While Xenophon is not usually considered among the socialists of Greece, he approaches perhaps even nearer than Plato to one phase of modern socialism.
Like Plato, he opposes the extreme individualism of the political and private life of his day.474
He also reveals the Greek feeling of the social obligation of private property.475
Again, as do Plato and modern socialists, he magnifies the power of law to transform economic or social conditions.476
But in advocating the modern doctrine of the socialization of industry, with an economic, and not a moral or political, motive, he has advanced beyond either Plato or Aristotle, and approaches modern socialism.477
As seen above, however, his economic motive is not interest in the welfare of the masses, for by his scheme they would all be slaves. He desires only to abolish poverty among the citizens.478
He would have the state become entrepreneur, not merely in one, but in many branches of industry. State merchant shipping,479 public ownership of slaves,480 public exploitation of the mines,481 public buildings near the mines, for rental to strangers,482 are all in his plan.
The rich must finance the scheme, but their profit will be 18, 36, or even 200 per cent.483 Companies are to be organized so as to obviate individual risk.484 Thus will poverty be no more, plenty for all will reign, and there will be an era of prosperity and security for the state.485
His thesis is, in a word, that what private capital can accomplish for the enrichment of itself alone, state capital can accomplish to better advantage for the enrichment of the whole citizenship,486 a doctrine which strikes a truly modern socialistic note.