But again, within the city itself how will they share with one another the products of their labor? This was the very purpose of our association and establishment of a state.” “Obviously,” he said, “by buying and selling.” “A market-place, then, and money as a token1for the purpose of exchange will be the result of this.” “By all means.” “If, then, [I] the farmer or any other craftsman taking his products to the market-place does not arrive at the same time with those who desire to exchange with him, is he to sit idle in the market-place and lose time from his own work?” “By no means,” he said, “but there are men who see this need and appoint themselves for this service—in well-conducted cities they [II] are generally those who are weakes in body and those who are useless for any other task. They must wait there in the agora and exchange money for goods with those who wish to sell, and goods for money with as many as desire to buy.” “This need, then,” said I, “creates the class of shopkeepers in our city. Or is not shopkeepers the name we give to those who, planted in the agora, serve us in buying and selling, while we call those who roam from city to city merchants?” “Certainly.” “And there are, furthermore, I believe, other servitors who [III] in the things of the mind are not altogether worthy of our fellowship, but whose strength of body is sufficient for toil; so they, selling the use of this strength and calling the price wages, are designated, I believe, wage-earners, are they not?” “Certainly.” “Wage-earners, then, it seems, are the complement that helps to fill up the state.”“I think so.” “Has our city, then, Adeimantus, reached its full growth and is it complete?” ” Plato, Republic II, [371c-e], translated by P. Shorey.
Regular readers know (recall extensively here; a bit here; and also more here) I have an unusual fondness for the "city of pigs;" not just because it seems to anticipate key features of Adam Smith's pacific and egalitarian system of natural liberty, but also because Socrates explicitly calls it the true city (372e; how could you not like a place where" they will serve noble cakes and loaves on some arrangement of reeds or clean leaves, and, reclined on rustic beds strewn with bryony and myrtle, they will feast with their children, drinking of their wine thereto, garlanded and singing hymns to the gods in pleasant fellowship!") I have received plenty of push-back from distinguished scholars, so I am aware I am idiosyncratic. Today's post is not a recanting on the claim that it is a kind of normative baseline for Socrates (in some sense it will strengthen that point), but it does point to a problematic feature of the city of pigs that had escaped my notice before. The effect of what I am about to say is to suggest that it was a mistake to treat the city of pigs as an anticipation of the system of natural liberty.
Above I have made explicit (in bold) a three-fold taxonomy that seems to drive the way the division of labor is conceived in the polity based on need (recall 369ab). An important point I wish to make is that in addition to principle of need there is a kind of mutuality (that is made explicit in 369b) and also captured above in (Shorey's translation by) the language of 'fellowship.' And this reciprocity has non-trivial implications that anticipate explicit features of Kallipolis that may well trouble.
To simplify: the three-fold taxonomy is: (i) those of sound mind and body (who become craftsmen); (ii) those who have intelligence but lack physical prowess (and become shopkeepers/traders, etc.); (iii) those who have lesser intelligence but physical strength, who become wage-laborers. Undoubtedly, some professions may not be easy to fit in the three-fold taxonomy. Socrates is clear that we are not alike by human nature, but this does not seem to generate a political hierarchy. We are all part of the political partnership in the city of pigs.
Except that the previous sentence now seems false to me.
Here's the thing: if you allow that there is such a thing as an enumeration above along two dimensions (mind and body), then there is an obvious fourth category that is omitted: (iv) those lacking in much intelligence and are weak of body. Now for those that truly dislike arguments from omission, this is the moment to ignore what follows which will be, in part, speculative; although I hope it is grounded in other explicit features of the text. I hope it is granted to me that (iv) is not just a hypothetical possibility, but, in fact, one that would occur naturally in the circumstances envisioned by Socrates.
First, those belonging to (iv) cannot be members of the true city because while they are in need, they cannot in Socrates' sense be part of a reciprocal relationship.* Second, the text is absolutely explicit that the city of pigs does not generate surplus. Rather when they have potential surplus they let population grow. They practice, in fact, a form of population control (using Reeve's translation): "they will produce no more children than their resources allow, lest they fall into either poverty or war." This requires considerable collective agency and rationality, and non-trivial foresight about harvest. To use the language of Malthus, they have a moral check in advance of famine.
Second, now it's possible that we are supposed to assume tacitly that the true city maintains a surplus for those that can't contribute to the economy. But it is notable that other regarding benevolent emotions are not mentioned. It would also be odd if they were mentioned because such sympathy is absent in Thrasymachus's account and clearly absent in the description of (recall) the social contract provided by Glaucon. Since Socrates is supposed to meet the challenge posed by them he is not allowed to assume benevolent sympathy without elaboration.+
Third, so, if this is not a mere oversight, that leaves two options: enforced exile or infanticide. I don't think (but would like) there is evidence of the former. But there is evidence of the latter. As we have seen, the true city explicitly practices population control. What I now think is that this is also meant to be eugenic. So, I fear the city of pigs probably anticipates (recall) the Kallipolis's practice of infanticide. There the weak bodied are left to die (i.e., exposed) and those naturally disposed toward vice are killed(410a; see also 461c). In so far as both the true city and Kallipolis instantiate a species of justice, this makes sense.
There is a sense in which the egalitarianism of the true city has now been made more realistic. For, after all, the history of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries suggests that self-governing polities that tend to sustain considerable equality, and understand themselves in terms of the contributions of each, do tend to restrict immigration and have eugenic practices.** One may say that the true city anticipates a non-trivial strain in republican thought.
*What about children? Yeah, somehow Socrates assumes able-bodied adults here but note the rest of the paragraph.
+He is allowed to assume competitive emulation, so there are other regarding emotions.
**Of course, wildly anti-egalitarian societies also did these things! So, I don't mean to suggest they are uniquely so disposed.
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