Page - 1057 - in The Complete Plato
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Text of the Page - 1057 -
Then, again, within the city, how will they exchange their productions? To
secure such an exchange was, as you will remember, one of our principal
objects when we formed them into a society and constituted a State.
Clearly they will buy and sell.
Then they will need a market-place, and a money-token for purposes of
exchange.
Certainly.
Suppose now that a husbandman or an artisan brings some production to
market, and he comes at a time when there is no one to exchange with him—
is he to leave his calling and sit idle in the market-place?
Not at all; he will find people there who, seeing the want, undertake the
office of salesmen. In well-ordered States they are commonly those who are
the weakest in bodily strength, and therefore of little use for any other
purpose; their duty is to be in the market, and to give money in exchange for
goods to those who desire to sell, and to take money from those who desire to
buy.
This want, then, creates a class of retail-traders in our State. Is not
“retailer” the term which is applied to those who sit in the market-place
engaged in buying and selling, while those who wander from one city to
another are called merchants?
Yes, he said.
And there is another class of servants, who are intellectually hardly on the
level of companionship; still they have plenty of bodily strength for labor,
which accordingly they sell, and are called, if I do not mistake, hirelings,
“hire” being the name which is given to the price of their labor.
True.
Then hirelings will help to make up our population?
Yes.
And now, Adeimantus, is our State matured and perfected?
I think so.
Where, then, is justice, and where is injustice, and in what part of the State
did they spring up?
Probably in the dealings of these citizens with one another. I cannot
imagine that they are more likely to be found anywhere else.
I dare say that you are right in your suggestion, I said; we had better think
1057
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book The Complete Plato"
The Complete Plato
- Title
- The Complete Plato
- Author
- Plato
- Date
- ~347 B.C.
- Language
- English
- License
- PD
- Size
- 21.0 x 29.7 cm
- Pages
- 1612
- Keywords
- Philosophy, Antique, Philosophie, Antike, Dialogues, Metaphysik, Metaphysics, Ideologie, Ideology, Englisch
- Categories
- Geisteswissenschaften
- International