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Start listening today at P-O-D-C-A-S-T-L-I-B-R-A-R-Y. .org. Book 8, Part 2. Next, let us look at another man, who, as S-Kyla says, is set over against another state, or rather, as our plan requires, begin with the state.
By all means, I believe that oligarchy follows next in order. And what manner of government do you term oligarchy? A government resting on a valuation of property in which the rich have power and the poor man is deprived of it. I understand, he replied.
All time not to begin by describing how the change from democracy to oligarchy arises. Yes. Well, I said, no eyes are required in order to see how the one passes into the other. How?
The accumulation of gold in the treasury of private individuals is the ruin of democracy. They invent illegal modes of expenditure, for what do they or their wives care about the law? Yes, indeed. And then one, seeing another grow rich, seeks to rival him, and thus the great mass of the citizens become lovers of money.
Likely enough. And so they grow richer and richer, and the more they think of making a fortune, the less they think of virtue. For when riches and virtue are placed together in the scales of the balance, the one all rises as the other falls true. And in proportion as riches and rich men are honored in the state, virtue and the virtues are dishonored.
Clearly. And what is honored is cultivated, and that which has no honor is neglected. That is obvious. And so at last, instead of loving contention and glory, men become lovers of trade and money.
They honor and look up to the rich man and make a ruler of him, and dishonor the poor man. They do so. They next proceed to make a law which fixes the sum of money as the qualification of citizenship. The sum is higher in one place and lower in another, as the oligarchy is more or less exclusive, and they allow no one whose property falls below the amount fixed to have any share in the government.
These changes in the constitution, they effect by falls of arms, if intimidation has not already done their work. Very true. And this, speaking generally, is the way in which oligarchy is established. Yes, he said.
But what are the characteristics of this form of government, and what are the effects of which we are speaking? First of all, I said, consider the nature of the qualification. Just think what would happen if pilots were to be chosen according to their property, and the poor man were refused permission to steer even though he were a better pilot. You mean that they would shipwreck?
Yes, and is not this true of the government of anything? I should imagine so. Except a city, or would you include a city? Nay, he said.
The case of a city is the strongest of all, inasmuch as the rule of a city is the greatest and most difficult of all. This then will be the first great defect of oligarchy. Clearly. And here is another defect which is quite as bad.
What defect? The inevitable division. Such a state is not one, but two states, the one of poor, the other of rich men, and they are living on the same spot and always conspiring against one another. That, surely, is at least as bad.
Another discreditable feature is that, for a light reason, they are incapable of carrying on any war. Either they are in the multitude, and then they are more afraid of them than of the enemy. Or, if they do not call them out in the hour of battle, they are oligarchs indeed, few to fight as they are few to rule. And at the same time, their fumpness for money makes them unwilling to pay taxes.
How discreditable. And, as we said before, under such a constitution, the same persons have too many callings. Their husband-man, tradesman, warriors, all in one. Does that look well?
Anything but well. There is another evil which is perhaps the greatest of all, and to which this state first begins to be liable. What evil? A man may sell all that he has, and another may acquire his property.
Yet, after this sale, he may dwell in the city of which he is no longer a part, being either traitor, nor artisan, nor horseman, nor hoplite, but only a poor helpless creature. Yes, that is an evil which also first begins in this state. The evil is certainly not prevented there, for oligarchies have both the extremes of great wealth and utter poverty. True.
But think again, in his wealthy days, while he was spending his money, was a man of this sort a wit more good to the state for the purposes of citizenship. Already, it only seemed to be a member of the ruling body, although in truth he was neither ruler nor subject, but just a spendthrift. As you say, he seemed to be a ruler, but was only a spendthrift. May we not say that this is the drone in the house who is like the drone in the honeycomb, and that the one is the plague of the city, as the other is of the hive.
Just so, Socrates. And God has made the flying drones at imantas all without stings, whereas of the walking drones is made some without stings, but others have dreadful stings. Of the stingless claws are those who in their old age end as porpoise, of the stingers come all the criminal claws as they are turned. Most true, he said.
Clearly then, whenever you see porpoise in a state, somewhere in that neighborhood, there are hidden away thieves and cut purses and rubbers of temples and all sorts of malefectors. Clearly. Well, I said, and in oligarchical states, do you not find porpoise? Yes, he said.
Nearly everybody is a porpoise who is not a ruler. And may we be so bold as to affirm that there are also many criminals to be found in them, rogues who have stings, and whom the authorities are careful to restrain by force. Certainly, we may be so bold. The existence of such persons is to be attributed to one of education, ill-training, and an evil constitution of the state.
True. Such then is the form and such are the evils of oligarchy, and there may be many other evils. Very likely. Then oligarchy, or the form of government in which the rulers are elected for their wealth, may now be dismissed.
Let us next proceed to consider the nature and origin of the individual who answers to this state. By all means. Does not the time of critical man change into the oligarchical on this wise? How?
A time arrives when the representative of timeocracy has a son. At first he begins by emulating his father and walking in his footsteps. But presently he sees him of a sudden foundry against the state as upon a sunken reef, and he and all that he has is lost. He may have been a general or some other high officer who is brought to trial under a prejudice raised by informers, and either put to death or exiled or deprived of the privileges of his sons.
And all his property taken from him. Nothing more likely. And the son has seen and known all this. He is a ruined man, and his fear has taught him to knock ambition and passion, had foremost, from his bosom's throne.
Humbled by poverty, he takes the money-making, and by mean and miserly savings and hard work gets the fortune together. It is not such a one, likely to see the concubicent and covetous element on the vacant throne, and to suffer it to play the great king within him, girt with tiara and chain and skimitar. Most true, he replied. And when he has made reason and spirits sit down on the ground obediently on either side of their sovereign and taught them to know their place, he compels the one to think only of how lesser sons may be turned into larger ones, and will not allow the other to worship and admire anything but riches and rich man, or to be ambitious of anything so much as the acquisition of wealth and the means of acquiring it.
Of all changes, he said, there is none so speedy or so sure as the conversion of the ambitious youth into the ever-ish is one. And the ever-ish is, I said, is the oligarchical youth. Yes, he said. At any rate, the individual out of whom he came is like the state out of which oligarchy came.
Let us then consider whether there is any likeness between them. Very good. First then, they resemble one another in the value which they set upon wealth. Certainly.
Also, in their panerias, laborious character, the individual only satisfies his necessary appetites and confines his expenditure to them. His other desires he subdues under the idea that they are unprofitable. True. He is a shabby fellow who saves something out of everything and makes a purse for himself, and this is the sort of man whom the vulgar applaud is he not a true image of the state which he represents.
He appears to me to be so. At any rate, money is highly valued by him as well as by the state. You see, that he is not a man of cultivation, I said. I imagine not, he said.
Had he been educated, he would never have made a blind god-director of his chorus or given him chief honor. Excellent, I said. Yet consider, must we not further admit that owing to this one of cultivation that will be found in him drawn like desires as of pauper and rogue, which are forcibly kept by the state. Which are forcibly kept down by his general habit of life.
True. Do you know where you will have to look if you want to discover his rogaries? Where must I look? You should see him where he has some great opportunity of acting dishonestly, as in the guardianship of an orphan.
I. It will be clear enough then that in his ordinary dealings which give him a reputation of for honesty, he coerces his bad passions by an enforced virtue, not making them see that they are wrong or taming them by reason, but by necessity and fear constraining them, and because he trembles for his possessions. To be sure. Yes, indeed, my dear friend, but you will find that the natural desires of the drone commonly exist in him all the same whenever he has to spend what is not his own.
Yes, and there will be strong in him too. The man then will be at war with himself. He will be two men, and not one, but in general his better desires will be found to prevail over his inferior ones. True.
For these reasons, such a one will be more respectable than most people. Yet the true virtue of a unanimous and harmonious soul will flee far away and never come near him. I should expect so. And surely, the miser individually will be an ignoble competitor in his state for any prize of victory or other object of honourable ambition.
He will not spend his money in the contest for glory, so afraid he is a yove awakening his expensive appetites and inviting them to help and join in the struggle. In true olecarchical fashion he fights with a small part only of his resources, and the result commonly is that he loses the prize and saves his money. Very true. Can we any longer doubt then that the miser and money maker answers to the olecarchical state?
There can be no doubt. Next comes democracy. Of this the origin and nature has still to be considered by us, and then we will inquire into the ways of the democratic man and bring him up for judgment. That, he said, is our method.
Well, I said, and how does the change from olecarchy into democracy rise? Is it not on this wise? The good at which such a state aims is to become as rich as possible, a desire which is insatiable. What then?
The rulers, being aware that their power rests upon their wealth, refuse to curtail by law the extravagance of the Spencer youth because they gain by their ruin. They take interest from them and buy up their estates and thus increase their own wealth and importance. To be sure. There can be no doubt that a lot of wealth and the spirit of moderation cannot exist together in citizens of the same state to any considerable extent.
One or the other will be disregarded. That is tolerably clear. And in olecarchical states, from the general spread of carelessness and extravagance, men of good family have often been reduced to beggary. Yes, often.
And still they remain in the city. There they are, ready to sting and fully armed and solve them owe money. Some have forfeited their citizenship. A third class are in both predicaments.
And they hate and conspire against those who have got their property and against everybody else and are eager for revolution. That is true. On the other hand, the men of business, stooping as they walk and pretending not even to see those who have already ruined, insert their sting. That is, their money, into someone else who is not on their guard against them and regovered the parents some many times over, multiplied into a family of children.
And so they make drone and paw-purt to abound in the state. Yes, he said. There are plenty of them. That is certain.
The evil blazes up like a fire, and they will not extinguish it, either by restricting a man's use of his own property or by another remedy. What other? One which is the next best, and has the advantage of compelling the citizens to look to their characters. Let there be a general rule that everyone shall enter into voluntary contracts at his own risk, and there will be less of his scandalous money-making, and the evils of which we were speaking will be greatly lessened in the state.
Yes, they will be greatly lessened. At present, the governors, induced by the motives which I have named, treat their subjects badly. While they and their adherents, especially the young men of the governing class, are habituated to lead a life of luxury and idleness both of body and mind, they do nothing and are incapable of resisting either pleasure or pain. Very true.
They themselves care only for making money, and are as indifferent as the paw-purt to the cultivation of virtue. Yes, quite as indifferent. Such as the state of affairs which prevails among them, and often rulers and their subjects may come in one another's way, whether on a journey, or on some other occasion of meeting, on a pilgrimage or a march. As fellow soldiers, or fellow sailors, I, and they may observe the behaviour of each other in the very moment of danger.
For where danger is, there is no fear that the poor will be despised by the rich. And very likely, the wary sun-burned poor man may be placed in battle at the side of a wealthy one who has never spoiled his complexion and has plenty of superfluous flesh. When he sees such a one puffing at his wits and, how can he avoid drawing the conclusion that men like him are only rich because no one has the courage to dis spoil them? And when they meet him private, will not people be saying to one another, our warriors are not good for much?
Yes, he said. I'm quite aware that this is their way of talking. And, as in a body which is diseased, the addition of a touch from without may bring on illness, and sometimes even when there is no external provocation, a commotion may arise within. In the same way, wherever there is weakness in the state, there is also likely to be illness, over to the occasion may be very slight.
The one party introducing from without, they're oligarchical, the other, the democratic allies, and then the state full-sick, and is at war with theirself. And maybe at times distracted, even when there is no external cause. Yes, surely. And then democracy comes into being, after the poor have conquered their opponents, slouching some and banishing some, while to their remainder they give an equal share of freedom and power.
And this is the form of government in which the magistrates are commonly elected by lot. Yes, he said. That is the nature of democracy, whether the revolution has been affected by arms, or whether fear has caused the opposite party to withdraw. End of Book 8, Part 2.