Economics

That is to say, the same things are wealth and not wealth, according as one understands or does not understand how to use them. A flute, for example, is wealth to one who is competent to play it, but to an incompetent person it is no better than useless stones.True—unless he sells it.

We now see that to persons who don’t understand its use, a flute is wealth if they sell it, but not wealth if they keep it instead of selling.Yes, Socrates, and our argument runs consistently, since we have said that what is profitable is wealth. For a flute, if not put up for sale, is not wealth, because it is useless: if put up for sale it becomes wealth.

Yes, commented Socrates, provided he knows how to sell; but again, in case he sells it for something he doesn’t know how to use, even then the sale doesn’t convert it into wealth, according to you. You imply, Socrates, that even money isn’t wealth to one who doesn’t know how to use it.

And you, I think, agree with me to this extent, that wealth is that from which a man can derive profit. At any rate, if a man uses his money to buy a mistress who makes him worse off in body and soul and estate, how can his money be profitable to him then?By no means, unless we are ready to maintain that the weed called nightshade, which drives you mad if you eat it, is wealth.

Then money is to be kept at a distance, Critobulus, if one doesn’t know how to use it, and not to be included in wealth. But how about friends? If one knows how to make use of them so as to profit by them, what are they to be called?Wealth, of course, and much more so than cattle, if it be true that they are more profitable than cattle.

Yes, and it follows from what you say that enemies too are wealth to anyone who can derive profit from them.Well, that is my opinion.Consequently it is the business of a good estate manager to know how to deal with enemies so as to derive profit from them too.Most decidedly.In fact, Critobulus, you cannot fail to notice that many private persons have been indebted to war for the increase of their estates, and many princes too.

Yes, so far so good, Socrates. But sometimes we come across persons possessed of knowledge and means whereby they can increase their estates if they work, and we find that they are unwilling to do so; and consequently we see that their knowledge profits them nothing. What are we to make of that? In these cases, surely, neither their knowledge nor their property is wealth?

Are you trying to raise a discussion about slaves, Critobulus?Oh no, not at all: I am referring to persons of whom some, at any rate, are considered men of the highest lineage. I observe that there are persons skilled in the arts of war or peace, as the case may be, who are unwilling to practice them, and the reason, I think, is just this, that they have no master over them.

What, no master over them, when, in spite of their prayers for prosperity and their desire to do what will bring them good, they are thwarted in their intentions by the powers that rule them?