There are some persons who think, that the first object of government
should be to regulate well everything relating to private property;
for they say, that a neglect herein is the source of all seditions
whatsoever. For this reason, Phaleas the Chalcedonian first proposed,
that the fortunes of the citizens should be equal, which he thought
was not difficult to accomplish when a community was first settled,
but that it was a work of greater difficulty in one that had been long
established; but yet that it might be effected, and an equality of
circumstances introduced by these means, that the rich should give
marriage portions, but never receive any, while the poor should always
receive, but never give.
But Plato, in his treatise of Laws, thinks that a difference in
circumstances should be permitted to a certain degree; but that no
citizen should be allowed to possess more than five times as much as
the lowest census, as we have already mentioned. But legislators who
would establish this principle are apt to overlook what they ought to
consider; that while they regulate the quantity of provisions which
each individual shall possess, they ought also to regulate the number
of his children; for if these exceed the allotted quantity of
provision, the law must necessarily be repealed; and yet, in spite of
the repeal, it will have the bad effect of reducing many from wealth
to poverty, so difficult is it for innovators not to fall into such
mistakes.
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