Socrates in the city for any prize of victory or in any other honorable emulation. He is unwilling to spend money for fame and rivalries of that sort, and, fearing to awaken his prodigal desires and call them into alliance for the winning of the victory, he fights in true oligarchical fashion with a small part of his resources and is defeated for the most part and—finds himself rich!” “Yes indeed,” he said. “Have we any further doubt, then,” I said, “as to the correspondence and resemblance between the thrifty and money-making man

Socrates and the oligarchical state?” “None,” he said.

“We have next to consider, it seems, the origin and nature of democracy, that we may next learn the character of that type of man and range him beside the others for our judgement.” “That would at least be a consistent procedure.” “Then,” said I, “is not the transition from oligarchy to democracy effected in some such way as this—by the insatiate greed for that which it set before itself as the good, the attainment of the greatest possible wealth?”

“In what way?” “Why, since its rulers owe their offices to their wealth, they are not willing to prohibit by law the prodigals who arise among the youth from spending and wasting their substance. Their object is, by lending money on the property of such men, and buying it in, to become still richer and more esteemed.” “By all means.” “And is it not at once apparent in a state that this honoring of wealth is incompatible with a sober and temperate citizenship,

but that one or the other of these two ideals is inevitably neglected.” “That is pretty clear,” he said. “And such negligence and encouragement of licentiousness in oligarchies not infrequently has reduced to poverty men of no ignoble quality.” “It surely has.” “And there they sit, I fancy, within the city, furnished with stings, that is, arms, some burdened with debt, others disfranchised, others both, hating and conspiring against the acquirers of their estates and the rest of the citizens,

and eager for revolution.” “’Tis so.”

Socrates “But these money-makers with down-bent heads, pretending not even to see them, but inserting the sting of their money into any of the remainder who do not resist, and harvesting from them in interest as it were a manifold progeny of the parent sum,

Socrates foster the drone and pauper element in the state.” “They do indeed multiply it,” he said. “And they are not willing to quench the evil as it bursts into flame either by way of a law prohibiting a man from doing as he likes with his own, or in this way, by a second law that does away with such abuses.” “What law?” “The law that is next best, and compels the citizens to pay heed to virtue. For if a law commanded that most voluntary contracts should be at the contractor’s risk,

Socrates the pursuit of wealth would be less shameless in the state and fewer of the evils of which we spoke just now would grow up there.” “Much fewer,” he said. “But as it is, and for all these reasons, this is the plight to which the rulers in the state reduce their subjects, and as for themselves and their off-spring, do they not make the young spoiled wantons averse to toil of body and mind,

Socrates and too soft to stand up against pleasure and pain, and mere idlers?” “Surely.” “And do they not fasten upon themselves the habit of neglect of everything except the making of money, and as complete an indifference to virtue as the paupers exhibit?” “Little they care.” “And when, thus conditioned, the rulers and the ruled are brought together on the march, in wayfaring, or in some other common undertaking, either a religious festival, or a campaign, or as shipmates or fellow-soldiers

Socrates or, for that matter, in actual battle, and observe one another, then the poor are not in the least scorned by the rich, but on the contrary, do you not suppose it often happens that when a lean, sinewy, sunburnt pauper is stationed in battle beside a rich man bred in the shade, and burdened with superfluous flesh, and sees him panting and helpless—do you not suppose he will think that such fellows keep their wealth by the cowardice of the poor, and that when the latter are together in private,

Socrates one will pass the word to another “our men are good for nothing”?” “Nay, I know very well that they do,” said he. “And just as an unhealthy body requires but a slight impulse from outside to fall into sickness, and sometimes, even without that, all the man is one internal war, in like manner does not the corresponding type of state need only a slight occasion, the one party bringing in allies from an oligarchical state, or the other from a democratic, to become diseased and wage war with itself, and sometimes even

Socrates apart from any external impulse faction arises?”

“Most emphatically.” “And a democracy, I suppose, comes into being when the poor, winning the victory, put to death some of the other party, drive out others, and grant the rest of the citizens an equal share in both citizenship and offices—and for the most part these offices are assigned by lot.” “Why, yes,” he said, “that is the constitution of democracy alike whether it is established by force of arms or by terrorism resulting in the withdrawal of one of the parties.”

“What, then,” said I, “is the manner of their life

and what is the quality of such a constitution? For it is plain that the man of this quality will turn out to be a democratic sort of man.” “It is plain,” he said. “To begin with, are they not free? and is not the city chock-full of liberty and freedom of speech? and has not every man licence to do as he likes?” “So it is said,” he replied. “And where there is such licence, it is obvious that everyone would arrange a plan for leading his own life in the way that pleases him.” “Obvious.” “All sorts and conditions of men,

then, would arise in this polity more than in any other?” “Of course.” “Possibly,” said I, “this is the most beautiful of polities as a garment of many colors, embroidered with all kinds of hues, so this, decked and diversified with every type of character, would appear the most beautiful. And perhaps,” I said, “many would judge it to be the most beautiful, like boys and women when they see bright-colored things.”

“Yes indeed,” he said. “Yes,” said I, “and it is the fit place, my good friend, in which to look for a constitution.” “Why so?” “Because, owing to this licence, it includes all kinds, and it seems likely that anyone who wishes to organize a state, as we were just now doing, must find his way to a democratic city and select the model that pleases him, as if in a bazaar of constitutions, and after making his choice, establish his own.” “Perhaps at any rate,” he said,

“he would not be at a loss for patterns.”

Socrates “And the freedom from all compulsion to hold office in such a city, even if you are qualified, or again, to submit to rule, unless you please, or to make war when the rest are at war, or to keep the peace when the others do so, unless you desire peace; and again, the liberty, in defiance of any law that forbids you, to hold office and sit on juries none the less,

Socrates if it occurs to you to do so, is not all that a heavenly and delicious entertainment for the time being?” “Perhaps,” he said, “for so long.” “And is not the placability of some convicted criminals exquisite? Or have you never seen in such a state men condemned to death or exile who none the less stay on, and go to and fro among the people, and as if no one saw or heeded him, the man slips in and out like a revenant?” “Yes, many,” he said. “And the tolerance of democracy,

Socrates its superiority to all our meticulous requirements, its disdain or our solemn pronouncements made when we were founding our city, that except in the case of transcendent natural gifts no one could ever become a good man unless from childhood his play and all his pursuits were concerned with things fair and good,—how superbly it tramples under foot all such ideals, caring nothing from what practices and way of life a man turns to politics, but honoring him

Socrates if only he says that he loves the people!” “It is a noble polity, indeed!” he said. “These and qualities akin to these democracy would exhibit, and it would, it seems, be a delightful form of government, anarchic and motley, assigning a kind of equality indiscriminately to equals and unequals alike!” “Yes,” he said, “everybody knows that.”

“Observe, then, the corresponding private character. Or must we first, as in the case of the polity, consider the origin of the type?” “Yes,” he said. “Is not this, then, the way of it? Our thrifty oligarchical man

would have a son bred in his father’s ways.” “Why not?” “And he, too, would control by force all his appetites for pleasure that are wasters and not winners of wealth, those which are denominated unnecessary.” “Obviously.” “And in order not to argue in the dark, shall we first define our distinction between necessary and unnecessary appetites?” “Let us do so.” “Well, then, desires that we cannot divert or suppress may be properly called necessary,

and likewise those whose satisfaction is beneficial to us, may they not? For our nature compels us to seek their satisfaction.

Is not that so ?” “Most assuredly.”