The Greek View of Life

by G. Lowes Dickinson

Section 8. Property and the Communistic Ideal.

And, as we have seen, this internal schism of the Greek state was as much social as political. The "many" and the "few" were identified respectively with the poor and the rich; and the struggle was thus at bottom as much economic as political. Government by an oligarchy was understood to mean the exploitation of the masses by the classes. "An oligarchy," says a democrat, as reported by Thucydides, "while giving the people the full share of danger, not merely takes too much of the good things, but absolutely monopolises them." [Footnote: Thuc. vi. 39.— Translated by Jowett.] And, similarly, the advent of democracy was held to imply the spoliation of the classes in the interest of the masses, either by excessive taxation, by an abuse of the judicial power to fine, or by any other of the semi-legal devices of oppression which the majority in power have always at their command. This substantial identity of rich and poor, respectively, with oligarch and democrat may be further illustrated by the following passage from Aristotle:

"In consequence of the political disturbances and contentions between the commons on the one hand and the rich on the other, whichever party happens to get the better of its opponents, instead of establishing a polity of a broad and equal kind, assumes political supremacy as a prize of the victory, and sets up either a Democracy or an Oligarchy." [Footnote: Arist. Pol. VI. (IV) 1296 a 27.—Translation by Welldon.]

We see then that it was the underlying question of property that infused so strong a rancour into the party struggles of Greece. From the very earliest period, in fact, we find it to have been the case that political revolution was prompted by economic causes. Debt was the main factor of the crisis which led to the legislation of Solon; and a re- division of the land was one of the measures attributed to Lycurgus. [Footnote: I have not thought it necessary for my purpose, here or elsewhere, to discuss the authenticity of the statements made by Greek authors about Lycurgus.] As population increased, and, in the maritime states, commerce and trade developed, the problem of poverty became increasingly acute; and though it was partially met by the emigration of the surplus population to colonies, yet in the fifth and fourth centuries we find it prominent and pressing both in practical politics and in speculation. Nothing can illustrate better how familiar the topic was, and to what free theorising it had led, than the passages in which it is treated in the comedies of Aristophanes. Here for example, is an extract from the "Ecclesiazusae" which it may be worth while to insert as a contribution to an argument that belongs to every age.

PRAXAGORA. I tell you that we are all to share alike and have everything in common, instead of one being rich and another poor, and one having hundreds of acres and another not enough to make him a grave, and one a houseful of servants and another not even a paltry foot-boy. I am going to introduce communism and universal equality.

BLEPSYRUS. How communism?

PRAX. That's just what I was going to tell you. First of all, everybody's money and land and anything else he may possess will be made common property. Then we shall maintain you all out of the common stock, with due regard to economy and thrift.

BLEPS. But how about those who have no land, but only money that they can hide?

PRAX. It will all go to the public purse. To keep anything back will be perjury.

BLEPS. Perjury! Well, if you come to that, it was by perjury it was all acquired.

PRAX. And then, money won't be the least use to any one.

BLEPS. Why not?

PRAX. Because nobody will be poor. Everybody will have everything he wants, bread, salt-fish, barley-cake, clothes, wine, garlands, chickpeas. So what will be the good of keeping anything back? Answer that if you can!

BLEPS. Isn't it just the people who have all these things that are the greatest thieves?

PRAX. No doubt, under the old laws. But now, when everything will be in common what will be the good of keeping anything back?

BLEPS. Who will do the field work?

PRAX. The slaves; all you will have to do is to dress and go out to dinner in the evening.

BLEPS. But what about the clothes? How are they to be provided?

PRAX. What you have now will do to begin with, and afterwards we shall make them for you ourselves.

BLEPS. Just one thing more! Supposing a man were to lose his suit in the courts, where are the damages to come from? It would not be fair to take the public funds.

PRAX. But there won't be any lawsuits at all!

BLEPS. That will mean ruin to a good many people!

BYSTANDER. Just my idea!

PRAX. Why should there be any?

BLEPS. Why! for reasons enough, heaven knows! For instance, a man might repudiate his debts.

PRAX. In that case, where did the man who lent the money get it from?
Clearly, since everything is in common, he must have stolen it!

BLEPS. So he must! An excellent idea! But now tell me this. When fellows come to blows over their cups, where are the damages to come from?

PRAX. From the rations! A man won't be in such a hurry to make a row when his belly has to pay for it.

BLEPS. One thing more! Will there be no more thieves?

PRAX. Why should any one steal what is his own?

BLEPS. And won't one be robbed of one's cloak at night?

PRAX. Not if you sleep at home!

BLEPS. Nor yet, if one sleeps out, as one used to do?

PRAX. No, for there will be enough and to spare for all. And even if a thief does try to strip a man, he will give up his cloak of his own accord. What would be the good of fighting? He has only to go and get another, and a better, from the public stores.

BLEPS. And will there be no more gambling?

PRAX. What will there be to play for?

BLEPS. And how about house accommodation?

PRAX. That will be the same for all. I tell you I am going to turn the whole city into one huge house, and break down all the partitions, so that every one may have free access to every one else. [Footnote: Aristoph. Eccles. 590.]

The "social problem," then, had clearly arisen in ancient Greece, though no doubt in an infinitely simpler form than that in which it is presented to ourselves; and it might perhaps have been expected that the Greeks, with their notion of the supremacy of the state, would have adopted some drastic public measure to meet it. And, in fact, in the earlier period of their history, as has been indicated above, we do find sweeping revolutions effected in the distribution of property. In Athens, Solon abolished debt, either in whole or part, by reducing the rate of interest and depreciating the currency; and in Sparta Lycurgus is said to have resumed the whole of the land for the state, and redivided it equally among the citizens. We have also traces of laws existing in other states to regulate in the interests of equality the possession and transfer of land. But it does not appear that any attempt was made in any state permanently to control by public authority the production and distribution of wealth. Meantime, however, the problem of social inequality was exercising the minds of political theorists; and we have notice of various schemes for an ideal polity framed upon communistic principles. Of these the most important, and the only one preserved to us, is the celebrated "Republic" of Plato; and never, it may be safely asserted, was a plan of society framed so consistent, harmonious and beautiful in itself, or so indifferent to the actual capacities of mankind. Following out what we have already indicated as the natural drift of Greek ideas, the philosopher separates off on the one hand the productive class, who are to have no political rights; and on the other the class of soldiers and governors. It is the latter alone with whom he seriously concerns himself; and the scheme he draws up for them is uncompromisingly communistic. After being purged, by an elaborate education, of all the egoistic passions, they are to live together, having all things in common, devoted heart and soul to the public good, and guiltless even of a desire for any private possession or advantage of their own. "In the first place, no one," says Plato, "should possess any private property, if it can possibly be avoided; secondly, no one should have a dwelling or store house into which all who please may not enter; whatever necessaries are required by temperate and courageous men, who are trained to war, they should receive by regular appointment from their fellow-citizens, as wages for their services, and the amount should be such as to leave neither a surplus on the year's consumption nor a deficit; and they should attend common messes and live together as men do in a camp: as for gold and silver, we must tell them that they are in perpetual possession of a divine species of the precious metals placed in their souls by the gods themselves, and therefore have no need of the earthly one; that in fact it would be profanation to pollute their spiritual riches by mixing them with the possession of mortal gold, because the world's coinage has been the cause of countless impieties, whereas theirs is undefiled: therefore to them, as distinguished from the rest of the people, it is forbidden to handle or touch gold and silver, or enter under the same roof with them, or to wear them in their dresses, or to drink out of the precious metals. If they follow these rules, they will be safe themselves and the saviours of the city: but whenever they come to possess lands, and houses, and money of their own, they will be householders and cultivators instead of guardians, and will become hostile masters of their fellow-citizens rather than their allies; and so they will spend their whole lives, hating and hated, plotting and plotted against, standing in more frequent and intense alarm of their enemies at home than of their enemies abroad; by which time they and the rest of the city will be running on the very brink of ruin." [Footnote: Plato, Rep. III. 416.—Translation by Davies and Vaughan.]

The passage is interesting, if only as an illustration of the way in which Plato had been impressed by the evil results of the institution of private property. But as a contribution to political theory it was open to severe attack from the representatives of experience and common sense. Of these, the chief was Aristotle, whose criticism has been preserved to us, and who, while admitting that Plato's scheme has a plausible appearance of philanthropy, maintains that it is inapplicable to the facts of human nature. To this conclusion, indeed, even Plato himself was driven in the end; for in his later work, the "Laws," although he still asserts that community of goods would be the ideal institution, he reluctantly abandons it as a basis for a possible state. On the other hand, he endeavours by the most stringent regulations, to prevent the growth of inequalities of wealth. He distributes the land in equal lots among his citizens, prohibiting either purchase or sub- division; limits the possession of money to the amount required for daily exchange; and forbids lending on interest. The object of a legislator, he declares, is to make not a great but a happy city. But only the good are happy, and goodness and wealth are incompatible. The legislator, therefore, will not allow his citizens to be wealthy, any more than he will allow them to be poor. He will seek to establish by law the happy mean; and to this end, if he despair of the possibility of a thorough-going communism, will legislate at least as indicated above. The uncompromising idealism of Plato's scheme, with its assumption of the indefinite plasticity of human nature, is of course peculiar to himself, not typical of Greek ideas. But it is noticeable that Aristotle, who is a far better representative of the average Greek mind, exhibits the same mistrust of the accumulation of private property. In the beginning of his "Politics" he distinguishes two kinds of money- making, one natural, that which is pursued for the sake of a livelihood, the other unnatural, that which is pursued for the sake of accumulation. "The motive of this latter," he says, "is a desire for life instead of for good life"; and its most hateful method is that of usury, the unnatural breeding of money out of money. And though he rejects as impracticable the compulsory communism of Plato's "Republic", yet he urges as the ideal solution that property, while owned by individuals, should be held as in trust for the common good; and puts before the legislator the problem: "so to dispose the higher natures that they are unwilling, and the lower that they are unable to aggrandise themselves." [Footnote: Aristotle, Pol. ii. 7. 1267 b 6.—Translation by Welldon.]

Such views as these, it may be noted, interesting though they be, as illustrating how keenly the thinkers of ancient Greece had realised the drawbacks of private property, have but the slightest bearing on the conditions of our own time. The complexity and extent of modern industry have given rise to quite new problems, and quite new schemes for their solution; and especially have forced into prominence the point of view of the producers themselves. To Greek thinkers it was natural to approach the question of property from the side of the governing class or of the state as a whole. The communism of Plato, for example, applied only to the "guardians" and soldiers, and not to the productive class on whom they depended; and so completely was he pre-occupied with the former to the exclusion of the latter, that he dismisses in a single sentence, as unworthy the legislator's detailed attention, the whole apparatus of labour and exchange. To regard the "working-class" as the most important section of the community, to substitute for the moral or political the economic standpoint, and to conceive society merely as a machine for the production and distribution of wealth, would have been impossible to an ancient Greek. Partly by the simplicity of the economic side of the society with which he was acquainted, partly by the habit of regarding the labouring class as a mere means to the maintenance of the rest, he was led, even when he had to deal with the problem of poverty and wealth, to regard it rather from the point of view of the stability and efficiency of the state, than from that of the welfare of the producers themselves. The modern attitude is radically different; a revolution has been effected both in the conditions of industry and in the way in which they are regarded; and the practice and the speculation of the Greek city-states have for us an interest which, great as it is, is philosophic rather than practical.