What distinction do you intend by that?
he said. I will try to tell you,
I said. It is surely the most monstrous and shameful thing in the world for shepherds to breed the dogs who are to help them with their flocks in such wise and of such a nature that from indiscipline or hunger or some other evil condition the dogs themselves shall attack the sheep and injure them and be likened to wolves Footnote 1Aristotle’s objection (Politics 1264 a 24) that the Platonic state will break up into two hostile camps, is plagiarized in expression from Plato’s similar censure of existing Greek cities (422 E) and assumes that the enforced disinterestedness, the higher education, and other precautions of the Platonic Republic will not suffice to conjure away the danger to which Plato first calls attention. instead of dogs.
A terrible thing, indeed,
he said. Must we not then guard by every means in our power against our helpers treating the citizens in any such way and, because they are the stronger, converting themselves from benign assistants into savage masters?
We must,
he said. And would they not have been provided with the chief safeguard if their education has really been a good one?
But it surely has,
he said. That,
said I, dear Glaucon, we may not properly affirm, Footnote 2This is not so much a reservation in reference to the higher education as a characteristic refusal of Plato to dogmatize. Cf. Meno 86 B and my paper Recent Platonism in England, A.J.P. vol. ix. pp. 7-8. but what we were just now saying we may, that they must have the right education, whatever it is, if they are to have what will do most to make them gentle to one another and to their charges.
That is right,
he said. In addition, moreover, to such an education a thoughtful man would affirm that their houses and the possessions provided for them ought to be such as not to interfere with the best performance of their own work as guardians and not to incite them to wrong the other citizens.
He will rightly affirm that.
Consider then,
said I, whether, if that is to be their character, their habitations and ways of life must not be something after this fashion. In the first place, none must possess any private property Footnote 3Plato’s communism is primarily a device to secure disinterestedness in the ruling class, though he sometimes treats it as a counsel of perfection for all men and states. Cf. Introduction p. xv note a. save the indispensable. Secondly, none must have any habitation or treasure-house which is not open for all to enter at will. Their food, in such quantities as are needful for athletes of war Footnote 4Cf. 403 E. sober and brave, they must receive as an agreed Footnote 5Cf. 551 B, Meno 91 B, Thucydides i. 108, G.M.T. 837. stipend Footnote 6They are worthy of their hire. Cf. on 347 A. It is a strange misapprehension to speak of Plato as careless of the welfare of the masses. His aristocracy is one of social service, not of selfish enjoyment of wealth and power. from the other citizens as the wages of their guardianship, so measured that there shall be neither superfluity at the end of the year nor any lack. Footnote 7This is precisely Aristophanes’ distinction between beggary and honorable poverty, Plutus 552-553. And resorting to a common mess Footnote 8As at Sparta. Cf. 458 C, Newman, Introduction to Aristotle’s Politics, p. 334. like soldiers on campaign they will live together.
Book 3