[DRAFT – Please send comments, thoughts, suggestions, edits, to

amikkelsen@yahoo.com ]

The Politics of Plunder in Plato’s Republic

Introduction
Constructing the Polis
Glaucon’s Luxurious Polis
How Justice and Injustice Originate
Glaucon’s Worldview
The Implications of Glaucon’s Ideas or Lack Thereof
Corruption of Athens
What is Justice?
Conclusion

Introduction
There is solid evidence that Plato’s Republic is an exposition of the logical
consequences of basing civic and personal life on injustice. It condemns political life
based institutionalized injustice – specifically theft and plunder. This evidence
contradicts the idea that the discussion of an imaginary Polis – Greek city-state – is
a model for an ideal just society.

The title is The Republic, or Politeia in Greek, yet the primary theme is not politics.
The work is a dialog about Justice and whether the unjust man is happier than the
just man. The middle of the dialog contains a discussion of politics and a
hypothetical Polis, in order to define Justice. When the dialog is viewed as a whole,
there is clear evidence that Plato’s fictional Socrates is using irony to ridicule the
views of Justice expressed by the Athenians in the dialog.

The dialog contains strong, short, and often overlooked statements by Socrates that
the imagined “ideal” Polis is based on injustice and crime—specifically theft and
plunder. Socrates demonstrates that a Polis featuring tyranny, lying, censorship,
elitism, and communism is the logical implication of both the Greek character’s ill-
formed ideas of Justice and their undeveloped love of Justice.

Constructing the Polis

The dialogue begins with the characters discussing Justice. They have trouble
defining Justice and question the benefit of Justice for man. Socrates says he will
create an imaginary ideal polis as a teaching device. The polis will help them
understand justice and injustice by showing them on a larger scale.
The Polis did not mean to the Greeks only the city-state’s government. It meant the
city in all its aspects, in the sense of the community or society, as well as what we
call “government” or “The State."

Socrates’ discussion runs as follows: exchange is the root of the Polis. A basic
community is composed of people living together and producing for their “needs,”
including food, shelter, clothing. The Polis is a purely economic arrangement.

The argument continues: division of labor is key. A community requires many

members to meet the basic needs of everyone. Farmers need people who make
tools. Retailers and merchants are required. Even with large numbers there is
dependence on outside imports just to provide the basic needs, defined as food,
shelter, and clothing. There is no mention of priests, rulers, nobles, kings, officials,
slaves, taxes, censors, guardians, philosopher kings, etc.

Hearing no objections, Socrates tells the audience he has illustrated Justice. He

makes this clear by asking, “Where is justice and where is injustice? What is their
origin in this arrangement?”

The reply is, “In the dealings and interaction of individuals.”This is a key point—
everyone is living justly in a society of free cooperation, free enterprise, and free
trade.

Socrates goes on to state that the people will live within their means and will not
have too many children, "having an eye to poverty or war." Socrates emphasizes
this is a functioning community with farmers, tradesmen, and paid laborers
cooperating to supply basic wants, with no need for slaves and rulers.

Justice has been illustrated in Book II. Yet the dialog will continue for many more
books because his audience is not satisfied with Justice.

Glaucon’s Luxurious Polis

Glaucon does not see the value of the just Polis. His reaction to this Polis is scornful:
“if you were providing for a city of pigs, how else would you feed the beasts?” He
says, “you should give them the ordinary conveniences of life. People who are to be
comfortable are accustomed to lie on sofas, and dine off tables, and they should
have sauces and sweets in the modern style.” He is intensely interested in living in
what was then the lap of luxury.

Socrates says when we see how a “luxurious state” is created “we shall be more
likely to see how justice and injustice originate. In my opinion the true and healthy
constitution of the State is the one which I have described. But if you wish also to
see a State at fever heat, I have no objection.”

Socrates is clear that Glaucon’s luxurious State is undesirable—it is at a “fever

heat,” and is opposed to a “healthy constitution.” Socrates plays along with
Glaucon. He mentions all the luxuries people will desire, including gold and ivory
that must be procured. Glaucon agrees this is important—he wants to know how
people will be given luxuries. The word “give” is actually used. Glaucon does not
ask how the people can gain these luxuries through their own efforts or how they
are produced in the first place.

Socrates leads Glaucon through a chain of arguments: This luxurious state requires
many more people to create all the luxuries. The country is now too small. The Polis
will inevitably go to war to seize its neighbors’ land to gain wealth. Glaucon finds
none of this objectionable

How Justice and Injustice Originate

Glaucon agrees that going to war to seize land is necessary. Typically seizing land is
considered as stealing and unjust, and this is a dialog about Justice.

This may have been even more unjust to Greek ears than it would be, say, to those
Europeans of the modern era reading Plato and used to the numerous wars waged
by kings for land, and the idea of the right of conquest. Greek culture, like many
others, saw the basis of all morality and religion in respect for boundaries and
limits. Greek society was based on private farms and sacredly independent Polis.
Polis never unified or merged. It is hard to imagine anything more immoral to
Greeks than using force to overturn sacred boundaries and limits. Greeks did not
fight wars of conquest the way European kings did. Socrates’ modest proposal to
seize land appears ironic and outrageous; similar to proposals seen as outrageous
today such as invading countries for their oil or space for living and selling enemies
into slavery.

Yet in this dialog on Justice seizing land is not justified, but agreed to as a necessity
by Glaucon. Socrates condemns seizing land - “now we have discovered war to be
derived from causes which are also the causes of almost all the evils in States,
private as well as public.”

Much later in the dialog Socrates defines Justice with the question: "are suits
decided on any other ground, but that a man may neither take what is another's,
nor be deprived of what is his own?” Clearly Socrates believes seizing land is unjust.
In the previous Polis we saw where justice originated. Now we see where injustice
originates: people like Glaucon believe we should war against our neighbors for
gain.

Socrates has switched from exploring a Polis based on acquiring wealth through the
economic means to one acquiring it via the political. To illustrate justice and
injustice Socrates proceeds to expand on the luxurious Polis. The radical ideas on
politics are the logical implications of the idea that the Polis is to be based on
plunder. Logically Plato is saying Politics is essentially plunder—an idea associated
more with Frédéric Bastiat and Voltaire and classical liberal class analysis than
ancient Greeks.

Glaucon’s Worldview
It is not stated directly why Glaucon eagerly agrees that wars of conquest are
logical and necessary. We can speculate and use evidence from the text.

It is likely Glaucon sees wealth as something to be “given” to the people. Wealth

cannot be created by the people, it must come from an outside source.

A zero sum world view makes sense in ancient Greece: most histories tell us that
even well to do Greeks in cosmopolitan free cities lived fairly Spartan lives. The
world was very poor. Nowadays, by contrast, impoverished places like Hong Kong
can in a few decades become quite wealthy through voluntary integration with the
world economy. While Socrates gives evidence that he is simply an ascetic who
condemns wealth, numerous citizens living in luxury required slaves or other
subjects creating wealth for their masters.

From reading the beginning of the dialog we do have a good sense of Glaucon’s
general worldview. This can help explain why Glaucon does not step back when
Socrates suggests stealing land to fund Glaucon’s Polis or when he says that war
and almost all other evils in the polis stem from the same cause. Earlier Glaucon
says:

They say that to do injustice is, by nature, good; to suffer injustice, evil; but
that the evil is greater than the good... This they affirm to be the origin and
nature of justice; --it is a mean or compromise, between the best of all, which
is to do injustice and not be punished, and the worst of all, which is to suffer
injustice without the power of retaliation.

Socrates can be seen as playing with Glaucon, as he does with many others in order
to expose their ideas. Socrates knows Glaucon will accept a Polis based on plunder
and full of extreme ideas, because the residents of this hypothetical Polis would
suffer no injustice - which would be an evil. On the contrary, they gain by injustice -
which is seen as good. For Glaucon justice is not good in itself, but a compromise to
avoid evil. The highest good would be to commit injustice with impunity.

Socrates uses aspects of the Polis, similar to what we call “The State”, to illustrate
the corruption of justice in the minds of Athenians. He takes advantage of the
human tendency to excuse actions ostensibly done for public gain and that would
be condemned if done for private gain.
The Implications of Glaucon’s Ideas or Lack Thereof
Glaucon believes that the highest good would be to commit injustice with impunity,
including fighting wars to seize wealth. How then can a state survive with impunity?

Socrates continues his argument roughly as follows: war requires men to fight, and
the division of labor means a soldier class is the most effective. These are called
Guardians. They will keep the Polis safe from enemies seeking revenge or plunder.
Socrates points out the inherent potential for class conflict, the Guardians could
plunder the Polis itself. He asks how we keep the fierce soldier class from being a
threat to the community itself. This gives Glaucon cause for concern. The idea of a
separate class of soldiers was also unusual in Greece—citizens were the soldiers.

Socrates keeps pushing the logical implications. He suggests that education and
ideas must be censored. He compares the Guardians to dogs. He says that
Guardians cannot lead normal lives with possessions such as money, houses, and
families. Viewed ironically, these proposals are intended to startle a complacent
reader into thinking.

Plato suggests in his other works that those who regulate and have power in the
state should not use money. Money and wealth corrupt. The powerful will use their
power to gain wealth. Plato apparently also thinks little of money being in the hand
of any citizens. In a society where citizens were the small class who wielded political
power, Plato probably saw that the combination of citizens’ power and love of
money corrupts the citizens. It is possible Plato even put made the explicit
argument that if citizens did not want to give up power, they would have to give up
money. In The Republic too Plato argues through Socrates that the Guardians lack
of possessions like money, houses, and families prevents the Guardians from being
corrupted by the desire for possessions. Glaucon’s Polis requires the creation of an
entire class of people with lives radically different from those of free Greeks, and
that no longer shall free men, citizens, and those who fight and bear arms be one
and the same.

The dialog continues from there with well-known results. Because Glaucon believes
there is no way for the community to achieve wealth and luxuries without seizing
wealth, the dialog’s hypothetical community is distorted unrecognizably. Ironically
the Polis’ most important member live in a state of communism - there is little
luxurious about the state for them. Socrates even discusses the decline of the Polis,
which would not happen if the Polis was a healthily functioning ideal.

Corruption of Athens
Socrates opponents throughout the dialog are incapable of recognizing or objecting
to legalized or institutionalized injustice. They were earlier incapable of seeing the
benefits of justice in itself. His opponents have no sense of justice—and no way to
resist Socrates arguments. Socrates is well-known for using irony to expose his
opponent’s ideas as ridiculous. Accepting one outrageous proposal after another,
their moral vacuum is betrayed. While Socrates was accused of corrupting the
youth, there is much to illustrate that Athens was corrupt to the core.

Solon also noted the Athenians’ desire for plunder : “The ambition of the rich knows
no bounds; the most wealthy wish to grow yet more so. Who may be able to
assuage this insatiable greed! They respect neither sacred property nor public
treasure; they plunder all, in defiance of the sacred laws of justice.”1

What is Justice?
Socrates does in fact reach a conclusion about Justice: "Yes, we often said that one
man should do one thing only. Further, we affirmed that justice was doing one's own
business, and not being a busybody; we said so again and again, and many others
have said the same to us. "

He follows with:

- And are suits decided on any other ground, but that a man
may neither take what is another's, nor be deprived of what is
his own?

- Yes, that is their principle.

- Which is a just principle?

Followed by: "And is not the creation of justice the institution of a natural order and
government of one by another in the parts of the soul, and the creation of injustice
the production of a state of things at variance with the natural order?"

As we can see this conclusion about Justice implies that a Polis based upon theft of
neighbors’ land is unjust and therefore undesirable.

Conclusion
Socrates does the following in The Republic: He uses the Polis to illustrate Justice.
His healthy Polis is rejected by Glaucon who wants luxuries. Socrates creates a new
feverish Polis to illustrate Justice and Injustice. This new Polis depends on theft of
neighbors’ land for prosperity--an action defined by Socrates as injustice. Glaucon
accepts this policy of theft, caring more for luxury than Justice and failing to see
how prosperity might flow from Justice. Socrates then shows Glaucon the logical
implications of his ideas by illustrating how a Polis that benefits the citizens at the
expense of others would work. These many ideas are radical and shocking to his
Greek audience. Many of the unorthodox measures such as communism that
Socrates suggests are required to prevent class conflict, where one class of citizens
in the Polis directly exploits the other citizens. Ironically the state is not very
luxurious for the elite forced to live under communism. The decline of the Polis
through various stages down to Tyranny is discussed. When Socrates has finished
exposing the logical consequences of his audience’s ideas, Socrates returns to the
concept of Justice. He neatly illustrates Justice as each man’s right to his own
property and injustice as taking or depriving a man of his property. Socrates points
out that this is the ground on which lawsuits are decided in court.

Socrates’ conversation illustrates the logic of the politics of plunder and a lack of
Justice in the Polis. Socrates is able to do this because of his audience’s lack of a
definition of Justice. Some may find it hard to believe that Socrates would spend so
much time on an ideal city that he condemns, but the Socratic Method depends
upon demonstrating ideas by walking the student through the steps and allowing
bad ideas to reach their logical illogical conclusion. The audience is unable to reject
ideas that Greeks and many other people found to be shocking and radical.
Socrates can be seen as piling injustice on top of injustice till his audience opens its
eyes to what they believe. While the dialog may contain sections showing that
Socrates’ hypothetical Polis was a blueprint for Plato’s ideal Polis, the dialog
contains clear statements that strongly condemn the feverish and luxurious Polis.
Plato’s Republic can be seen as an exposition of an unjust social order, one that
ostensibly uses plunder to benefit the people. Plato’s Politics is a Politics of Plunder.
1 Solon is quoted from Francis Neilson’s discussion of Plato’s Republic in his book The
Eleventh Commandment. The discussion was discovered on the web in the midst of
writing this essay. It makes many of same arguments as this essay.
http://www.cooperativeindividualism.org/neilson-francis_on-plato.html

The Irony of The Republic is further discussed here.

http://www.bu.edu/wcp/Papers/Anci/AnciBout.htm