SLAVERY
Plato is not blind to the ethical aspects of the problem of slavery. In his first healthy state (ὑγιείνη), slavery and war are conspicuously absent, and it is the natural inference that the author believed these to be necessary evils of the more complex state.[[179]] He appreciates the dangers of absolute power, even in private life, and believes that few men can stand the strain.[[180]] He conceives human nature as a unity that defies absolute division into separate classes.[[181]] Though he does not renounce slavery in the Republic, he would limit, it to the barbarians and to those who seem unfit for the higher life.[[182]] It plays a remarkably small part in his first state, and it would seem that his idealism is here struggling against what he feels to be an economic necessity. In the Laws, he frankly accepts the necessity, and puts even agriculture, as well as the other industries, into the hands of slaves.[[183]] However, they are not to be treated as animals, but as rational men, in whom a proper usage may develop a certain degree of morality and ambition for good work.[[184]] To be sure, his purpose is economic rather than ethical—to make the slaves satisfied with their lot, and thus better producers.[[185]] He makes no mention of freedom as a reward for good behavior, though he elsewhere provides for the existence of freedmen in the state, and stipulates that they shall not become richer than their former masters.[[186]]