Economics and Politics

Differences between Plato and Aristotle are prototypes of Philosophical disagreements for the ensuing millennia, e. g. Rationalism vs. Empiricism, including those of Economics.  Probably the most salient of the latter is Collective Property vs. Private Property, but the primary difference is more fundamental.  For Plato, Economic relations are a stratum of the Polis, while for Aristotle they merely constitute a dimension of household management among landowners.  In other words, according to the former, Economics is fundamentally what is now known as Political-Economy, while for the latter, it is fundamentally what is now known as Micro-Economics.  Now, significant confusion is generated by Smith's elevation of Economics to Nationalist scope--structurally, the topic remains Micro-Economics, i. e. it is the scope of the household that has been so elevated, without effecting the status of Economic activity as internal to it.  In other words, Smith elevates Micro-Economics to Macro-Economics, but without transforming it into Political Economy.  Hence, Capitalism, even conceived as Macro-Economics, remains in the Aristotelian tradition, while Marx recovers Plato's original thesis that Economics is the base of which Politics is the superstructure.  Thus, what has becoming the defining tension of contemporary American Politics--Government vs. Private Sector--is a descendant of Platonist Economics vs. Aristotelian Economics.  The general lack of unawareness of the heterogeneous character of that conflict complicates resolving it.