Book II, 1260b–1264a

1260b27Since we propose to examine the political community, asking which is best of all for those able to live as nearly as possible according to their wishes, we must also investigate the other constitutions,30 both those employed by cities said to be well governed and any others proposed by particular thinkers and thought to be sound. In this way we may see what is right and useful; and our search for something different from these will not seem merely the work of people eager to display their ingenuity. Rather, because they are not35 sound as they now exist, we may be seen to have undertaken this inquiry for that reason. We must first begin where this investigation naturally begins. For the citizens must share either everything, or nothing, or some things but not others. That they should share nothing is plainly40 impossible: the constitution is a kind of community, and they must first share a place. For the territory is one for1261a1 a single city,

the citizens being partners in that one city. But is it better for a city that is to be well ordered to share everything that can be shared, or to share some things but not others? For citizens can have children and women1261a5 and property in common with one another, as in Plato's Republic. There Socrates says that children, women, and property should be held in common. Which arrangement, then, is better: the present one, or that prescribed by the law written in the Republic?

1261a10Having women common to everyone presents many other difficulties, and the reason Socrates gives for legislating in this way does not appear to follow from his arguments. Further, the end he says the city should possess is impossible as it is now stated; and how it should be qualified has not been defined.15 I mean his claim that it is best for the whole city to be as nearly one as possible: this is the assumption Socrates adopts. Yet it is evident that, as it advances and becomes more and more one, it will cease even to be a city. For a city is by nature a plurality, and as it becomes more nearly one, from a city a household, and from a household a person,20 will arise. We would call a household more nearly one than a city, and an individual more nearly one than a household. Thus, even if someone could bring this about, he should not do it, since he would destroy the city.

A city consists not merely of several human beings, but also of human beings differing in kind. A city does not arise from people who are alike. For there is a difference between an alliance1261a25 and a city. The former is useful through its numbers, even if its members are of the same kind, since an alliance naturally exists for mutual assistance, just as a heavier weight tips the balance more. But the elements from which a unity is to arise must differ in kind. In this respect a city will also differ from a nation,30 when its population is not dispersed among villages, but is like the Arcadians. For this reason reciprocal equality preserves cities, as was said earlier in the Ethics. Even among people who are free and equal, this must be so. For all cannot rule at once, but only for a year at a time, or according to some other arrangement or period. This comes about35 in such a way that all rule, just as if shoemakers and carpenters exchanged occupations, rather than the same people always remaining shoemakers and carpenters. Since it is better for things to be arranged in the latter way in the political community too, it is clear that the same people should always rule, if possible. But where this is impossible because in1261b1 nature all are equal,

and at the same time it is just for all to share in rule, whether ruling is a good or a bad thing, this arrangement at least imitates differences among those out of office: equals yield to one another in turn. For some rule and others are ruled in succession,1261b5 as though they had become different people. In the same way, different rulers hold different offices. From this it is clear that the city is not by nature one in the way some people say, and that what has been described as the greatest good for cities destroys them. Yet the good of each thing preserves it.10 It is also clear in another way that seeking to make the city excessively one is not better. A household is more self-sufficient than an individual, and a city than a household; indeed, it seeks to be a city only when the community of its people comes to be self-sufficient. If, then, what is more self-sufficient is more desirable, being less one rather than15 more one is also more desirable.

But even if this is best—that the community should be as nearly one as possible—not even this appears to be established by the argument that everyone should say "mine" and "not mine" together. For Socrates thinks this a sign that the1261b20 city is completely one. But "everyone" has two meanings. If it means each individual, this would perhaps be closer to what Socrates wishes to achieve: each will call the same person his own son, and likewise the same woman his own wife, and will speak in the same way about property and each of the things that fall to him. As it is, they will not speak in this way,25 those who share women and children: all will do so, but not each individually. Likewise with property: all will do so, but not each individually. It is clear, then, that saying "everyone" involves a fallacy. For "all" and "both," and "odd" and "even," through their ambiguity also30 produce contentious inferences in arguments. Hence everyone's saying the same thing is admirable in one sense, but impossible; in the other, it does nothing to produce concord. Besides, the proposal has another harmful consequence. What is common to the greatest number receives the least care. People care most for what is their own; for what is common,35 less, or only to the extent that it falls to each of them. For, apart from other considerations, they neglect it more because they think someone else is looking after it, just as in household service many servants sometimes perform their duties worse than fewer do. Each citizen comes to have a thousand sons; these are not sons of each individual, but any one of them, to any citizen,1262a1 is equally a son.

Thus all will neglect them equally.

Further, each says "mine" of whichever citizen is prospering or faring badly, whatever his number may be, saying "mine" or "so-and-so's" in this way of each of the thousand, or however many the1262a5 city contains; and even this he says doubtfully. For it is unclear to whom a child happened to be born, and whether it survived after birth. Yet is it better for each to say "mine" in this way, when two thousand or ten thousand call the same person "mine," or rather as people in cities now say "mine"? For one, he is his own son; for another, his own brother:10 they give these names to the same person. Another calls him his cousin, or gives him some other name of kinship, whether by blood or by family connection and marriage, relating him first to himself or to his relatives. Besides these, another calls him a member of his brotherhood or tribe. It is better to be someone's own cousin than a son in this way. Moreover, it is not even possible to prevent some people from15 supposing that particular people are their own brothers, children, fathers, and mothers. For the resemblances children bear to those who begot them must give grounds for recognizing one another. Some writers on the circuits of the earth say that this actually happens: among certain20 Libyans of the interior, women are shared, but the children born to them are assigned according to their resemblances. Some women, and females of other animals, such as mares and cows, are naturally very likely to produce offspring resembling their parents, as did the mare in Pharsalus called Dicaea.

1262a25Further, those who establish this community cannot easily guard against such difficulties as assaults, unintentional and intentional killings, fights, and abusive speech. None of these is holy when committed against fathers, mothers, and close relatives, as it is against those more distantly related.30 Such things must occur more often when people do not know their relatives than when they do; and when they occur, the customary acts of expiation are possible where the relationship is known, but none is possible where it is not. It is also absurd to make sons common and then forbid lovers only sexual intercourse, without prohibiting love or intimacies35 of other kinds that are utterly unfitting between father and son or brother and brother, since even love alone is unfitting. It is also absurd to forbid intercourse for no other reason than the excessive intensity of the pleasure, and to think that its occurring between father and son or between brothers40 makes no difference.

Sharing women and children seems more useful for the farmers1262b1 than for the guardians.

For there will be less friendship when children and women are held in common, and the ruled should be of this sort if they are to obey and not seek revolution. In general, such a law must produce the opposite of what properly1262b5 established laws should bring about, and of the reason Socrates thinks arrangements for children and women should be made in this way. For we consider friendship the greatest of goods for cities, since it would leave them least prone to faction; and Socrates praises above all the city's being one,10 which seems, and which he too says, to be the work of friendship. So we know Aristophanes says in the discourses on love that lovers, through their intense affection, desire to grow together and, from being two, both become one. In that case, both would necessarily perish, or one of them;15 but in the city friendship must become diluted through such a community, and a son will scarcely say "my father," or a father "my son." Just as a little sweetness mixed into much water makes the mixture imperceptible, so too does this happen to the kinship people feel for one another through names20 of this kind. In such a constitution, a father must care very little for his sons, a son for his father, or brothers for one another. For two things above all make people care and feel affection: that something is their own, and that it is dear to them. Neither can belong to people who take part in public life in this way. Moreover,25 the transfer of children born to farmers and craftsmen into the guardians, and of children born to guardians into the other groups, raises great confusion as to how it is to be done. Those who give and transfer children must know whom they are giving to whom. Further, the things mentioned earlier, still more often,30 must occur among these people—assaults, love affairs, killings. For those given to the other citizens will no longer call the guardians brothers, children, fathers, and mothers; nor, conversely, will those among the guardians call the other citizens by these names, so as to avoid committing any such act because of their35 kinship.

Let this, then, be our determination concerning the sharing of children and women.

The next question is property: how should it be arranged for those who are to take part in public life under the best constitution? Common or not common—1262b40 which should property be? One might examine this separately from the legislation concerning children and women.

I mean,1263a1 concerning property, whether, even if children and women belong to separate families, as they now do everywhere, it is better for property and its use to be common. For example, should the plots of land be separate, but the produce be brought into a common stock and consumed, as some5 nations do? Or should the reverse hold: the land be common and farmed in common, but the produce divided for private use, as some non-Greek peoples are also said to share it? Or should both the plots and the produce be common? If the farmers are other people, the arrangement would be different and10 easier; but if the citizens themselves labor on their own property, it would present more difficulties. For when they are not equal but unequal in enjoyment and in work, accusations must arise against those who enjoy or receive much but work little, on the part of those who receive less15 but work more. In general, living together and sharing all human affairs is difficult, especially affairs of this kind. The associations of fellow travelers show this: most of them fall out, coming into conflict with one another over everyday matters and trifles. Further, among servants, most of all20 we clash with those we employ most often for ordinary duties.

Common ownership of property, then, presents these and other such difficulties. But the present arrangement, embellished by customs and an order of right laws, would be greatly superior. For it will have the good of both arrangements:1263a25 by both I mean common and private ownership of property. For property should be common in a certain sense, but in general private. When responsibilities are divided, they will not give rise to accusations against one another, and will lead to greater improvement, since each person attends to what is his own. Through virtue, however, in its use,30 "Friends' possessions are common," as the proverb says. Even now this arrangement is sketched out in some cities, showing that it is not impossible; and especially in well-ordered cities some of it exists already, while the rest could come about. For each person, while having his own private property, makes some of it available to friends and uses other things35 in common. In Lacedaemon, for example, they use one another's slaves almost as their own, and also horses and dogs, and, if they need provisions, the produce of farms throughout the country. It is clear, then, that it is better for property to be private, but to make its use common. To make people like this is the lawgiver's40 special task. Further, the pleasure of regarding something as one's own makes an indescribable difference.

For surely it is not without purpose that toward1263b1 himself each person feels affection; this is natural. Selfishness, however, is rightly censured. It is not loving oneself, but loving oneself more than one should, just as with the love of money; for practically everyone loves5 each of these things. Moreover, it is most pleasant to do favors and give help to friends, guests, or companions, and this is possible when property is private. These things do not occur for those who make the city excessively one; and besides, they plainly abolish the acts of two virtues: temperance in relation to women10 —for it is a noble act to refrain through temperance from another man's wife—and generosity in relation to property. For no one will be seen to be generous, nor will he perform any generous act, since the work of generosity lies in the use of property.

1263b15Such legislation, then, has a pleasing appearance and might seem humane. Whoever hears it gladly accepts it, thinking that a marvelous friendship will exist between everyone and everyone else, especially when someone denounces the evils now present in constitutions as arising because20 property is not common. I mean lawsuits against one another over contracts, trials for false testimony, and flattery of the rich. None of these arises from the absence of common ownership, but from wickedness. Indeed, we see that those who own property in common and share it quarrel much more than those who hold separately25 their property. But we see few people quarreling over partnerships, compared with the many who own their property privately. Further, it is just to mention not only how many evils they will lose by sharing, but also how many goods. Such a life appears utterly impossible.

The cause1263b30 of Socrates' error must be taken to be the incorrectness of his assumption. Both the household and the city must be one in a certain sense, but not in every sense. For there is a point at which, if it advances further, it will cease to be a city; and another at which it will still be a city, but a worse one, because it is close to ceasing to be a city. It is as though someone made35 a harmony into a unison, or a rhythm into a single beat. Rather, since it is a plurality, as was said earlier, it must be made a community and a unity through education. It is absurd that someone intending to introduce education, and thinking it will make the city good, should suppose he can put it right by such measures rather than by40 customs, philosophy, and laws, as, through the common messes in Lacedaemon and Crete, the1264a1 lawgiver made property common.

1260b27We have chosen to study the political community and ask which kind is best of all for people who can live as nearly as possible as they wish. So we must also examine other constitutions,30 both those used by cities said to have good laws and any others proposed by people and thought to be sound. This will let us see what is right and useful in them. It will also show that our search for something different isn't simply an attempt to be clever. Rather, because they aren't35 sound as they now exist, we seem to have undertaken this inquiry. We should first start at the natural starting point for this investigation. The citizens must share either everything, nothing, or some things but not others. Sharing nothing is clearly40 impossible. A constitution is a kind of community, and people must first share a place. There is one territory for1261a1 a single city,

and its citizens share that single city. But should a city that is to be well run share everything that can be shared? Or is it better to share some things but not others? Citizens can have children and wives1261a5 and property in common with one another, as in Plato's Republic. There Socrates says that children, wives, and property should be held in common. Is it better, then, to have things as they are now, or according to the law set out in the Republic?

1261a10Having wives shared by everyone presents many other difficulties. And the reason Socrates gives for making this law doesn't seem to follow from his arguments. Also, the goal he says the city should have is impossible as he now states it. He hasn't explained at all how we should qualify it.15 I mean the claim that it is best for the whole city to be as completely one as possible. Socrates takes this as his starting assumption. Yet clearly, as a city goes on becoming more and more one, it will no longer even be a city. A city is by nature a collection of people. As it becomes more one, a household from a city, and a person from a household,20 will emerge. We would say that a household is more of a unit than a city, and a single person more than a household. So even if someone could do this, they shouldn't. They would destroy the city.

A city is made up not just of several people but of people different in kind. People who are all alike don't form a city. An alliance is different1261a25 from a city. An alliance is useful because of its numbers, even if its members are all the same kind. Its natural purpose is mutual help, just as a greater weight would pull down more. But the people who are to form a single whole must differ in kind. In this respect a city also differs from a nation,30 when its people aren't scattered in villages but live like the Arcadians. This is why equality through give-and-take preserves cities, as we said earlier in the Ethics. Even among free and equal people this is necessary. They can't all rule at once, but must take turns yearly or by some other arrangement or period of time. This happens35 in such a way that everyone gets to rule. It is as if shoemakers and carpenters changed places instead of the same people always being shoemakers and carpenters. Since it is better for things to stay that way, the same applies to the political community: clearly, it is better for the same people always to rule, if possible. But where this isn't possible because in1261b1 nature everyone is equal,

it is also just for everyone to share in rule, whether ruling is good or bad. Equals taking turns and giving way imitates the situation where people are unlike outside office. Some rule and others are ruled in turn,1261b5 as though they had become different people. In the same way, different rulers hold different offices. These points make it clear that a city isn't by nature one in the way some people say. What is described as the greatest good for cities destroys them. Yet what is good for each thing preserves it.10 There is another way to see that trying to make the city too much of a unit isn't better. A household is more self-sufficient than one person, and a city more than a household. A city only really comes into being when the community of many people becomes self-sufficient. So if greater self-sufficiency is more desirable, being less of a unit rather than15 more of one is also more desirable.

But even if it is best for a community to be as completely one as possible, the argument doesn't seem to prove this by having everyone say "mine" and "not mine" at the same time. Socrates thinks this is a sign that the1261b20 city is completely one. But "everyone" has two meanings. If it means each person individually, that might come closer to what Socrates wants to achieve. Each person will call the same boy his son and the same woman his wife. The same goes for property and for each thing that happens. But they won't speak this way,25 the people who share wives and children. All of them will, but not each individually. Likewise, all will call the property theirs, but not each individually. So clearly, saying "everyone" involves a false inference. Because they have two meanings, "all" and "both," as well as "odd" and "even,"30 produce misleading arguments even in discussions. So having everyone say the same thing is good but impossible in one sense, and does nothing to produce agreement in the other. Besides, the proposal has another disadvantage. What is shared by the most people gets the least care. People care most about their own things. About common things they care35 less, or only as much as falls to their share. Among other reasons, they neglect them more because they think someone else is looking after them. In household service, too, many servants sometimes do a worse job than fewer. Each citizen will have a thousand sons. These won't be his individually. Instead, any one of them, to any citizen,1262a1 will equally be a son.

So everyone will neglect them equally.

Also, each person will call a citizen who is doing well or badly "mine" in this way, whatever number he happens to be: "mine" or "so-and-so's." He will speak this way about each of the thousand, or however many people the1262a5 city has, and even then with doubt. For it is unclear who happened to have a child and whose child survived after birth. Is it really better for each person to say "mine" in this way, with two thousand or ten thousand calling the same person "mine"? Or is it better to use "mine" as people now do in cities? For one, he is a son; for another, a brother:10 they give these names to the same person. Another calls him a cousin, or uses some other relationship by blood or by connection and marriage, either his own or that of his relatives. Besides these, someone else calls him a member of his brotherhood or tribe. It is better to be someone's own cousin than a son in this way. Still, it isn't even possible to prevent some people from15 suspecting that others are their brothers, children, fathers, or mothers. The resemblances children have to those who gave birth to them will necessarily give people grounds for believing they are related. Some people who write descriptions of the earth say that this actually happens. Among some20 peoples of inland Libya, they say, wives are shared, but the children born are assigned by their resemblances. There are also some women, and females of other animals, such as horses and cattle, who naturally produce offspring very like their parents. One example is the mare at Pharsalus called Dicaea.

1262a25Also, people setting up this kind of community can't easily guard against problems such as assaults, accidental and deliberate killings, fights, and insults. None of these is religiously permissible when directed against fathers, mothers, and close relatives in the way it is against people more distantly related.30 These things will necessarily happen more often among people who don't know their relatives than among those who do. When they happen among those who do know, the customary acts of atonement are possible. Among those who don't, none is possible. It is also strange to make sons common and ban only sexual intercourse between lovers, without banning love or forms of intimacy35 of other kinds that are most inappropriate of all between father and son or brother and brother. Even love alone is inappropriate. It is strange, too, to ban intercourse for no other reason than the excessive strength of the pleasure it produces, while thinking that one person being a father or son, or the two being brothers,40 makes no difference.

Sharing wives and children seems more useful for the farmers1262b1 than for the guardians.

There will be less friendship when children and wives are shared. The ruled need to be like this if they are to obey and not start revolutions. Overall, a law of this kind must produce the opposite of what1262b5 well-made laws should produce, and the opposite of the reason Socrates thinks children and wives should be organized this way. We think friendship is the greatest good for cities, since it would leave them least likely to fall into faction. Socrates especially praises the city's being one,10 which seems to be the work of friendship, as he himself says. We know that Aristophanes says in the speeches about love that lovers, because they love so strongly, want to grow together and become one instead of two. In that case, both or one of them must be destroyed.15 But in the city, friendship must become watered down through this kind of sharing. A son will be least likely to call someone "my father," or a father "my son." A little sweetness mixed into a great deal of water makes its taste impossible to notice. The same happens to the family connection people have with one another through names20 of this kind. In this sort of constitution a father must care least for people as his sons, or a son for someone as his father, or brothers for one another. Two things above all make people care and love: something's being their own and something's being dear to them. Neither can belong to people living under such a constitution. Furthermore,25 there is great difficulty over how to transfer the children born—some from the farmers and craftsmen to the guardians, and others from the guardians to them. Those who give up and transfer the children must know which children they are giving to whom. Also, the things mentioned earlier, even more often,30 are bound to happen among these people: assaults, love affairs, and killings. Those given to the other citizens will no longer call the guardians brothers, children, fathers, or mothers. Likewise, those among the guardians won't call the other citizens these names, and so won't guard against doing such things because of their35 relationship.

Let this, then, settle our discussion of sharing children and wives.

The next thing to examine is property. How should it be arranged for people who are to live under the best constitution? Common or not common—1262b40 which should property be? We could study this separately from the laws about children and wives.

I mean,1263a1 should property and its use be shared, even if wives and children are separate, as they now are everywhere? For example, the plots of land might be separate, but their produce brought into a common stock for consumption. Some5 nations do this. Or the reverse: the land might be common and farmed jointly, but the produce divided up for private use. Some non-Greek peoples are said to share in this way too. Or both the plots and their produce might be common. If others do the farming, the arrangement would be different and10 easier. But if the citizens work for themselves, the property arrangements would cause more difficulties. If their shares in both the benefits and the work aren't equal but unequal, those who enjoy or receive much but work little will inevitably face complaints from those who receive less15 and work more. In general, living together and sharing all human affairs is difficult, especially affairs of this kind. Groups traveling together show this. Most of them fall out over everyday matters and annoy one another over little things. Also, among servants, most of all20 we clash with those we use most for routine services.

So common property has these and other similar difficulties. The present arrangement, improved by good habits and a system of sound laws, would be far better. It would have the good of both arrangements:1263a25 I mean the good of common property and the good of private property. Property should be common in one sense, but private overall. When responsibilities are divided, they won't cause complaints against one another. Things will improve more, because each person attends to what is their own. But virtue will make its use30 common, as the saying goes, "Friends' things are shared." This arrangement is already sketched out in some cities, showing that it isn't impossible. Especially in well-run cities, some of it already exists and some could come about. Each person has private property, but makes some of it available to friends and uses other things35 in common. In Lacedaemon, for example, they use one another's slaves as practically their own, as well as horses and dogs. If they need provisions, they also use those in the fields throughout the country. Clearly, then, it is better for property to be private but made common in use. Making people like this is the lawgiver's40 particular job. Also, the pleasure of thinking that something is your own makes an indescribably great difference.

Surely it isn't pointless to direct toward1263b1 oneself the love each person feels. This is natural. Selfishness is rightly criticized. But this isn't loving yourself. It is loving yourself more than you should, just as with loving money. Practically everyone loves5 each of these things. Also, doing favors and helping friends, guests, or companions is very pleasant. This becomes possible when property is private. People who make the city too much of a unit miss out on these things. Besides, they plainly do away with the acts of two virtues. One is self-control in relation to women:10 it is a noble act to hold back from another man's wife through self-control. The other is generosity in relation to property. No one will be seen to be generous or do any generous act. Generosity's work lies in the use of property.

1263b15This kind of legislation looks attractive and might seem humane. A listener welcomes it gladly, thinking it will bring about an extraordinary friendship of everyone toward everyone. This is especially so when someone blames the evils now found in constitutions on property not being20 shared. I mean lawsuits against one another over contracts, trials for false testimony, and flattery of the rich. None of these comes from a lack of sharing. They come from wickedness. We see people who own and share property in common disagreeing far more than those who hold separately25 their property. But we notice only a few people quarreling over shared property, comparing them with the many who own private property. Also, it is only fair to mention not just the evils people will lose by sharing, but the good things too. This life seems quite impossible.

The cause1263b30 of Socrates' error must be seen as his mistaken assumption. Both a household and a city must be one in some way, but not completely. As it goes on becoming one, in one sense it will cease to be a city. In another it will still be a city, but a worse one because it is close to no longer being a city. It would be like turning a35 harmony into a single note, or a rhythm into a single beat. Instead, as we said earlier, a city is a collection of people and must be made into a shared unit through education. It is strange that someone who plans to introduce education, and thinks it will make the city good, should think these measures will put it right, rather than40 habits, philosophy, and laws. In Lacedaemon and Crete, for example, property, through common meals,1264a1 was made common by the lawgiver.