Xenophon's Oeconomicus — the text the word "economics" comes from
"Where is our projector?" has no answer because the projector belongs to everyone. Anything that belongs to everyone belongs, in practice, to nobody.
A sound system nobody can wire up is gathering dust in the store. For Xenophon that is a burden, not wealth; next comes order — a thing has to be findable by someone who did not put it there — and a steward, who cannot be hired, only taught.
In two hours, list everything the club owns — equipment, merchandise, keys, logins, domains — and put one name against each item. One item, one person; a team does not count.
The full biography is on the public version →
Marble bust, Aphrodisias Museum. CC0 (photograph, Jona Lendering / Livius.org); sculpture ancient, PD
These screens carry out this specific work. Every published work in the library also has at least an exercise — it is at the foot of this page.
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These works are related to the one you just read — and not by accident:
shared competencies: Economics of the organisation, Span and structure
shared competencies: Span and structure, Continuity
shared competencies: Span and structure, Continuity
same competency: Economics of the organisation
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The same work written at length: what it claims and what its evidence is worth.
This text is freely available, so the links go straight to it rather than to a summary of it.
- The Internet Classics Archive — the complete Oeconomicus in English
- The Perseus catalogue — the Greek original and the Loeb translation
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