In his opinion, the present system of private property, if accompanied by a right moral tone and proper laws, combines the advantages of both common and individual ownership.829 The tenure of property should therefore be private, but there should be a certain friendly community in its actual use.830 Thus will be avoided the double evil of strife and neglect, which must result from dissatisfaction and lack of personal interest under communism.831
He offers as a substitute for the Platonic doctrine, then, his own ideal of reciprocal equality (τὸ ἴσον τὸ ἀντιπεπονθός) as the real cement of society.832
In any event, he asserts, the present evils do not result from private property, but from the depravity of human nature (μοχθηρίαν),833 and the aim should be to improve this by moral and intellectual culture, rather than to attempt amelioration by the establishment of an entirely new system.834
The latter method would result, even if successful, not only in escape from some of the present evils, but also in the loss of the present advantages of private tenure.835
The foregoing arguments all show remarkable practical insight, and have been common in the modern criticism of socialism.
The objection that individual effort and industry would be paralyzed if bereft of the stimulus of personal interest and ownership, while a general fact of human nature, need not be valid against a system where each has opportunity to develop up to his capacity.
There is certainly little to impel the great mass of people to industry under an individualistic system, except the proverbial wolf at the door. But Aristotle is not thinking of the masses.