Politics   

Part VII
Other constitutions have been proposed; some by private persons,
others by philosophers and statesmen, which all come nearer to
established or existing ones than either of Plato's. No one else has
introduced such novelties as the community of women and children, or
public tables for women: other legislators begin with what is
necessary. In the opinion of some, the regulation of property is the
chief point of all, that being the question upon which all revolutions
turn. This danger was recognized by Phaleas of Chalcedon, who was the
first to affirm that the citizens of a state ought to have equal
possessions. He thought that in a new colony the equalization might be
accomplished without difficulty, not so easily when a state was
already established; and that then the shortest way of compassing the
desired end would be for the rich to give and not to receive marriage
portions, and for the poor not to give but to receive them.
Plato in the Laws was of opinion that, to a certain extent,
accumulation should be allowed, forbidding, as I have already
observed, any citizen to possess more than five times the minimum
qualification But those who make such laws should remember what they
are apt to forget- that the legislator who fixes the amount of
property should also fix the number of children; for, if the children
are too many for the property, the law must be broken. And, besides
the violation of the law, it is a bad thing that many from being rich
should become poor; for men of ruined fortunes are sure to stir up
revolutions. That the equalization of property exercises an influence
on political society was clearly understood even by some of the old
legislators. Laws were made by Solon and others prohibiting an
individual from possessing as much land as he pleased; and there are
other laws in states which forbid the sale of property: among the
Locrians, for example, there is a law that a man is not to sell his
property unless he can prove unmistakably that some misfortune has
befallen him. Again, there have been laws which enjoin the
preservation of the original lots. Such a law existed in the island of
Leucas, and the abrogation of it made the constitution too democratic,
for the rulers no longer had the prescribed qualification. Again,
where there is equality of property, the amount may be either too
large or too small, and the possessor may be living either in luxury
or penury. Clearly, then, the legislator ought not only to aim at the
equalization of properties, but at moderation in their amount.
Further, if he prescribe this moderate amount equally to all, he will
be no nearer the mark; for it is not the possessions but the desires
of mankind which require to be equalized, and this is impossible,
unless a sufficient education is provided by the laws. But Phaleas
will probably reply that this is precisely what he means; and that, in
his opinion, there ought to be in states, not only equal property, but
equal education. Still he should tell precisely what he means; and
that, in his opinion, there ought to be in be in having one and the
same for all, if it is of a sort that predisposes men to avarice, or
ambition, or both. Moreover, civil troubles arise, not only out of the
inequality of property, but out of the inequality of honor, though in
opposite ways. For the common people quarrel about the inequality of
property, the higher class about the equality of honor; as the poet
says,
"The bad and good alike in honor share. "
There are crimes of which the motive is want; and for these Phaleas
expects to find a cure in the equalization of property, which will
take away from a man the temptation to be a highwayman, because he is
hungry or cold. But want is not the sole incentive to crime; men also
wish to enjoy themselves and not to be in a state of desire- they wish
to cure some desire, going beyond the necessities of life, which preys
upon them; nay, this is not the only reason- they may desire
superfluities in order to enjoy pleasures unaccompanied with pain, and
therefore they commit crimes.
Now what is the cure of these three disorders? Of the first, moderate