histofthought1

Bibliographical essay 509with the spurious tyranny allegedly implied by the fact that Plato believed inabsolute truth and in rational ethics. To a modern, wishy-washy ad hocmetaphysician like Popper, any firm belief in truth, in black and white,smacks of 'dogmatism' and 'despotism'. Setting the philosophic record straightin defence of Plato, in reply were John Wild, Platos Modern Enemies andthe Theory of Natural Law (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1953),and Ronald B. Levinson, In Defense of Plato (Cambridge: Harvard UniversityPress, 1953). For an attack on Plato's totalitarianism and an exposition ofthe sophists, the opponents of Socratic philosophy, as classical liberals inpolitics, see Eric A. Havelock, The Liberal Temper in Greek Politics (NewHaven: Yale University Press, 1957). On the other hand, for a more recentarticle confirming the view that the Greek polis was inherently statist, had noconception of classical liberalism or individual freedom, and was groundedon the labour of slaves, see Paul A. Rahe, 'The Primacy of Politics inClassical Greece', American Historical Review (April 1984), pp. 265-93.On Plato and the division of labour, see Williamson M. Evers, 'Specializationand the Division of Labor in the Social Thought of Plato and Rousseau',The Journal of Libertarian Studies, 4 (Winter, 1980), pp.45-64; VernardFoley, 'The Division of Labor in Plato and Smith', History of PoliticalEconomy, 6 (Summer 1974), pp. 220-42: Paul J. McNulty, 'A Note on theDivision of Labor in Plato and Smith', History of Political Economy, 7(Autumn 1975), pp. 372-8; and Foley, 'Smith and the Greeks: A Reply toProfessor McNulty's Comments', ibid., pp. 379-89.On the influence of Plotinus and man's alleged inherent alienation toovercome through history, see the illuminating discussion in LeszekKolakowksi, Main Currents ofMarxism, I: The Founders (New York: OxfordUniversity Press, 1981), pp. 11-23.Cicero's eloquent quotation on the definition of the natural law may befound, among other places, in Michael Bertram Crowe, The Changing Profileof the Natural Law (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1977), pp. 37-8, Croweincluding natural law theorists among the Greeks and Romans; and his parableofAlexander and the pirate in Cicero's On the Commonwealth (Columbus:Ohio State University Press, 1929), Book III, SlY, p. 210.Medieval thoughtA valuable overall study of medieval economic thought, including that of theearly Church Fathers, is in Gordon, Economic Analysis Before Adam Smith.Two indispensable articles on the theory of the just price are: Kenneth S.Cahn, 'The Roman and Frankish Roots of the Just Price of Medieval CanonLaw', Studies in Medieval and Renaissance History, 6 (1969), pp. 3-52, onthe early Roman and canon law; and the book-length monograph by John W.Baldwin, 'The Medieval Theories of the Just Price: Romanists, Canonists,