In fine, his attitude toward the mechanical arts is similar to that of Ruskin, who also thinks that manual labor is degrading.151
But as with Plato, the chief secret of his prejudice lies in the fact that laborers usually do their work mechanically, without thought. He believes that “workmen ought often to be thinking, and thinkers ought often to be working.” He is willing to classify all work as liberal on this basis, the only distinction being the amount of skill required.152
However, in agreement with Plato’s idea, he would set the roughest and least intellectual to the roughest work, and this he thinks to be “the best of charities” to them.153
With Plato, he is also convinced that, under actual conditions of labor, the degradation is very difficult to avoid, and therefore he would emphasize chiefly agricultural labor, where education of head and hand are more fully realized.154
It is, however, in Plato’s constant insistence upon the principle of the division of labor, as a prerequisite for any success in the mechanical arts or elsewhere, that he reveals insight into, and interest in, productive labor. This is the basal idea in the Republic.
It is also one of the chief regulations in the Laws, where its direct application to the artisan is a clear evidence that he appreciates the economic significance of the principle.155
To him, it is the foundation of all human development. Society finds its source in mutual need (ἡ ἡμετέρα χρεία). Man is not self-sufficient (αὐτάρκης). Reciprocity is necessary even in the most primitive state.156
Out of this necessary dependence arises the division of labor, a beneficent law, “since the product is larger, better, and more easily produced, whenever one man gives up all other business, and does one thing fitting to his nature, and at the opportune time.”157