.

The marketplace, or agora, was a prominent feature of most Greek cities, purportedly prompting – according to the historian Herodotus (c. 484-425 BCE) – a hostile remark from the Shah of Persia:

But commerce was much more central to Athens than to some Greek cities, and especially more than to Athens’ archrival Sparta, where mercantile pursuits were devalued in favor of military ones, and where laws and currency were specifically designed to discourage commerce, especially foreign commerce. Plutarch describes the economic legislation of the legendary Spartan lawgiver Lycurgus as follows:

Athens’ policy was precisely the opposite. Thucydides reports the Athenian statesman Pericles as boasting that “the magnitude of our city draws the produce of the world into our harbour, so that to the Athenian the fruits of other countries are as familiar a luxury as those of his own.”⁵ And not only goods but people flowed freely into Athens; the philosopher Xenophon (c. 430-354 BCE) celebrates the city’s “attractive force” in the following words:

While Athens was not generous with citizenship (only in the rarest circumstances could those not born of citizen parents become citizens themselves), Athenian immigration policy was generally quite liberal; between a half and a third of the free population were metics (resident aliens). Although they were subject to a few legal disabilities and encountered some social hostility,⁷ metics were largely free to participate in the city’s social and economic life, and indeed were often encouraged to do so. The historian Diodorus of Sicily (1^st c. BCE) tells us that

Many of Athens’ foremost philosophers were of foreign birth, including Anaxagoras, Aristippus, Diogenes, Gorgias, Prodicus, Protagoras, and of course Aristotle; metics also dominated the banking industry (about which more next time).

Xenophon refers to the metics favorably as “a self-​supporting class of residents conferring large benefits upon the state,”⁹ and advocates legal reforms designed to attract still more of them. Extolling the advantages of immigration, Xenophon writes:

One suspects that Xenophon would not have been a fan of the anti-​immigrant “Golden Dawn” thugs who prowl the streets of his beloved city today.

In describing the economic benefits to Athens of an influx of goods and immigrants, Xenophon emphasizes that “in order to get the full benefit of all these sources of revenue, peace is an indispensable condition.” Yet he is aware that “certain people, in their wish to recover that headship which was once the pride of our city, are persuaded that the accomplishment of their hopes is to be found, not in peace but in war,” on the grounds that “by adopting a persistent peace policy, this city will be shorn of her power, that her glory will dwindle and her good name be forgotten throughout the length and breadth of Hellas.”¹¹

While a successful soldier himself,¹² Xenophon follows the example of Hesiod in preferring industry to warfare. “For they are surely the happy states [and] are most fortune-​favoured,” Xenophon tells us, “which endure in peace the longest season”; and “of all states Athens is pre-​eminently adapted by nature to flourish and wax strong in peace.” The “attractive force” that Athens exercises depends on peace; and to anyone who believes “the state may find war more profitable than peace,” Xenophon replies by advising them to recall the “past history of the state”:

The independence of Athens’ allies will best be secured “not by joining in any war but by the moral force of embassies throughout the length and breadth of Hellas,” since if the Athenians show that they are sincerely committed to peace, they will win allies automatically, and every Greek “will pray for the salvation of Athens.”¹⁴

Athens did not exactly follow Xenophon’s advice of a peaceful foreign policy. All the same, Athenian trade policy was liberal enough to make it the commercial and intellectual center of Greece.