Economics

Yes, commented Socrates, provided he knows how to sell; but again, in case he sells it for something he doesn’t know how to use, even then the sale doesn’t convert it into wealth, according to you. You imply, Socrates, that even money isn’t wealth to one who doesn’t know how to use it.

And you, I think, agree with me to this extent, that wealth is that from which a man can derive profit. At any rate, if a man uses his money to buy a mistress who makes him worse off in body and soul and estate, how can his money be profitable to him then?By no means, unless we are ready to maintain that the weed called nightshade, which drives you mad if you eat it, is wealth.

Then money is to be kept at a distance, Critobulus, if one doesn’t know how to use it, and not to be included in wealth. But how about friends? If one knows how to make use of them so as to profit by them, what are they to be called?Wealth, of course, and much more so than cattle, if it be true that they are more profitable than cattle.