He admits that the doctrine of economic equality may have some wisdom in it.796 The attempt to equalize possessions may tend slightly to prevent civic discord.797 Yet it is liable to arouse sedition on the part of the exploited classes,798 and such relief measures will satisfy the masses only for a time, for they are notoriously insatiate.799 In his opinion, therefore, the saner remedy is equalization of desires rather than of property,800 which must be realized by proper education and a right constitution, whereby the upper classes shall not oppress, and the masses shall be held in check. We have here still a valid argument against the more radical type of socialism.
It is suggestive of the modern doctrine of private property as a public trust,801 and presents clearly the antithesis between the attitude of Greek thinkers and that of the modern social democracy.802
Aristotle argues further that equalization of property would be powerless to prevent anything more than the merely petty crimes, for the grossest ones are the result of inordinate desire, rather than of inability to provide life’s necessities.803
Moreover, there are many other natural inequalities of life what would remain to arouse discontent.804
This is a sensible observation that has often been overlooked by modern radical socialists, though its author might have objected further that such personal diversities would also render an abiding equality of property impossible. His previous argument, however, that immorality and crimes are the result of inordinate desire, rather than of economic need, might be answered today by the results of investigations upon the relation of wages to morality.