It should not be overlooked either that Plato’s utterances on labor are by no means all negative. Skilled labor is recognized in several of the minor dialogues as fulfilling an actual need in civilization. Laborers are represented as having their part in knowledge and virtue,[145] and are admitted to be the necessary foundation of all human well-being.[146] A positive interest is also manifested by Plato in labor and the proper development of the arts in both the _Republic_ and the _Laws_. He constantly harps on the necessity of each doing his fitting work, and doing it well, and in his opinion happiness consists in this rather than in idleness.[147] Indeed, that each one perform well the task for which nature has fitted him is the definition of justice itself.[148] The indolent rich man is a parasite and a drone, a disease of the state. This is Plato’s favorite figure in both the _Republic_ and the _Laws_, a figure that is suggestive of Hesiod, the pioneer champion of labor.[149] He is even ready to admit that it is, after all, not the kind of labor but the character of the workman that ennobles or degrades any work.[150] In fine, his attitude toward the mechanical arts is similar to that of Ruskin, who also thinks that manual labor is degrading.[151] But as with Plato, the chief secret of his prejudice lies in the fact that laborers usually do their work mechanically, without thought. He believes that “workmen ought often to be thinking, and thinkers ought often to be working.” He is willing to classify all work as liberal on this basis, the only distinction being the amount of skill required.[152] However, in agreement with Plato’s idea, he would set the roughest and least intellectual to the roughest work, and this he thinks to be “the best of charities” to them.[153] With Plato, he is also convinced that, under actual conditions of labor, the degradation is very difficult to avoid, and therefore he would emphasize chiefly agricultural labor, where education of head and hand are more fully realized.[154] It is, however, in Plato’s constant insistence upon the principle of the division of labor, as a prerequisite for any success in the mechanical arts or elsewhere, that he reveals insight into, and interest in, productive labor. This is the basal idea in the _Republic_. It is also one of the chief regulations in the _Laws_, where its direct application to the artisan is a clear evidence that he appreciates the economic significance of the principle.[155] To him, it is the foundation of all human development. Society finds its source in mutual need (ἡ ἡμετέρα χρεία). Man is not self-sufficient (αὐτάρκης). Reciprocity is necessary even in the most primitive state.[156] Out of this necessary dependence arises the division of labor, a beneficent law, “since the product is larger, better, and more easily produced, whenever one man gives up all other business, and does one thing fitting to his nature, and at the opportune time.”[157]