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FRAGMENTS
FROM THE REPUBLIC OF PLATO.
I. But it would be almost impossible to build your
city in such a situation that it would need no
imposts?—Impossible.—Other persons would
then be required, who might undertake to conduct from
another city those things of which they stood in need?—Certainly.—But
the merchant who should return to his
own city, without any of those articles which it needed,
would return empty-handed. It will be necessary, therefore,
not only to produce a sufficient supply, but such
articles, both in quantity and in kind, as may be
required to remunerate those who conduct the imports.
There will be needed then more husbandmen, and other
artificers, in our city. There will be needed also other
persons who will undertake the conveyance of the imports
and the exports, and these persons are called merchants.
If the commerce which these necessities produce is
carried on by sea, other persons will be required who
are accustomed to nautical affairs. And, in the city
itself, how shall the products of each man's labour be
transported from one to another; those products, for
the sake of the enjoyment and the ready distribution
of which, they were first induced to institute a civil
society?—By selling and buying, surely.—A market
