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1261b]
[1]
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 dissimilar
1; 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. 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.
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 Socrates
2 thinks to be a sign of the
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city'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) 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. 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.
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, so that all alike will regard them
with indifference.