[1261a] But is it better for a city that is to be well ordered to have community in everything which can possibly be made common property, or is it better to have some things in common and others not? For example, it is possible for the citizens to have children, wives and possessions in common with each other, as in Plato’s Republic, in which Socrates says that there must be community of children, women and possessions. Well then, which is preferable, the system that now obtains, or one conforming with the regulation described in the Republic On the following criticisms see Grote, Plato, 3, pp. 211-233.?
[loeb_subsection_3] Now for all the citizens to have their wives in common involves a variety of difficulties; in particular,(1) 1.3-7; (2) 1.8-2.11; (3) 2.11-13; also (4) other objections 2.15-16. (1) the object which Socrates advances as the reason why this enactment should be made clearly does not follow from his arguments; also (2) as a means to the end which he asserts should be the fundamental object of the city, the scheme as actually set forth in the dialogue is not practicable; yet (3) how it is to be further worked out has been nowhere definitely stated. I refer to the ideal of the fullest possible unity of the entire state, which Socrates takes as his fundamental principle.
[loeb_subsection_4] Yet it is clear that if the process of unification advances beyond a certain point, the city will not be a city at all for a state essentially consists of a multitude of persons, and if its unification is carried beyond a certain point, city will be reduced to family and family to individual,for we should pronounce the family to be a more complete unity than the city, and the single person than the family; so that even if any lawgiver were able to unify the state, he must not do so, for he will destroy it in the process. And not only does a city consist of a multitude of human beings, it consists of human beings differing in kind. A collection of persons all alike does not constitute a state. For a city is not the same thing as a league; a league is of value by its quantity, even though it is art the same in kind (since the essential object of the league is military strength), just as a weight would be worth more if it weighed more, whereasIn the mss. of the Greek whereas—kind comes below after Arcadian. components which are to make up a unity must differ in kind [loeb_subsection_5] (and it is by this characteristic that a city will also surpass a tribe of which the population is not scattered among villages but organized like the Arcadians). Hence reciprocal equalityAs the best state consists of different classes, its unity is secured by each citizen giving services to society and receiving in return benefits proportionate to his service. Probably τὸ ἴσον is an interpolation (though Newman explains it as the reciprocal rendering of an equal amount of dissimilar things): omitting τὸ ἴσον, we render reciprocity and not reciprocal equality; cf. Aristot. Nic. Eth. 1132b 33, In the interchange of services Justice in the form of Reciprocity is the bond that maintains the association: reciprocity, that is, on the basis of proportion, not on the basis of equality. is the preservative of states, as has been said before in the Ethics. For even among the free and equal this principle must necessarily obtain, since all cannot govern at once: they must hold office for a year at a time or by some other arrangement or period; and in this manner it does actually come about that all govern, just as all shoemakers would be also carpenters if the shoemakers and the carpenters kept on changing trades instead of the same persons being shoemakers and carpenters always. [loeb_subsection_6] But since such permanence of function is better for the political community also, it is clear that it is better for the same persons to govern always, if possible; and among peoples where it is impossible because all the citizens are equal in their nature,
[1261b] yet at the same time it is only just, whether governing is a good thing or a bad, that all should partake in it, and for equals thus to submit to authority in turn imitates their being originally dissimilarThe best form of constitution is where there is a superior class that governs continuously—an aristocracy; so where there are no class-distinctions, the next best thing is for all the citizens to take turns in governing and being governed, those in office for the time being forming a sort of aristocracy. Richards’s alteration of the text gives to take turns to govern is an imitation of original inequality and class-distinction.; for some govern and others are governed by turn, as though becoming other persons; and also similarly when they hold office the holders of different offices are different persons. [loeb_subsection_7] It is clear then from these considerations that it is not an outcome of nature for the state to be a unity in the manner in which certain persons say that it is, and that what has been said to be the greatest good in states really destroys states; yet surely a thing’s particular good acts as its preservative.—Another line of consideration also shows that to seek to unify the state excessively is not beneficial. In point of self-sufficiency the individual is surpassed by the family and the family by the state, and in principle a state is fully realized only when it comes to pass that the community of numbers is self-sufficing; if therefore the more self-sufficing a community is, the more desirable is its condition, then a less degree of unity is more desirable than a greater.
[loeb_subsection_8] Again, even granting that it is best for the community to be as complete a unity as possible, complete unity does not seem to be proved by the formula if all the citizens say Mine and Not mine at the same time, which SocratesThe reference is to Plat. Rep. 462c. Unity is secured when everyone thinks that everything belongs equally to him and to everybody else, i.e. everything is common property. thinks to be a sign of thecity’s being completely one. All is an ambiguous term. If it means each severally, very likely this would more fully realize the state of things which Socrates wishes to produce (for in that case every citizen will call the same boy his son and also the same woman his wife, and will speak in the same way of property and indeed of each of the accessories of life) [loeb_subsection_9] but ex hypothesi the citizens, having community of women and children, will not call them theirs in this sense, but will mean theirs collectively and not severally, and similarly they will call property theirs meaning the property of them all, not of each of them severally. We see then that the phrase all say is equivocal (in fact the words all, both, odd, even, owing to their ambiguity, occasion argumentative quibbling even in philosophical discussions); hence really for all to say the same thing is in one sense admirable, although impracticable, but in another sense is not at all a sign of concord. [loeb_subsection_10] And furthermore, the proposal has another disadvantage. Property that is common to the greatest number of owners receives the least attention; men care most for their private possessions, and for what they own in common less, or only so far as it falls to their own individual share for in addition to the other reasons, they think less of it on the ground that someone else is thinking about it, just as in household service a large number of domestics sometimes give worse attendance than a smaller number. [loeb_subsection_11] And it results in each citizen’s having a thousand sons, and these do not belong to them as individuals but any child is equally the son of anyone,