Politics

Chapter 2

If we want to understand this particular field of study, we need to trace it back to its origins and earliest development. Then, as with other subjects, we'll see the matter clearly laid out before us. First, we'll recognize that certain beings must join together because their species can't survive without each other. Take males and females, for instance, who come together for reproduction. This isn't a matter of choice but rather a natural drive that operates in both plants and animals, pushing them to leave behind others like themselves. It's also natural that some beings command while others obey, so that each can achieve their mutual safety. A being endowed with a mind capable of reflection and planning is naturally the superior and the one who governs, while someone whose strength is merely physical is formed to be a slave. This means the different conditions of master and slave benefit both parties equally. But there's a natural difference between a female and a slave. Nature isn't like craftsmen who make cheap Delphic swords for poor people to use for multiple purposes. Instead, she creates separate instruments for every particular purpose, and this way her goals are most completely achieved. Whatever is used for only one task brings that task to much greater perfection than when it's used for many. Yet among non-Greek peoples, a female and a slave occupy the same level in society. The reason is that among them there are no people naturally qualified to govern, so their society can only consist of slaves of different sexes. This is why the poets say it's proper for Greeks to rule over non-Greeks, as if a non-Greek and a slave were naturally the same thing.

Of these two partnerships, the household comes first. Hesiod was right when he said, "First a house, then a wife, then an ox for the plough," because a poor man always has an ox before he has a household slave. The partnership that nature established for daily needs is the household, and those who make it up are called by Charondas "meal sharers," and by Epimenides the Cretan "smoke sharers." But the partnership of many families, first created for their lasting mutual benefit, is called a village. A village is most naturally made up of descendants of one family, whom some people call "milk siblings," meaning the children and grandchildren of that family. This is why cities were originally governed by kings, as non-Greek states still are today, since they're composed of people who had previously submitted to royal government. Every family is governed by its eldest member, as are its branches, because of their family connection. This is what Homer means when he says, "Each one ruled his wife and child," and people used to live in this scattered way. The widespread belief that the gods themselves are subject to royal government comes from this fact: all people formerly lived under kings, and many still do. Since they imagined themselves made in the likeness of the gods, they assumed the gods' way of life must be the same as theirs.

When many villages unite so completely that they form one society in every respect, that society is a city. It contains within itself, if I may put it this way, the goal and perfection of government. Cities were first founded so we could live, but they continue to exist so we can live well. For this reason, every city must be recognized as a work of nature, if we accept that the original partnership between male and female is natural. All subordinate partnerships tend toward the city as their goal, and the goal of anything is its nature. What every being is in its most perfect state is certainly the nature of that being, whether it's a person, a horse, or a house. Besides, whatever produces the final cause and the goal we aim for must be best. A government complete in itself is that final cause and what is best. From this it's clear that a city is a natural creation, and that humans are naturally political animals. Anyone who is naturally (and not accidentally) unfit for society must be either inferior or superior to humanity. Think of the man in Homer who is criticized for being "without society, without law, without family." Such a person must naturally have a quarrelsome disposition and be as solitary as birds.

The gift of speech also clearly proves that humans are more social animals than bees or any herding cattle. Nature, as we say, does nothing in vain, and humans are the only animals who possess speech. Voice, as the sign of pleasure and pain, is given to other animals too, and their nature is capable of perceiving pleasure and pain and communicating these sensations to others. But it's through speech that we can express what is useful and what is harmful to us, and consequently what is just and what is unjust. In this particular way humans differ from other animals: we alone have a perception of good and evil, of just and unjust. Sharing these common perceptions is what forms a family and a city. Furthermore, the concept of a city naturally comes before that of a family or an individual, because the whole must necessarily come before the parts. If you take away the whole person, you can't say a foot or a hand remains, except in an equivocal sense, like supposing a stone hand were made (but that would only be a dead one). Everything is understood to be what it is by its active qualities and powers, so when these no longer exist, that thing can't be said to be the same anymore, but only something with the same name. It's clear, then, that a city comes before an individual. If an individual isn't self-sufficient enough to form a complete government, he relates to a city as other parts relate to a whole. But someone who is incapable of society, or so self-sufficient that he doesn't need it, forms no part of a city. He's either a beast or a god.

There is in all people a natural drive to form this kind of association with each other, and the person who first founded civil society was the cause of the greatest good. Just as the completion of civil society makes humans the most excellent of all living beings, so without law and justice we would be the worst of all. Nothing is as difficult to control as injustice armed with weapons. But humans are born with these weapons: intelligence and courage, which can be applied to completely opposite purposes. Whoever abuses them will be the most wicked, most cruel, most lustful, and most gluttonous being imaginable. Justice is a political virtue. By its rules the state is regulated, and these rules are the standard of what is right.

Chapter 3

Now that we've established what parts make up a city, we need to start by examining household management, since every city consists of households, and every household has its own distinct components. A complete household includes both free people and slaves. In any investigation, we should begin with the smallest units, and the smallest parts of a household are the master and slave, the husband and wife, and the father and child. Let's examine these three relationships: what each one actually is, and what it should be. In other words, we need to look at the master's authority, the marriage relationship, and parental authority. We can think of these as the three distinct elements of a household. Some people believe that managing the household's resources is something separate from governing it, while others consider resource management the most important part. We'll look at that question separately. But first, let's discuss the master and slave relationship, so we can understand what's fundamentally necessary and see if we can improve on what's already been said about this.

Some thinkers have argued that the master's power over his slave comes from superior knowledge, and that this knowledge is essentially the same whether someone is a master, a magistrate, or a king (as we mentioned earlier). But others believe that the master's authority over slaves goes against nature. They argue that only law makes one person a slave and another free, while nature itself makes no such distinction. Therefore, they say, this power can't be based on justice but only on force.

Chapter 4

Every family needs resources to survive, and acquiring those resources is clearly part of household management. Without the basics, we can't live at all, much less live well. Just as any craft that reaches perfection requires the right tools to complete its work, so does the art of managing a household. Tools come in two types: some are inanimate, others are living. Take a ship's pilot, for instance. The tiller is lifeless, but the sailor is alive. A servant functions as a living tool in many crafts.

Property, then, is a tool for living. An estate is simply a collection of tools, and a slave is a living tool. But anyone who can work independently is more valuable than any other instrument. If every tool could do its job on command, or even anticipate its master's wishes (like the legendary statues of Daedalus, or the tripods of Vulcan that the poets say moved on their own into the assembly of the gods), then the shuttle would weave by itself and the lyre would play without a musician. Architects wouldn't need assistants, and masters wouldn't need slaves.

What we usually call instruments are things that produce something else, while possessions are things we simply use. With a shuttle, we make something else for our use, but we just use a coat or a bed directly. Since making and using are fundamentally different activities, and both require their own instruments, those instruments must naturally differ from each other. Life itself is about using things, not about producing other things. That's why a slave's services are for use.

We can think of a possession the same way we think of a part of something. A part isn't just connected to something else; it has no independent existence. The same goes for a possession. A master is only the master of his slave, not part of him. But the slave is not only the slave of his master; he is nothing else. This fully explains what a slave is by nature and what he's capable of. Any being who by nature belongs entirely to another person, and not to himself, yet remains human, is a slave by nature. A person who is another's property is merely his chattel, even though he's still a human being. And a chattel is simply a tool for use, separate from the owner's body.

Chapter 5

But we'll consider later whether anyone is naturally suited to be a slave, and whether it's beneficial and just for anyone to be enslaved, or whether all slavery goes against nature. This isn't hard to figure out from general principles or by looking at the facts. Some people need to rule and others need to be ruled: this is not only necessary but useful. From birth, some are marked out for one role and others for the other, and there are many variations of both types. The better the people being governed, the better the government itself. Take humans rather than animals, for instance: the more excellent the materials used in any work, the more excellent the finished product will be. Wherever there's a ruler and someone ruled, some work gets produced. Anything made of many parts that come together as one, whether connected or separate, clearly shows the marks of ruler and ruled. This is true of every living thing in nature. It's even true in some non-living things, like music, though that would take us too far off topic.

Every living thing is first composed of soul and body. One naturally governs, the other is naturally governed. If we want to know what's natural, we should look at subjects where nature appears most perfect, not at corrupted examples. We should therefore examine a person who is most perfectly formed in both soul and body, where this relationship is clear. In depraved and vicious people, the body seems to rule rather than the soul, because they're corrupt and contrary to nature. We can see in an animal the basic principles of master-slave and political government. The soul governs the body as a master governs his slave. The mind governs the appetite with political or kingly power, which shows that it's both natural and beneficial for the body to be governed by the soul, and for the emotional part to be governed by the mind and the rational part. Having no ruling power, or an improper one, harms everyone. This holds true not only for humans but for other animals too. Tame animals are naturally better than wild ones, and it's beneficial for both to be under human control, since this ensures their common safety. The same applies to male and female: one is superior, the other inferior. One governs, the other is governed. The same rule necessarily applies to all humanity.

Those who are as much inferior to others as the body is to the soul should be treated accordingly, since the proper use of them is their bodies, where their excellence lies. If what I've said is true, they are slaves by nature, and it's beneficial for them to be always under government. Someone is naturally formed a slave when he's qualified to become another person's property, and is so on that account, and who has just enough reason to know that such a faculty exists, without being equipped to use it himself. Other animals have no perception of reason but are entirely guided by appetite, and they differ very little from slaves in their usefulness. The benefit we get from both slaves and tame animals comes from their bodily strength serving our needs. Nature intends to make the bodies of slaves and free people different from each other: slaves should be robust for necessary tasks, while free people should be upright, useless for the work slaves do, but fit for civic life, which divides into the duties of war and peace. These rules don't always hold, though. Slaves sometimes have the bodies of free people, sometimes the souls. But if it's clear that some bodies are as much more excellent than others as the statues of gods excel the human form, everyone will agree that the inferior ought to be slaves to the superior. If this is true regarding the body, it's even more justified to decide the same way when we consider the soul, though it's not as easy to perceive the beauty of the soul as it is of the body. Since some people are slaves by nature and others are free, it's clear that where slavery is beneficial to someone, it's just to make him a slave.

Chapter 6

But it's easy to see that those who take the opposite view have some valid points. A person can become a slave in two different ways: one is through law, and this law is essentially an agreement that whatever is captured in battle becomes the property of the victors. However, many legal experts challenge this supposed right, arguing that it's wrong for someone to be forced by violence into slavery and subjection to another person simply because that person has the power to compel them and is physically stronger. On this question, even wise people disagree, some thinking one way and some another. The reason for this uncertainty and difference of opinion is this: great ability, when backed by adequate resources, can usually succeed through force. After all, victory always comes from having some kind of advantage, so it appears that force never wins except when combined with great ability. But the question of whether this is just remains unresolved. Some people believe justice means treating others with kindness, while others think it's just for the powerful to rule. Between these opposing views, there aren't enough compelling reasons to convince us that the right to be master and governor should or shouldn't belong to those with the greatest abilities.

Some people rely entirely on legal rights (since what's legal is, in some sense, just) and insist that slavery resulting from war is just. They don't claim it's completely just, though, because the reasons for starting the war might have been unjust. Furthermore, no one would say that someone who doesn't deserve to be enslaved is therefore actually a slave. If that were true, people from the noblest families could end up as slaves, along with the descendants of slaves, if they happened to be captured in war and sold. To avoid this problem, they say such people shouldn't be called slaves at all, only barbarians should be. But when they say this, they're really just asking who is a slave by nature, which is what we started with. We have to admit that some people, no matter where they are, must necessarily be slaves, while others shouldn't be slaves in any situation. The same applies to those of noble birth: they're recognized as noble not just in their own country but everywhere, whereas barbarians are respected for this only at home. It's as if nobility and freedom came in two varieties, one universal and one limited. As the Helen of Theodectes says:

"Who dares reproach me with the name of slave? When from the immortal gods, on either side, I draw my lineage."

Those who express sentiments like this reveal something important about how they think. They're trying to distinguish slaves from free people, nobles from commoners, based on virtue and vice. Their reasoning goes like this: just as humans produce humans and animals produce animals, good people should produce good offspring. This is what nature aims for, though it often fails to achieve it.

This line of thinking has some merit. It suggests that not everyone is naturally destined to be either slave or free. In some cases, it's genuinely clear that both parties benefit when one person serves as a slave and another as a master. When nature intends this relationship, it's both right and just for some to govern and others to be governed. This is the kind of authority a master exercises over a slave.

But poor governance hurts both parties. What benefits the part benefits the whole, just as what's good for the body is good for the soul. The slave functions almost like a living extension of the master's body, though physically separate. This is why genuine mutual benefit and even friendship can exist between master and slave, provided nature has placed them in this relationship. The opposite happens when people are enslaved through law or conquest.

Chapter 7

Based on what we've discussed, it's clear that household management and political governance are fundamentally different, despite what some people claim. They aren't the same, and not all forms of government are interchangeable. One is designed for free people, the other for slaves. Running a household is essentially a monarchy, since that's how every home operates. But governing a political community means managing free and equal citizens.

We call someone a master not because he knows how to manage slaves, but simply because he is one. The same goes for slaves and free people: their titles reflect what they are. There's a specific kind of knowledge that belongs to masters, and a different kind that belongs to slaves. The slave's knowledge resembles what that instructor in Syracuse used to teach. For a fee, he would train household slaves in all their various duties. These included many different skills, like cooking and other domestic services. Some tasks were assigned to certain slaves, others to different ones. Some jobs were considered more honorable, others more essential. As the saying goes, "One slave is better than another, one master better than another." This is the kind of practical knowledge a slave needs.

The master's knowledge, on the other hand, is knowing how to properly direct his slaves. Being a master means actively managing them, not just owning them. This knowledge isn't particularly impressive or sophisticated. After all, whatever a slave needs to know how to do, a master simply needs to know how to command. That's why people who can afford to avoid these mundane concerns hire a steward to handle such matters. They then devote themselves to either public service or philosophy. The knowledge of how to acquire what a household needs is different from both the master's knowledge and the slave's. And acquiring these necessities justly must come through either war or hunting. That covers the essential differences between master and slave.

Chapter 8

Since a slave represents a specific type of property, we should investigate the nature of property in general and the acquisition of wealth, following the method we've outlined. First, someone might question whether wealth acquisition is the same thing as household management, or whether it's a part of it, or something that serves it. If it serves household management, is it like how shuttle-making serves weaving, or how bronze-working serves sculpture? These relationships aren't identical: one supplies the tools, the other supplies the raw material. By raw material, I mean the substance from which the finished product is made, like wool for cloth or bronze for a statue. Clearly, wealth acquisition isn't the same as household management, because one provides the means and the other uses them. What skill is involved in managing a household besides household management itself? But whether wealth acquisition is part of household management or something entirely different remains unclear. If the person responsible for acquiring wealth must figure out how to obtain riches and possessions, and since both can come from various sources, we first need to ask whether farming is part of wealth acquisition or something separate. More broadly, we need to ask the same question about every form of acquisition and every activity related to obtaining provisions.

Since there are many types of provisions, the ways of life for both humans and animals vary considerably. Because life is impossible without food, differences in diet create different lifestyles among animals. Some beasts live in herds, others live alone, depending on what's most convenient for getting food. Some eat meat, others eat fruit, and still others eat whatever they find. Nature has distinguished their ways of life so they can easily obtain what they need to survive. Since different animals prefer different foods, the lives of meat-eating beasts must differ from those of fruit-eating ones. The same is true for humans: their lives differ greatly from one another.

Of all these lifestyles, the shepherd's is the most leisurely. Shepherds live on the meat of domesticated animals without much effort, though they must move their homes to follow their flocks, essentially cultivating a living farm. Others live by exercising violence over living creatures, pursuing different prey. Some prey on other humans. Those who live near lakes, marshes, rivers, or the sea survive by fishing, while others are bird catchers or hunters of wild beasts. But most of humanity lives on what the earth produces and its cultivated crops. The way of life for all those who follow nature's direction and work for their own subsistence is roughly the same. They never think about obtaining provisions through exchange or trade. These include shepherds, farmers, robbers, fishermen, and hunters. Some combine different occupations and live quite comfortably, filling in whatever gaps remain to make their subsistence completely self-sufficient. For instance, the same person might be both a shepherd and a robber, or both a farmer and a hunter. The rest pursue whatever lifestyle necessity demands.

Nature herself seems to provide this sustenance to all animals, both at their first origin and when they reach maturity. At the first stage, some are provided with proper nourishment in the womb, which continues until the newborn can get food for itself. This is the case with larvae and birds. As for those that give birth to live young, they have the means for their offspring's subsistence within themselves for a certain time: milk. It's clear, then, that we can conclude that plants are created for the sake of animals, and animals for the sake of humans. Domesticated animals serve our use and provision. Wild animals, at least most of them, also serve our provision or some other useful purpose, like furnishing us with clothing and similar goods. Since nature makes nothing either imperfect or pointless, she has necessarily made all these things for humans. For this reason, what we gain in war is, to some degree, a natural acquisition. Hunting is part of this, and we must use it against wild beasts and against those people who, though intended by nature for slavery, refuse to submit to it. In such cases, war is naturally just.

That form of acquisition which accords with nature is part of household management. This should be readily available or, if not, immediately obtained: namely, what's necessary to store for living, and what's useful for both the state and the family. True wealth seems to consist in these things, and the acquisition of possessions necessary for a happy life is not unlimited, though Solon says otherwise in this verse:

"No bounds to riches can be fixed for man"

Yet limits can be set, just as they are in other fields. After all, no craft requires an infinite number of tools, nor tools of infinite size. But wealth consists of a collection of tools used in managing households and cities. It's clear, then, that acquiring certain things according to nature is part of both household management and political governance, and we can see why this is the case.