Complete Works

by Plato, Cooper, John M. , Hutchinson, D. S.

  At any rate, this sort of thing is not forbidden in oligarchies. If it were, some of their citizens wouldn’t be excessively rich, while others are totally impoverished.

  That’s right.

  Now, think about this. When the person who sells all his possessions was rich and spending his money, was he of any greater use to the city in the ways we’ve just mentioned than when he’d spent it all? Or did he merely seem to be one of the rulers of the city, while in truth he was neither ruler nor subject there, but only a squanderer of his property?

  That’s right. He seemed to be part of the city, but he was nothing but [c] a squanderer.

  Should we say, then, that, as a drone exists in a cell and is an affliction to the hive, so this person is a drone in the house and an affliction to the city?

  That’s certainly right, Socrates.

  Hasn’t the god made all the winged drones stingless, Adeimantus, as well as some wingless ones, while other wingless ones have dangerous stings? And don’t the stingless ones continue as beggars into old age, while [d] those with stings become what we call evildoers?

  That’s absolutely true.

  Clearly, then, in any city where you see beggars, there are thieves, pickpockets, temple-robbers, and all such evildoers hidden.

  That is clear.

  What about oligarchic cities? Don’t you see beggars in them?

  Almost everyone except the rulers is a beggar there.

  [e] Then mustn’t we suppose that they also include many evildoers with stings, whom the rulers carefully keep in check by force?

  We certainly must.

  And shall we say that the presence of such people is the result of lack of education, bad rearing, and a bad constitutional arrangement?

  We shall.

  This, then, or something like it, is the oligarchic city. It contains all these evils and probably others in addition.

  That’s pretty well what it’s like.

  Then, let’s take it that we’ve disposed of the constitution called oligarchy [553]—I mean the one that gets its rulers on the basis of a property assessment—and let’s examine the man who is like it, both how he comes to be and what sort of man he is.

  All right.

  Doesn’t the transformation from the timocrat we described to an oligarch occur mostly in this way?

  Which way?

  The timocrat’s son at first emulates his father and follows in his footsteps. Then he suddenly sees him crashing against the city like a ship against a [b] reef, spilling out all his possessions, even his life. He had held a generalship or some other high office, was brought to court by false witnesses, and was either put to death or exiled or was disenfranchised and had all his property confiscated.

  That’s quite likely.

  The son sees all this, suffers from it, loses his property, and, fearing for his life, immediately drives from the throne in his own soul the honor-loving and spirited part that ruled there. Humbled by poverty, he turns greedily to making money, and, little by little, saving and working, he [c] amasses property. Don’t you think that this person would establish his appetitive and money-making part on the throne, setting it up as a great king within himself, adorning it with golden tiaras and collars and girding it with Persian swords?

  I do.

  He makes the rational and spirited parts sit on the ground beneath appetite, one on either side, reducing them to slaves. He won’t allow the [d] first to reason about or examine anything except how a little money can be made into great wealth. And he won’t allow the second to value or admire anything but wealth and wealthy people or to have any ambition other than the acquisition of wealth or whatever might contribute to getting it.

  There is no other transformation of a young man who is an honor-lover into one who is a money-lover that’s as swift and sure as this.

  Then isn’t this an oligarchic man? [e]

  Surely, he developed out of a man who resembled the constitution from which oligarchy came.

  Then let’s consider whether he resembles the oligarchic constitution?

  All right. [554]

  Doesn’t he resemble it, in the first place, by attaching the greatest importance to money?

  Of course.

  And, further, by being a thrifty worker, who satisfies only his necessary appetites, makes no other expenditures, and enslaves his other desires as vain.

  That’s right.

  A somewhat squalid fellow, who makes a profit from everything and hoards it—the sort the majority admires. Isn’t this the man who resembles such a constitution? [b]

  That’s my opinion, anyway. At any rate, money is valued above everything by both the city and the man.

  I don’t suppose that such a man pays any attention to education.

  Not in my view, for, if he did, he wouldn’t have chosen a blind leader for his chorus and honored him most.12

  Good. But consider this: Won’t we say that, because of his lack of education, the dronish appetites—some beggarly and others evil—exist in him, but that they’re forcibly held in check by his carefulness? [c]

  Certainly.

  Do you know where you should look to see the evildoings of such people?

  Where?

  To the guardianship of orphans or something like that, where they have ample opportunity to do injustice with impunity.

  True.

  And doesn’t this make it clear that, in those other contractual obligations, where he has a good reputation and is thought to be just, he’s forcibly holding his other evil appetites in check by means of some decent part of [d] himself? He holds them in check, not by persuading them that it’s better not to act on them or taming them with arguments, but by compulsion and fear, trembling for his other possessions.

  That’s right.

  And, by god, you’ll find that most of them have appetites akin to those of the drone, once they have other people’s money to spend.

  You certainly will.

  Then someone like that wouldn’t be entirely free from internal civil war and wouldn’t be one but in some way two, though generally his better [e] desires are in control of his worse.

  That’s right.

  For this reason, he’d be more respectable than many, but the true virtue of a single-minded and harmonious soul far escapes him.

  I suppose so.

  Further, this thrifty man is a poor individual contestant for victory in a city or for any other fine and much-honored thing, for he’s not willing to [555] spend money for the sake of a fine reputation or on contests for such things. He’s afraid to arouse his appetites for spending or to call on them as allies to obtain victory, so he fights like an oligarch, with only a few of his resources. Hence he’s mostly defeated but remains rich.

  That’s right.

  Then have we any further doubt that a thrifty money-maker is like an [b] oligarchic city?

  None at all.

  It seems, then, that we must next consider democracy, how it comes into being, and what character it has when it does, so that, knowing in turn the character of a man who resembles it, we can present him for judgment.

  That would be quite consistent with what we’ve been doing.

  Well, isn’t the city changed from an oligarchy to a democracy in some such way as this, because of its insatiable desire to attain what it has set before itself as the good, namely, the need to become as rich as possible?

  In what way?

  [c] Since those who rule in the city do so because they own a lot, I suppose they’re unwilling to enact laws to prevent young people who’ve had no discipline from spending and wasting their wealth, so that by making loans to them, secured by the young people’s property, and then calling those loans in, they themselves become even richer and more honored.

  That’s their favorite thing to do.

  So isn’t it clear by now that it is impossible for a city to honor wealth and at the same time for its citizens to acquire moderation, but one or the other is inevitably neglec
ted? [d]

  That’s pretty clear.

  Because of this neglect and because they encourage bad discipline, oligarchies not infrequently reduce people of no common stamp to poverty.

  That’s right.

  And these people sit idle in the city, I suppose, with their stings and weapons—some in debt, some disenfranchised, some both—hating those who’ve acquired their property, plotting against them and others, and longing for a revolution. [e]

  They do.

  The money-makers, on the other hand, with their eyes on the ground, pretend not to see these people, and by lending money they disable any of the remainder who resist, exact as interest many times the principal sum, and so create a considerable number of drones and beggars in the city. [556]

  A considerable number indeed.

  In any case, they are unwilling to quench this kind of evil as it flares up in the city, either in the way we mentioned, by preventing people from doing whatever they like with their own property or by another law which would also solve the problem.

  What law?

  The second-best one, which compels the citizens to care about virtue by prescribing that the majority of voluntary contracts be entered into at the lender’s own risk, for lenders would be less shameless then in their pursuit [b] of money in the city and fewer of those evils we were mentioning just now would develop.

  Far fewer.

  But as it is, for all these reasons, the rulers in the city treat their subjects in the way we described. But as for themselves and their children, don’t they make their young fond of luxury, incapable of effort either mental or physical, too soft to stand up to pleasures or pains, and idle besides? [c]

  Of course.

  And don’t they themselves neglect everything except making money, caring no more for virtue than the poor do?

  Yes.

  But when rulers and subjects in this condition meet on a journey or some other common undertaking—it might be a festival, an embassy, or a campaign, or they might be shipmates or fellow soldiers—and see one another in danger, in these circumstances are the poor in any way despised by the rich? Or rather isn’t it often the case that a poor man, lean and [d] suntanned, stands in battle next to a rich man, reared in the shade and carrying a lot of excess flesh, and sees him panting and at a loss? And don’t you think that he’d consider that it’s through the cowardice of the poor that such people are rich and that one poor man would say to another when they met in private: “These people are at our mercy; they’re good [e] for nothing”?

  I know very well that’s what they would do.

  Then, as a sick body needs only a slight shock from outside to become ill and is sometimes at civil war with itself even without this, so a city in the same condition needs only a small pretext—such as one side bringing in allies from an oligarchy or the other from a democracy—to fall ill and to fight with itself and is sometimes in a state of civil war even without any external influence.

  [557] Absolutely.

  And I suppose that democracy comes about when the poor are victorious, killing some of their opponents and expelling others, and giving the rest an equal share in ruling under the constitution, and for the most part assigning people to positions of rule by lot.

  Yes, that’s how democracy is established, whether by force of arms or because those on the opposing side are frightened into exile.

  Then how do these people live? What sort of constitution do they have? [b] It’s clear that a man who is like it will be democratic.

  That is clear.

  First of all, then, aren’t they free? And isn’t the city full of freedom and freedom of speech? And doesn’t everyone in it have the license to do what he wants?

  That’s what they say, at any rate.

  And where people have this license, it’s clear that each of them will arrange his own life in whatever manner pleases him.

  It is.

  Then I suppose that it’s most of all under this constitution that one finds [c] people of all varieties.

  Of course.

  Then it looks as though this is the finest or most beautiful of the constitutions, for, like a coat embroidered with every kind of ornament, this city, embroidered with every kind of character type, would seem to be the most beautiful. And many people would probably judge it to be so, as women and children do when they see something multicolored.

  They certainly would.

  [d] It’s also a convenient place to look for a constitution.

  Why’s that?

  Because it contains all kinds of constitutions on account of the license it gives its citizens. So it looks as though anyone who wants to put a city in order, as we were doing, should probably go to a democracy, as to a supermarket of constitutions, pick out whatever pleases him, and establish that.

  [e] He probably wouldn’t be at a loss for models, at any rate.

  In this city, there is no requirement to rule, even if you’re capable of it, or again to be ruled if you don’t want to be, or to be at war when the others are, or at peace unless you happen to want it. And there is no requirement in the least that you not serve in public office as a juror, if you happen to want to serve, even if there is a law forbidding you to do so. Isn’t that a divine and pleasant life, while it lasts? [558]

  It probably is—while it lasts.

  And what about the calm of some of their condemned criminals? Isn’t that a sign of sophistication? Or have you never seen people who’ve been condemned to death or exile under such a constitution stay on at the center of things, strolling around like the ghosts of dead heroes, without anyone staring at them or giving them a thought?

  Yes, I’ve seen it a lot.

  And what about the city’s tolerance? Isn’t it so completely lacking in [b] small-mindedness that it utterly despises the things we took so seriously when we were founding our city, namely, that unless someone had transcendent natural gifts, he’d never become good unless he played the right games and followed a fine way of life from early childhood? Isn’t it magnificent the way it tramples all this underfoot, by giving no thought to what someone was doing before he entered public life and by honoring him if only he tells them that he wishes the majority well? [c]

  Yes, it’s altogether splendid!

  Then these and others like them are the characteristics of democracy. And it would seem to be a pleasant constitution, which lacks rulers but not variety and which distributes a sort of equality to both equals and unequals alike.

  We certainly know what you mean.

  Consider, then, what private individual resembles it. Or should we first inquire, as we did with the city, how he comes to be?

  Yes, we should.

  Well, doesn’t it happen like this? Wouldn’t the son of that thrifty oligarch be brought up in his father’s ways? [d]

  Of course.

  Then he too rules his spendthrift pleasures by force—the ones that aren’t money-making and are called unnecessary.

  Clearly.

  But, so as not to discuss this in the dark, do you want us first to define which desires are necessary and which aren’t?

  I do.

  Aren’t those we can’t desist from and those whose satisfaction benefits us rightly called necessary, for we are by nature compelled to satisfy them both? Isn’t that so? [e]

  Of course.

  So we’d be right to apply the term “necessary” to them? [559]

  We would.

  What about those that someone could get rid of if he practiced from youth on, those whose presence leads to no good or even to the opposite? If we said that all of them were unnecessary, would we be right?

  We would.

  Let’s pick an example of each, so that we can grasp the patterns they exhibit.

  We should do that.

  Aren’t the following desires necessary: the desire to eat to the point of [b] health and well-being and the desire for bread and delicacies?

  I suppose so.

  The desire for
bread is necessary on both counts; it’s beneficial, and unless it’s satisfied, we die.

  Yes.

  The desire for delicacies is also necessary to the extent that it’s beneficial to well-being.

  Absolutely.

  What about the desire that goes beyond these and seeks other sorts of foods, that most people can get rid of, if it’s restrained and educated while they’re young, and that’s harmful both to the body and to the reason and [c] moderation of the soul? Would it be rightly called unnecessary?

  It would indeed.

  Then wouldn’t we also say that such desires are spendthrift, while the earlier ones are money-making, because they profit our various projects?

  Certainly.

  And won’t we say the same about the desire for sex and about other desires?

  Yes.

  And didn’t we say that the person we just now called a drone is full of such pleasures and desires, since he is ruled by the unnecessary ones, [d] while a thrifty oligarch is ruled by his necessary desires?

  We certainly did.

  Let’s go back, then, and explain how the democratic man develops out of the oligarchic one. It seems to me as though it mostly happens as follows.

  How?

  When a young man, who is reared in the miserly and uneducated manner we described, tastes the honey of the drones and associates with wild and dangerous creatures who can provide every variety of multicolored pleasure in every sort of way, this, as you might suppose, is the beginning [e] of his transformation from having an oligarchic constitution within him to having a democratic one.

  It’s inevitable that this is how it starts.

  And just as the city changed when one party received help from likeminded people outside, doesn’t the young man change when one party of his desires receives help from external desires that are akin to them and of the same form?

  Absolutely.

  And I suppose that, if any contrary help comes to the oligarchic party within him, whether from his father or from the rest of his household, who exhort and reproach him, then there’s civil war and counterrevolution [560] within him, and he battles against himself.

  That’s right.

  Sometimes the democratic party yields to the oligarchic, so that some of the young man’s appetites are overcome, others are expelled, a kind of shame rises in his soul, and order is restored.