Ways and Means

Xenophon

Xenophon, creator; Scripta Minora; Marchant, E. C. (Edgar Cardew), 1864-1960, editor, translator; Bowersock, G. W, (Glen Warren), 1936-, editor, translator

disappointed, he loses the money he has spent. Therefore people nowadays are very chary of taking such a risk.

However, I think I can meet this difficulty too, and suggest a plan that will make the opening of new cuttings a perfectly safe undertaking. The Athenians, of course, are divided into ten tribes. Now assume that the state were to offer each tribe an equal number of slaves, and that when new cuttings were made, the tribes were to pool their luck.

The result would be that if one tribe found silver, the discovery would be profitable to all; and if two, three, four, or half the tribes found, the profits from these works would obviously be greater.

Nothing that has happened in the past makes it probable that all would fail to find.

Of course, private individuals also are able to combine on this principle and pool their fortunes in order to diminish the risk. Nevertheless there is no reason to fear that a public company formed on this plan will conflict with the interests of private persons, or be hampered by them. No, just as every new adhesion to a confederacy brings an increase of strength to all its members, so the greater the number of persons operating in the mines, the more treasure they will discover and unearth.

I have now explained what regulations I think should be introduced into the state in order that every Athenian may receive sufficient maintenance at the public expense.

Some may imagine that enough money would never be subscribed to provide the huge amount of capital necessary, according to their calculations, to finance all these schemes. But even so they need not despair.

For it is not essential that the plan should be carried out in all its details in order that any advantage may come of it. No, whatever the number of houses built, or of ships constructed, or of slaves purchased, they will immediately prove a paying concern.