The Intelligent Troglodyte’s Guide to Plato’s Republic, 2016a

19 Luxuries in the City
See 372c-374a. Socrates and Glaucon decide their imaginary city is to be a
luxurious one. The citizens aren’t to eat just nourishing food, but to enjoy “high
cuisine” (fish, sweets, and other unnecessary pleasure-foods). They aren’t to sit on
just anything, but to “recline on proper couches.” They are to have “incense,
perfumes, prostitutes, and pastries.” They are to have sculpture and painting,
music and dance, theater and jewelry, “tutors, wet nurses, nannies, beauticians,
barbers, and relish cooks and meat cooks.” And to cap it off, they are to have an
army, for they will need to acquire and defend the land necessary to support such a
city.
Socrates considers the luxurious city to be “feverish” – unhealthy – and so it
is a fair question why he agrees to take it on as the basis for his discussion
of justice. It will eventually become clear that he has taken it on in much
the same way a physician takes on a sick patient. (He describes what he is
up to at 399e with a word that can be translated as “purification” or
“purgation.”) But why this approach? Why, if Socrates is searching for an
understanding of the nature of justice, doesn’t he focus instead on the
simple, “healthy” city?
What relation, if any, is there between wealth and force? Does ownership
require an ability to defend one’s possessions?
What, if anything, do people need to own in order to flourish and be happy?
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