Without family, and without clearly ascertainable relationship between
any man and any child, there can be no individual inheritance of
property; the guardians will have all things in common, and without
Tertullian’s exception.[40] Shut off from the possibility of personal
bequests or of “founding a family,” the guardians will have no stimulus
to laying up a hoard of material goods; nay, they will not be moved to
such hoarding by fear of the morrow, for a modest but sufficient
maintenance will be supplied them by the working classes. There will be
no money in use among them; they will live a hard simple life, devoted
to the problems of communal defence and development. Freed from family
ties, from private property and luxury, from violence and litigation,
and all distinctions of Mine and Thine, they will have no reason to
oppress the workers in order to lay up stores for themselves; they will
be happy in the exercise of their high responsibilities and powers. They
will not be tempted to legislate for the good of their own class rather
than for the good of the community; their joy will lie in the creation
of a prosperous and harmonious state.
Under their direction will be the soldiers, also specially selected and
trained, and supported by the workers. But these workers?
They will be those who have been eliminated in the tests. The demands of
specialization will have condemned them to labor for those who have the
gift of guidance. They shall have no voice in the direction of the
state; that, as said, is a reward for demonstrated capacity, and not a
“natural right.”[41] Frankly, there are some people who are not fit to
be other than slaves; and to varnish that fact with oratory about “the
dignity of labor” is merely to give an instance of the indignities to
which a democratic politician will descend. These workers are incapable
of a subtler happiness than that of knowing that they are doing what
they are fit to do, and are contributing to the maintenance of communal
prosperity. Such as they are, these workers, like the other members of
the state, will find their highest possibilities of development in such
an organized society. And to make sure that they will not rebel, they
will have been taught by “royal lies” that their position and function
in the state have been ordained by the gods. There is no sense in
shivering at this quite judicious juggling with the facts; there are
times when truth is a barrier to content, and must be set aside.
Physicians have been known to cure ailments with a timely lie. Labor
stimulated by such deception may be slavery, if you wish to call it so;
but it is the inevitable condition of order, and order is the inevitable
condition of culture and communal success.
VI
Plasticity and Order
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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