This article was quite an interesting read. As expected Aristotle was the worst, then Plato and Socrates the least worst. No punches are pulled and harsh criticism is laid very logically on three people who are considered behemoths when it comes to thinkers in ancient times. The best part actually was the contrast with Taoism at the end. It was actually very eye opening to see the errors of the 3 most popular Greek thinkers of our time. We need to know not only the accomplishment of those before us but also their failures and errors.
Moreover, an almost perfect illustration of his failure to grasp the evolutionary, spontaneous market order lies in his conviction that a polis of over 100,000 inhabitants could never survive, because its government would be unable to organize it. Aristotle understood the polis solely as a self-sufficient body organized from above (autarkia), and not as a historic manifestation of the spontaneous process of social cooperation led by flesh-and-blood human beings endowed with an innate entrepreneurial capacity. Finally, Aristotle followed the Socratic tradition of undervaluing work and entrepreneurial profit, which, in an anonymous and decentralized manner, supported the advanced stage of civilization that is precisely what allowed him and the rest of the philosophers to survive.
Lastly, it is very interesting to note that, during the same era when classical Greek thought was being forged (from the 6th to the 4th century BC), ancient China saw the beginnings of three great currents of thought: that of the so-called "Legalists" (who supported the centralized state), that of the Confucianists (who tolerated it), and that of the Taoists, of a much more liberal bent and extremely interesting for historians of economic thought. Chuang Tzu (369–286 BC) goes as far as to say that "good order results spontaneously when things are let alone." In his criticism of the interventionism of rulers, he describes them as "robbers." Also, according to Rothbard, Chuang Tzu was the first anarchist thinker in history. In fact, Chuang Tzu wrote that the world "does simply not need governing; in fact it should not be governed at all."
Chuang Tzu adhered to the individualistic, liberal views of Lao Tzu, the father of Taoism, and took them to their most logical conclusions. In Confucius's day (from the 6th to the 5th century BC), Lao Tzu concluded that government oppressed the individual and was always "more to be feared than fierce tigers." Therefore, he believed the best policy for governments was "inaction," because only then could the individual flourish and achieve happiness.
Two centuries later, the historian Ssu-ma Ch'ien (145–90 BC) theorized on the entrepreneurship typical of the market, which he felt consisted of keeping "a sharp eye out for the opportunities of the times." As well as being an advocate of laissez-faire, he correctly identified the effects of government debasement of the coinage, which causes a decrease in its purchasing power (that is, a rise in prices). Taoism continued its development for centuries, and in the current era, we find Pao Ching-yen (early 4th century AD), for whom the history of the state is a history of violence and oppression of the weak. The state institutionalizes coercion and worsens and intensifies isolated instances of violence, expanding them on a scale unimaginable in the absence of the state. Pao Ching-yen concludes that the common notion that a strong government is necessary to fight disorder reflects the fallacy of mistaking the cause for the effect. It is the state that generates violence and corrupts the individual behavior of the human beings subjected to it; and all the while it stimulates theft and banditry among them.
In stark contrast with the views of the Greek philosophers and with those of the rest of western intellectuals to the present day, Chinese Taoist thought always defended individual liberty and laissez-faire while attacking the systematic and coercive use of violence typical of government.
