Book VIII, 552–559

552a “And is it right, do you think, that the same people in such a constitution should both make money and wage war?”

“Not in the least.”

“Consider, then, whether this constitution is the first to admit what may be the greatest of all these evils.”

“What evil?”

“That a person may sell everything he owns, and another may acquire it all, while the seller goes on living in the city without belonging to any part of it: neither businessman nor craftsman, neither cavalryman nor infantryman, but a man called poor and destitute. 552b”

“It is the first,” he said.

“Such a thing is certainly not prevented in oligarchies. Otherwise some people would not be immensely rich and others utterly poor.”

“True.”

“Consider this too. While such a man was rich and spending his wealth, was he of any greater use to the city in the respects we have just discussed? Or did he merely seem to be one of its rulers, while in truth he was neither a ruler nor a servant of the city, but a consumer of its stores?”

“552c Exactly,” he said. “He seemed to be a ruler, but was nothing more than a consumer.”

“Shall we say, then, that just as a drone arises in a honeycomb, a disease of the swarm, so such a man arises in a household, a drone and a disease of the city?”

“By all means, Socrates,” he said.

“Now, Adeimantus, has the god made all winged drones stingless, while of these walking drones he has made some stingless and others furnished with terrible stings? The stingless ones end their lives as beggars in old age, while from the stinging ones come all those we call criminals. 552d”

“That is absolutely true,” he said.

“It is clear, then,” I said, “that wherever you see beggars in a city, somewhere in that same place thieves and pickpockets, temple robbers and practitioners of every such crime lie hidden.”

“Clearly,” he said.

“Well, then, do you not see beggars in oligarchic cities?”

“Nearly everyone outside the ruling class,” he said.

“552e Should we not suppose, then, that these cities also contain many criminals with stings, whom the authorities forcibly keep in check by vigilance?”

“We certainly should,” he said.

“And shall we not say that their appearance there is due to lack of education, poor upbringing, and the constitution of the city?”

“We shall.”

“Such, at any rate, would an oligarchic city be, harboring so many evils, and perhaps more besides.”

“Very likely,” he said.

553a “Let us regard this constitution too as fully described,” I said, “the one they call oligarchy, whose rulers are appointed on the basis of property assessments. Next let us examine the man who resembles it: how he comes into being and what he is like once formed.”

“Certainly,” he said.

“Does he turn from that timocratic man into an oligarchic one chiefly in this way?”

“How?”

“When the timocratic man has a son, the boy at first admires his father and follows in his footsteps. Then he sees him suddenly 553b strike the city like a ship striking a reef, and spill both his fortune and himself: perhaps he has been a general or held some other high office, only to be brought before a court, [injured] by informers, and either put to death, exiled, or stripped of his civic rights and all his property.”

“That is likely,” he said.

“When the son has seen and suffered this, my friend, and has lost his possessions, fear, I think, makes him thrust ambition and that spirited part of himself headlong from the throne 553c in his soul. Humbled by poverty, he turns to moneymaking, and by hard, patient saving and labor gradually gathers wealth. Do you not think he then seats the appetitive, money-loving part on that throne, makes it a great king within himself, and equips it with tiaras and necklaces and a Persian sword?”

“I do,” he said. 553d

“And I think he makes reason and spirit sit on the ground on either side of it, subject to its rule. Reason is allowed to calculate and consider nothing except how a smaller sum may become a larger one. Spirit is allowed to admire and honor nothing but wealth and the wealthy, and to set its ambition on nothing but acquiring money, or anything else that leads to money.”

“There is no change so swift or so powerful,” he said, “as the change from an honor-loving young man into a lover of money.”

“553e Is this, then,” I said, “the oligarchic man?”

“At least his transformation begins with a man resembling the constitution from which oligarchy itself arose.”

“Let us see, then, whether he resembles it.”

554a “Let us.”

“Would he not resemble it, first, in setting the highest value on money?”

“Of course.”

“And also in being thrifty and industrious, satisfying only his necessary desires and refusing any other expenditure, while subduing all his other desires as vain.”

“Certainly.”

“A shabby fellow,” I said, “who finds a surplus in everything, a man who hoards treasure—the sort the crowd praises 554b—would he not be the man who resembles this constitution?”

“I think so,” he said. “Money, at any rate, receives the highest honor both in the city and with such a man.”

“For I do not think,” I said, “that such a man has given his attention to education.”

“I think not,” he said. “Otherwise he would not have appointed a blind leader for the chorus and honored him above all.”

“Well said,” I replied. “But consider this: should we say that, because he lacks education, drone-like desires arise in him, some beggarly 554c and others criminal, held down by force through his concern for everything else?”

“Certainly,” he said.

“Do you know,” I asked, “where to look to discover their criminal character?”

“Where?” he asked.

“At the way they act as guardians of orphans, and at any other opportunity that gives them ample license to act unjustly.”

“True.”

“Does this not make it clear that in his other dealings, where he enjoys a good reputation and appears just, such a man restrains the other wicked desires within him by applying a certain decent 554d sort of force? He does not convince them that wrongdoing is no better, nor tame them with reason, but uses compulsion and fear, trembling for the rest of his property.”

“Indeed he does,” he said.

“And by Zeus, my friend,” I said, “in most of them you will find desires akin to the drone’s when they have the chance to spend someone else’s money.”

“Most certainly,” he said.

“Such a man, then, would not be free of civil strife within himself, nor one man but somehow two; generally his better desires would master the worse. 554e”

“That is so.”

“For that reason, I imagine, he would be more respectable than many others. But the true virtue of a soul in harmony and at peace with itself would remain far beyond his reach.”

“I agree.”

“And indeed, in a city the thrifty man makes a poor private competitor 555a for victory or any other honorable distinction. He is unwilling to spend money for reputation or such contests, for fear of rousing his wasteful desires and calling them to his aid in the rivalry. He fights with only a few of his own forces, as an oligarch would, and generally loses, while growing rich.”

“Exactly,” he said.

“Do we still doubt,” I asked, “that the thrifty moneymaker has his counterpart 555b in an oligarchic city?”

“Not at all,” he said.

“Next, it seems, we must examine democracy: how it arises and what it is like once established. Then we can learn the character of its corresponding man and bring him before us for judgment.”

“That would keep us on the same course,” he said.

“Does the change from oligarchy to democracy occur something like this,” I said, “through an insatiable pursuit of its chosen good, the demand that one become as rich as possible?”

“How so? 555c”

“Since the rulers in an oligarchy rule because they possess much wealth, they are unwilling, I think, to forbid by law the young men who grow undisciplined to spend and ruin their own estates. They want to buy up their property and lend them money, and so become richer and more honored still.”

“More than anything,” he said.

“Is it not already clear that a city cannot honor wealth while its citizens adequately cultivate moderation 555d at the same time? They must neglect one or the other.”

“That is clear enough,” he said.

“By neglecting moderation and allowing extravagance, oligarchies have sometimes forced men of no ignoble birth into poverty.”

“Indeed.”

“There they sit in the city, I suppose, armed and bearing stings, some in debt, some stripped of civic rights, and some burdened with both. They hate and plot against those who acquired their property and against others as well, longing for revolution. 555e”

“That is so.”

“Meanwhile the moneymakers keep their heads down and pretend not to see them. They inject their money into each of the rest who yields to them, wounding them, and 556a collect interest many times greater than the parent sum, breeding a great multitude of drones and beggars in the city.”

“How could they fail to breed many?” he said.

“And though this evil is catching fire, they refuse to put it out in either of two ways: by forbidding people to dispose of their own property however they like, or by another law that would resolve such matters differently.”

“What law?”

“The second law after that one, which compels citizens to care about virtue. For if most voluntary contracts were ordered to be made 556b at the lender’s own risk, people would pursue profit in the city with less shamelessness, and fewer of the evils we have just described would spring up in it.”

“Far fewer,” he said.

“As things stand,” I said, “for all these reasons the rulers put their subjects in this condition. And as for themselves and their own households—do they not raise their young in luxury, idle and untrained in body and 556c soul, too soft to withstand either pleasure or pain, and averse to work?”

“Certainly.”

“And have they themselves neglected everything but moneymaking, devoting no more care to virtue than the poor?”

“None at all.”

“Thus prepared, rulers and subjects meet one another on journeys or in other associations, at festivals or on military campaigns, as shipmates or fellow soldiers. Or they watch one another 556d in the midst of actual danger. And in none of these situations do the rich have cause to despise the poor. Rather, when a lean, sunburned poor man stands beside a rich man in battle, one raised in the shade and burdened with superfluous flesh, and sees him gasping and at a loss, do you not think he concludes that men like these owe their wealth to the poor men’s own cowardice? And when the poor meet in private, does one not say to another, ‘These men are ours 556e for the taking; they are nothing’?”

“I know very well,” he said, “that this is what they do.”

“Now, just as a sickly body needs only a slight push from outside to fall ill, and sometimes without any outside influence is at war with itself, so a city in the same condition needs only a slight pretext to grow sick and fight itself. Either party may bring in allies from outside, one from an oligarchic city, the other from a democracy; and sometimes it breaks into civil strife even without outside help.”

557a “Very much so.”

“Democracy, I think, comes into being when the poor are victorious, kill some of the opposing party and exile others, then grant the rest an equal share in citizenship and public office. And offices in such a city are generally assigned by lot.”

“Yes,” he said, “that is how democracy is established, whether it comes about by force of arms or by the other party’s withdrawal in fear.”

“How, then,” I asked, “do these people live? And what sort of constitution 557b is this in turn? Plainly the man who corresponds to it will prove to be democratic.”

“Plainly,” he said.

“First of all, are they not free? Does the city not fill with freedom and freedom of speech, with license for everyone to do as he wishes?”

“So they say,” he replied.

“And where there is such license, clearly each person can arrange his own way of life in whatever fashion pleases him.”

“Clearly. 557c”

“Then people of every kind would arise in this constitution more than in any other, I think.”

“How could they not?”

“It seems,” I said, “that this may be the most beautiful of constitutions. Like a richly patterned cloak embroidered with every flower, it would appear most beautiful in its embroidery of every kind of character. Perhaps,” I went on, “many people would judge it the most beautiful, just as children and women judge the patterned things they look at.”

“Indeed,” he said. 557d

“And, my fortunate friend,” I said, “it is a convenient place in which to look for a constitution.”

“Why?”

“Because, thanks to its license, it contains every kind of constitution. Anyone who wants to found a city, as we have just done, must, it seems, go to a democratic city and choose the arrangement he likes, as if arriving at a marketplace of constitutions, and after choosing, establish his city accordingly. 557e”

“He would not be short of models, at least,” he said.

“And the fact that there is no compulsion in this city to rule, even if you are capable of it, or to be ruled if you do not want to be; no need to go to war when others go to war, or to keep the peace when others do, unless you yourself desire peace; and even if a law prohibits you from ruling or serving as a judge, you may nevertheless 558a rule or judge whenever the fancy takes you—is not such a life heavenly and delightful, for the moment?”

“Perhaps, for the moment,” he said.

“And is not the gentleness shown to some convicted criminals charming? Have you never seen men sentenced to death or exile in such a constitution remaining among the people and moving about openly? As though no one cared or noticed, the man roams around like a hero.”

“I have seen many,” he said.

“558b And what of the indulgence of democracy, its complete freedom from pettiness, its contempt for what we solemnly insisted upon when founding our city? We said that unless a man had a nature of surpassing excellence, he could never become good unless, from childhood, he played among beautiful things and practiced everything of that kind. With what magnificence democracy tramples all this underfoot! It pays no attention to the pursuits a man has followed before entering politics, but honors him 558c if he merely claims to be well disposed toward the people.”

“A very noble attitude indeed,” he said.

“These, then,” I said, “would be its qualities, along with others of the same family. It seems a delightful constitution, without rulers and full of variety, distributing a sort of equality equally to equals and unequals alike.”

“You describe it well,” he said.

“Now consider,” I said, “what its corresponding man is like as an individual. Or should we first examine, as we did with the constitution, how he comes into being?”

“Yes,” he said.

“Would it not happen this way? The thrifty oligarchic man 558d would have a son, I imagine, raised by his father in his father’s habits.”

“Why not?”

“So the son too would forcibly master the pleasures within him that cost money but bring none in—the pleasures called unnecessary.”

“Clearly,” he said.

“Then shall we first define necessary and unnecessary desires, so that our discussion will not remain obscure?”

“Let us,” he said.

“Would it not be right to call necessary both those desires we cannot turn aside 558e and those whose fulfillment benefits us? Our nature must pursue both sorts. Is that not so?”

“Certainly.”

559a “Then we shall rightly call them necessary.”

“Rightly.”

“And what of desires a person could rid himself of if he practiced doing so from youth, whose presence accomplishes nothing good, and some of which do the opposite? If we called all these unnecessary, would we not be right?”

“Quite right.”

“Shall we select an example of each, to grasp them in outline?”

“Yes, we should.”

“Would the desire for food, bread and other fare, up to what health and good condition require 559b, not be necessary?”

“I think so.”

“The desire for bread is necessary on both counts: it does us good, and no living person can put an end to it.”

“Yes.”

“And the desire for other fare is necessary insofar as it affords some benefit for good bodily condition.”

“Certainly.”

“But what of the desire that goes beyond these things to other foods and delicacies? If training and discipline from youth could remove it from most people, and if it harms the body and harms the soul in its wisdom and moderation, 559c would it not rightly be called unnecessary?”

“Most rightly.”

“Shall we also call these desires wasteful, and the others profitable, because they help us in our work?”

“Of course.”

“And shall we say the same about sexual pleasures and the rest?”

“Yes.”

“Now, was the man we called a drone a moment ago the one filled with such pleasures and desires and ruled 559d by the unnecessary ones, while the man ruled by necessary desires was thrifty and oligarchic?”

“Precisely.”

“Let us return, then,” I said, “to how a democratic man grows from an oligarchic one. It seems to me that in most cases it happens as follows.”

“How?”

“When a young man brought up, as we just described, without education and in thrift, tastes the honey of drones and falls in with fierce and formidable creatures who know how to provide pleasures of every kind, varied in every possible way, there, you may be sure, 559e begins his change from the oligarchy within him to democracy.”

“It must be so,” he said.

“And just as the city changed when outside allies came to the aid of one party, like assisting like, does the young man change when desires of an outside sort come to the aid of one faction of his desires, kindred to it and like it?”

“Exactly.”

“And if, I think, some allied force comes in turn to aid the oligarchic element within him, perhaps from his father or from his other

552a “And in a city like that, is it right for the same people to make money and fight its wars?”“Not at all.”“Now look at all its troubles. See whether this is the worst one it is the first to allow.”“What is that?”“A person can sell everything he owns, and someone else can buy it all. After selling it, he can go on living in the city without belonging to any part of it. He is neither a businessman nor a craftsman nor a cavalryman nor an infantryman. He is simply called poor and destitute. 552b”“It is the first to allow that,” he said.“Nothing prevents this in oligarchies. If it did, some people would not be extremely rich while others were utterly poor.”“Right.”“Think about this too. When that man still had money and was spending it, was he any more useful to the city in the roles we just mentioned? Or did he only appear to be one of its rulers? Was he really neither a ruler nor a servant of the city, but merely a consumer of what others had made? 552c”“That is right,” he said. “He looked like a ruler, but was nothing but a consumer.”“Then shall we say this? Just as a drone appears in a beehive and is a sickness of the swarm, this man appears in a household and is a sickness of the city.”“Absolutely, Socrates,” he said.“Adeimantus, hasn't the god made all the flying drones stingless, while some of these drones that walk on two feet are stingless and some have terrible stings? The stingless ones end up as beggars in old age. Those with stings 552d become all the people we call criminals.”“That is completely true,” he said.“So it is clear that wherever you see beggars in a city, thieves, pickpockets, temple robbers, and people who commit every such crime are hiding there too.”“Clearly,” he said.“Do you see beggars in oligarchic cities?”“Nearly everyone outside the ruling group is one,” he said. 552e“Then shouldn't we suppose that these cities also have many criminals with stings, whom the authorities forcibly keep under control by careful watch?”“Yes, we should,” he said.“And shall we say that such people appear there because of poor education, bad upbringing, and the organization of the state?”“We shall.”“That, then, is the sort of city an oligarchy is. It has that many evils, and perhaps more.”“Pretty much,” he said.

553a “Then we have finished describing the constitution called oligarchy, in which property assessments determine who holds office. Next let us examine the man like it: how he develops and what he is like when he does.”“Certainly,” he said.“Does he change from the honor-loving man into the oligarchic man roughly like this?”“How?”“His son at first admires his father and follows in his footsteps. Then he suddenly sees his father 553b run into the city like a ship hitting a reef, wrecking himself and his property. Perhaps he served as general or held another high office, then ended up in court, [harmed] by informers, and was executed, exiled, or stripped of his rights and lost everything he owned.”“That could certainly happen,” he said.“After seeing and suffering all this and losing his possessions, my friend, the son becomes frightened. I think he immediately knocks his love of honor and his spirited side headfirst off the throne 553c within his soul. Poverty brings him low. He turns to making money and laboriously saves little by little until he has gathered some. Don't you think he then seats his appetitive, money-loving side on that throne and makes it a great king over himself, fitting it with a tiara, necklaces, and a sword?”“I do,” he said. 553d“And he puts his reasoning and spirited sides on the ground beside it, one on each side, and makes them its slaves. He lets reason calculate and consider nothing except how to turn less money into more. He lets his spirit admire and honor nothing except wealth and the wealthy. It seeks no honor except in acquiring money, or in anything else that helps it do that.”“No other change turns an honor-loving young man into a money-lover so quickly or so powerfully,” he said. 553e“Is this man oligarchic, then?”“At least he changes from a man resembling the political order from which oligarchy developed.”“Let us see if he resembles oligarchy itself.”

554a “Let's do that.”“First, isn't he like it in valuing money above all else?”“Of course.”“And in being thrifty and hard-working? He satisfies only his necessary desires and allows himself no other expenses. Instead he makes the other desires obey him, since he thinks they are pointless.”“Certainly.”“He is rather shabby, makes a profit out of everything, and piles up his savings. That is the kind of man most people praise. 554b Isn't he the one who resembles this political order?”“I think so,” he said. “Money is what the city and the man honor most.”“I don't think such a man has paid any attention to education.”“I don't think so either,” he said. “Otherwise he would not have appointed a blind leader for his chorus and honored him above all.”“Well said. But consider this. Shall we say that lack of education gives him drone-like desires, 554c some like a beggar's and others like a criminal's, which his concern for the rest of his affairs forcibly restrains?”“Yes indeed,” he said.“Do you know where to look to see those criminal desires in action?”“Where?” he said.“At how such people act when they are guardians of orphans, and whenever they get another opportunity to do wrong with little restraint.”“True.”“Doesn't this show what happens in the other dealings where a man like this has a good reputation for justice? He forcibly holds down his other bad desires with a respectable 554d part of himself. He doesn't reason them out of existence by persuading himself they aren't good, or tame them with argument. He holds them down through necessity and fear, because he trembles for the rest of his property.”“Absolutely,” he said.“And, by Zeus, my friend, you will find that most of them have desires akin to the drone's whenever they can spend someone else's money.”“Very much so,” he said.“So this man will not be free of conflict within himself. He is not one person but two. Usually, though, his better desires will master his worse ones. 554e”“That is so.”“That is why, I think, he will behave more properly than many people. But the true virtue of a united, well-balanced soul will be far beyond his reach.”“I think so.”“And in a city, the thrifty man will be a poor individual competitor

555a for any victory or other honorable achievement. He will not spend money to win a good name or to compete in such contests. He is afraid to stir up his costly desires and enlist them in the struggle to win. He fights with only a few parts of himself, oligarchically, and usually loses. But he grows rich.”“He certainly does,” he said.“Do we still doubt that the thrifty money-maker ranks alongside the oligarchic city because he resembles it? 555b”“Not at all,” he said.“Next, it seems, we must examine democracy: how it comes about and what it is like after it has arisen. Then we can understand the character of the man like it and bring him forward for judgment.”“That would keep us on the same path,” he said.“Doesn't the change from oligarchy to democracy happen in something like this way? People have an insatiable desire for the good they have set before themselves: to become as rich as possible.”“How does that work? 555c”“I think the rulers there hold power because they own a great deal. They don't want to pass laws stopping irresponsible young people from spending and ruining their estates. The rulers can buy their property and lend them money against it, becoming still richer and more highly regarded.”“Certainly.”“By now this must be clear: citizens cannot both honor wealth and adequately acquire self-control. They must neglect one or the other. 555d”“That seems quite clear,” he said.“By neglecting self-control and letting people live extravagantly, oligarchies have sometimes forced people of good birth into poverty.”“Exactly.”“These people, I think, now sit in the city armed and ready to sting. Some are in debt, some have lost their rights, and some are both. They hate and plot against the people who acquired their property and against the rest as well. They long for a revolution. 555e”“That is true.”“Meanwhile the money-makers keep their heads down and pretend not to see them. They keep injecting their money into anyone else willing to take it, wounding him with loans. They collect interest, offspring many times greater than their original investment,

556a and fill the city with drones and beggars.”“How could they not?” he said.“They will not put out this growing fire in either of two ways: by stopping people from disposing of their own property however they like, or by using a different law that would cure these troubles.”“What law would that be?”“It is the next best after the first, and would compel citizens to take care about virtue. If most voluntary financial dealings were made at the lender's own risk, 556b people would make money less shamelessly in the city. Fewer of the evils we just discussed would grow there.”“Far fewer,” he said.“As things stand, for all these reasons, the rulers treat their subjects in the city as I have described. And what about themselves and their families? Don't they raise their young people in luxury, with no work for body 556c or mind, too soft to endure pleasures or pains, and idle?”“Of course.”“And they themselves neglect everything but making money and take no more care for virtue than the poor do?”“No more at all.”“With both rulers and subjects brought up this way, suppose they meet on the road, at some common gathering, at a festival or on a campaign. They might share a ship or fight in the same army, or watch one another in actual danger. In none of these situations do the poor feel inferior to the rich. Instead, a lean poor man, tanned by the sun, often stands in battle beside a rich man raised in the shade, carrying too much flesh that is no use to him. 556d He sees the rich man gasping and at a loss. Don't you think he concludes that men like that owe their wealth to the poor men's own cowardice? When poor men meet in private, don't they tell one another, ‘Those men are ours to take. 556e They're nothing’?”“I know very well that they do,” he said.“A sick body needs only a slight outside push to become ill, and sometimes falls into conflict with itself even without one. So too a city in that condition needs only a small pretext. If one side calls in allies from an oligarchic city or the other calls them from a democracy, the city grows sick and fights itself. Sometimes it falls into civil conflict even without outside help.”

557a “Very much so.”“Democracy, I think, comes about when the poor win. They kill some of the other party and exile others. They give the remaining people an equal share in citizenship and office. Most offices are assigned by lot.”“Yes,” he said. “That is how democracy is set up, whether by force of arms or because the other party withdraws in fear.”“How do people live in this city? 557b And what sort of political order does it have? Clearly the man like it will prove to be democratic.”“Clearly,” he said.“First, aren't its people free? Doesn't the city fill with freedom and freedom of speech, with everyone allowed to do as they like?”“That's what people say,” he said.“And where there is such freedom, each person can clearly arrange a private life that suits them.”“Clearly. 557c”“So I think this political order would have the greatest variety of people.”“How could it not?”“It may be the most beautiful of political orders. Like a multicolored cloak covered with flowers of every color, it might look beautiful because it contains people of every character. Perhaps many people would even judge it the most beautiful, just as children and women admire colorful things.”“They certainly would,” he said. 557d“And, my friend, it is a convenient place to look for a political order.”“Why?”“Because its freedom gives it every kind of political order. Anyone wishing to found a city, as we just did, may have to go to a democracy. There he can choose whichever pattern he likes, as though he were shopping in a store that sells political orders. Once he has chosen, he can build his city accordingly. 557e”“He would certainly have no shortage of examples,” he said.“And in that city you need not rule, even if you are capable of it. You need not be ruled if you don't want to. You need not fight when others fight, or keep the peace when others do, if you do not want peace. And if a law stops you from ruling or sitting in judgment, you can still 558a do either whenever you feel like it. Isn't that an astonishingly pleasant way to live, at least for the moment?”

“Perhaps it is, at least for the moment,” he said.“And isn't its leniency toward some people convicted in court rather charming? Haven't you seen people in a city like that sentenced to death or exile who still stay and walk about in public? No one seems to care or notice, and the condemned man strolls around like a hero.”“I've seen many,” he said. 558b“And think of its tolerance and complete refusal to fuss over details. It looks down on everything we solemnly said when we were founding our city. We said that no one, unless born with exceptional gifts, could ever become a good man without growing up among fine things from childhood and practicing them all. But democracy tramples over all this with magnificent disdain. It pays no attention to what someone has done before entering politics. It honors him 558c if he simply says he is a friend of the people.”“How noble of it,” he said.“Democracy has these features and others like them. It seems to be a pleasant, ungoverned, varied political order, distributing a kind of equality to equals and unequals alike.”“You have described familiar things,” he said.“Now consider the individual man like it. Or should we first see how he develops, as we did for the political order?”“Yes,” he said.“Then isn't it something like this? I think that thrifty oligarchic man 558d has a son whom he raises to share his own habits.”“Of course.”“The son also forcibly controls the pleasures within himself that cost money without earning any. We called those unnecessary pleasures.”“Clearly,” he said.“Then, to avoid talking vaguely, shall we first define necessary and unnecessary desires?”“Yes,” he said.“Aren't the desires we cannot get rid of rightly called necessary? And those whose satisfaction benefits us? Our nature compels us to have both kinds. 558e Isn't that so?”“Absolutely.”

559a “Then we are right to call them necessary.”“We are.”“What about desires that a person can get rid of by training from youth, desires whose presence does no good, or even does harm? Wouldn't we be right to call them all unnecessary?”“Yes, we would.”“Shall we choose an example of each kind, so we can get a general picture?”“We should.”“Isn't the desire to eat enough for health and fitness necessary, both for plain food and for food eaten with it? 559b”“I think so.”“The desire for plain food is necessary in both respects. It benefits us, and a person cannot stay alive without it.”“Yes.”“And the desire for something to go with it is necessary insofar as it helps keep us fit.”“Certainly.”“But what of the desire for more than that, and for different or special dishes? Most people can get rid of it if they discipline and educate themselves from youth. It harms the body, and it harms the soul's intelligence and self-control. 559c Wouldn't it rightly be called unnecessary?”“Absolutely.”“Shall we also call those desires wasteful, and the others productive, since they help us do our work?”“Of course.”“And shall we say the same about sexual desires and all the rest?”“Yes.”“Then the man we just called a drone was someone filled with these pleasures and desires and ruled by the unnecessary ones. The man ruled by necessary desires was thrifty and oligarchic. 559d Is that right?”“Of course.”“Let's return, then, to how a democratic man develops from an oligarchic one. I think it usually happens this way.”“How?”“A young man brought up without education and with thrift, as we described, tastes the drones' honey. He joins those fierce and dangerous creatures, who can devise all kinds of pleasures in every possible form. That, you may suppose, 559e is where the oligarchic order within him begins to turn into a democratic one.”“It must be,” he said.“Just as the city changed when an outside ally helped one side, each side helping its own kind, doesn't the young man change when outside desires of one kind come to the aid of kindred desires within him?”“Absolutely.”“And if, I think, some help comes to the oligarchic side within him, perhaps his father or other