From the Oikonomia of Classical Antiquity to Our Modern Economy ; Literary-theoretical Transformations of Social Models

Abstract

This study investigates transformations of classical antiquity oikonomia and chrematistics from the Middle Ages to the present-day. From an ancient-historical, philosophical, literary and cultural-science perspective, it reconstructs exemplary acquisitions and reinterpretations of economic knowledge. The study argues that the modern economy has benefited from transformation relationships with the oikonomia of classical antiquity, which exhibit no unambiguously economic, efficient and profit-maximizing character. For this reason, in addition to actual historical aspects, our interest also includes issues relating to the poetology of economic knowledge, the metaphorology and scenaristics of the house, the theoretical, narrative and literary representation economies and the promotion of ‘economy’ to an ordering category per se.