Plato’s idea that society is the exact counterpart of the individual in the large, however, is quite analogous to the modern comparison of society to an organism.325 Both are wrong in attempting to press the analogy too far, yet they contain a truth of profound importance, which is at the foundation of the marked change in the spirit of economics in recent years. It is the notion of solidarity, which demands that the individual shall no longer seek the content of his being in himself alone, but also in the conditions that shall produce the highest life for the commonwealth.
In the Laws, Plato reluctantly abandons some of the utopian suggestions of the Republic for a more practical legislation,326 though his ideal is really unchanged. Communism of property and of the family are both discarded even for the rulers, as feasible only for a supernatural order of beings.327 As a noble ideal, however, it still hovers before him.328 Private property is permitted to the citizens,329 but under protest, and if practicable, Plato would like to prohibit it, as the primary root of all social disturbance and corruption.330 He would advocate, therefore, a return to the old régime of family tenure, somewhat on the model of the Spartan system.331 He would also hamper this by limitations so as to make it no real ownership at all. The land is to be practically state property, over which the citizens exercise merely the right of use.332 It is to be divided into lots of equal value, corresponding exactly to the number of citizens.333 Natural disadvantages shall be compensated for by an increase in the size of the lot, and part of each allotment shall be near, and part at a distance from the city, that all may be on an equal footing, and alike ready to defend against invasion.334 In order that no citizen may lose his lot, and no man