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rulers, never think of their subjects as sheep, and that they are not studying
their own advantage day and night. Oh, no; and so entirely astray are you in
your ideas about the just and unjust as not even to know that justice and the
just are in reality another’s good; that is to say, the interest of the ruler and
stronger, and the loss of the subject and servant; and injustice the opposite; for
the unjust is lord over the truly simple and just: he is the stronger, and his
subjects do what is for his interest, and minister to his happiness, which is
very far from being their own. Consider further, most foolish Socrates, that
the just is always a loser in comparison with the unjust. First of all, in private
contracts: wherever the unjust is the partner of the just you will find that,
when the partnership is dissolved, the unjust man has always more and the
just less. Secondly, in their dealings with the State: when there is an income-
tax, the just man will pay more and the unjust less on the same amount of
income; and when there is anything to be received the one gains nothing and
the other much. Observe also what happens when they take an office; there is
the just man neglecting his affairs and perhaps suffering other losses, and
getting nothing out of the public, because he is just; moreover he is hated by
his friends and acquaintance for refusing to serve them in unlawful ways. But
all this is reversed in the case of the unjust man. I am speaking, as before, of
injustice on a large scale in which the advantage of the unjust is most
apparent; and my meaning will be most clearly seen if we turn to that highest
form of injustice in which the criminal is the happiest of men, and the
sufferers or those who refuse to do injustice are the most miserable—that is to
say tyranny, which by fraud and force takes away the property of others, not
little by little but wholesale; comprehending in one, things sacred as well as
profane, private and public; for which acts of wrong, if he were detected
perpetrating any one of them singly, he would be punished and incur great
disgrace—they who do such wrong in particular cases are called robbers of
temples, and man-stealers and burglars and swindlers and thieves. But when a
man besides taking away the money of the citizens has made slaves of them,
then, instead of these names of reproach, he is termed happy and blessed, not
only by the citizens but by all who hear of his having achieved the
consummation of injustice. For mankind censure injustice, fearing that they
may be the victims of it and not because they shrink from committing it. And
thus, as I have shown, Socrates, injustice, when on a sufficient scale, has
more strength and freedom and mastery than justice; and, as I said at first,
justice is the interest of the stronger, whereas injustice is a man’s own profit
and interest.
Thrasymachus, when he had thus spoken, having, like a bathman, deluged
our ears with his words, had a mind to go away. But the company would not
let him; they insisted that he should remain and defend his position; and I
1030
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Buch The Complete Plato"
The Complete Plato
- Titel
- The Complete Plato
- Autor
- Plato
- Datum
- ~347 B.C.
- Sprache
- englisch
- Lizenz
- PD
- Abmessungen
- 21.0 x 29.7 cm
- Seiten
- 1612
- Schlagwörter
- Philosophy, Antique, Philosophie, Antike, Dialogues, Metaphysik, Metaphysics, Ideologie, Ideology, Englisch
- Kategorien
- Geisteswissenschaften
- International