Throughout history, institutions of higher learning emerged in response to a thriving culture of commerce and innovation. Yet, the idea of an entrepreneurial university that seeks to create new employment through the practical application of knowledge in the private sector has stirred up public anxiety. Resistance comes from those who fear that this would result in a loss of academic freedom and those who have a vested interest in opposing change. Often, this leads to unholy alliances that portray themselves as guardians of the public interest at home and the cultural identity of non-Western societies abroad. This paper uses historical evidence to illustrate that the entrepreneurial university is neither a particularly Western invention nor did it subvert academic freedom or discourage the pursuit of wisdom.African universities, which were either set up by colonial powers or coached by them, were mainly designed to educate local bureaucrats. As such, they represent a historical anomaly because they were not meant to serve the needs of the local growth-oriented private sector. As a result, these universities turned out to be ill-equipped to function as driving forces of endogenous economic development and social empowerment. Institutional reform and financial incentives are required to unleash the power of entrepreneurship at African universities and enable it to better integrate the local private sector into the global knowledge economy.

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Aristotle and economic analysis

Exploring the Linkages of Commerce, Higher Education and Human Development: A Historical Review

Aristotle’s analysis of economic exchange in the Nicomachean Ethics involves two paradigms which he addresses separately but then he stresses that there is no difference between them: barter and monetary exchange. Each one of them is rendered here separately but in a mutually consistent way by using geometrical methods which were well established and widely used in Aristotle’s intellectual surroundings. In this framework Aristotle’s ‘monetary equivalence’ in exchange appears as an application of Euclid’s proposition Elements I,43 about the equality of geometrical complements in a rectangle. Aristotle repeatedly refers to ‘own production’ when mentioning exchange between two artisans, say, ‘builder’ and ‘farmer’. The accounting worth of the quantity of ‘own production’ in terms of money is then Aristotle’s “worth” of an artisan. This interpretation helps to make sense of Aristotle’s statements of the type: ‘as builder to farmer, so food to houses’. We show that this statement is logical and plausible provided that the goods in question are measured as proportions of sales out of own production. This result solves one of the major riddles of Aristotle’s text on exchange. Accounting of exchange should be seen in connection with Aristotle’s critique of the Pythagoreans’ concept of justice. He claims that they wrongly equate justice with ‘reciprocation’. The paper does not speculate about Aristotle’s alternatives. It just shows that his text on ‘reciprocation’ can be interpreted with reference to a consistent and interesting system of geometrical accounting. This might not be his own invention, but Aristotle’s writings are the sole literary source for systematic geometrical accounting of economic exchange. This definitely merits listing Aristotle’s passages on exchange as being among the most interesting texts of ancient economic analysis.

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Delivery.cfm/SSRN_ID2419927_code440689.pdf?abstractid=2419927&mirid=1

Aristotle's Geometrical Accounting

Deliberating and acting together

Among scholars of ancient economic thought, it is widely recognized that Aristotle established an upper limit to money-making. This “natural limit” has been variously construed, with some claiming that it might be settled independently of Aristotle’s ethical theory. This essay defends the contrary thesis: Aristotle’s natural limit is inextricably tied to his account of human flourishing. I also argue that, for Aristotle, a human life committed to money-making is incompatible with achieving eudaimonia. Why? For Aristotle, money-making as an end in itself is endemic to the life of pleasure, not the good life. Moreover, the unchecked pursuit of evermore money is likely to crowd out other intrinsically valuable goods, such as friendship, agency, and autonomy. Finally, from the standpoint of Aristotle’s virtue ethics, wealth acquisition beyond the natural limit is considered to be a vice, not a virtue.

/pdf/on-aristotle-s-natural-limit-25io40do48.pdf

On Aristotle's Natural Limit

Production and Trade of Etrurian Terra Sigillata pottery in Roman Etruria and beyond between c. 50 BCE and c. 150 CE

Events that occurred before a given time point

Aristotle and economic analysis

Citations

Exploring the Linkages of Commerce, Higher Education and Human Development: A Historical Review

Aristotle's Geometrical Accounting

Deliberating and acting together

On Aristotle's Natural Limit

Production and Trade of Etrurian Terra Sigillata pottery in Roman Etruria and beyond between c. 50 BCE and c. 150 CE

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