The Complete Works of Plato

...for the sake of the benefit that will come from the rule? But [is it not] for the sake of the subjects? And tell me this: do we not say that each art is different from another, because it has a different power? And, my good man, do not answer against your own opinion, so that we might reach a conclusion. "But it is different for that reason," he said. And does each of these arts not provide us with some benefit peculiar to itself, and not a common one? For example, medicine provides health; the art of navigation provides safety in sailing, and the others in the same way. "Certainly." And does the art of wages not provide a wage? For this is its power. Or do you call medicine and navigation the same thing? Or, if you wish to define them precisely, as you proposed, if someone steering a ship becomes healthy because sailing at sea is advantageous to him, you would not for that reason call it medicine? "Indeed not," he said. Nor, I suppose, the art of wages, if someone earns a wage while in health. "Indeed not." What then? Do you call medicine the art of wages, if someone earns a wage while practicing healing? "No," he said. Therefore, we agreed that the benefit of each art is peculiar to it. "Be it so," he said. Whatever benefit, then, all craftsmen receive in common, it is clear that they receive it by using some common [factor] from that [art]. "It seems so," he said. We say, however, that craftsmen receive a benefit when they earn a wage, because they additionally employ the art of wages. He agreed with difficulty. Therefore, this benefit—the receiving of wages—does not come to each man from his own art; but if one is to look closely, medicine produces health, while the art of wages produces a wage. And architecture produces a house, while the art of wages, following it, produces a wage. And all others are the same; each performs its own work and benefits that for which it is appointed. But if a wage is not added to it, does the craftsman receive a benefit from his art? "It does not appear so," he said. And does it then not benefit when he works for nothing? "I think so." Therefore, Thrasymachus, this is now clear: that no art or rule provides what is beneficial to itself. But, as we were saying for some time, it provides and commands for that which it rules, looking toward the advantage of that which is weaker, and not that of the stronger. For these reasons, my dear Thrasymachus, I was saying just now that no one is willing to rule voluntarily and to manage the troubles of others, and to set them right; but [they] ask for a wage, because the one who is to act well by his art never acts for his own best interest, nor does he order [it] by his art, but for the sake of the subject; for which reasons, it seems, there must be a wage for those who are to be willing to rule, either money, or honor, or a penalty if he does not rule.

"How do you mean this, Socrates?" said Glaucon. "I understand two of the wages; but the penalty which you speak of, and how you have spoken of it as a form of wage, I do not understand."

Then you do not understand the wage of the best, through which the most decent men rule, when they are willing to rule. Or do you not know that to be a lover of honor and a lover of money is said to be, and is, a reproach? "I do," he said. For these reasons then, I said, the good are not willing to rule for the sake of money or honor. For they do not wish to be called hired laborers by openly exacting a wage for their rule, nor [do they wish to be called] thieves by secretly taking [it] from the rule; nor, again, [do they do it] for the sake of honor, for they are not lovers of honor. Therefore, there must be necessity and a penalty attached to them, if they are to be willing to rule. Whence it is likely that for one to go to rule willingly, and not by necessity, is considered shameful. And the greatest penalty is to be ruled by one who is worse, if one is not willing to rule oneself. Fearing this, it seems to me, the decent men rule when they do rule; and then they come to rule, not as coming to some good, nor as if they will fare well in it, but as [coming to] a necessity, and not having anyone better than themselves to entrust the rule to, nor even those similar. For if a city of good men were to come to be, there might be a fight to avoid ruling, just as now [there is a fight] to rule; and there it would become manifest that the true ruler is by nature not accustomed to look toward his own advantage, but toward that of the one who is ruled; so that every man of understanding would choose to be benefited by another rather than to have the trouble of benefiting another. This, therefore, I in no way concede to Thrasymachus: that justice is the advantage of the stronger.