The Complete Aristotle (eng.)

which
will be adduced when the time comes for examining similar polities,
tend to show that states like Plato’s should not be composed of
democracy and monarchy. There is also a danger in electing the
magistrates out of a body who are themselves elected; for, if but a
small number choose to combine, the elections will always go as
they desire. Such is the constitution which is described in the
Laws.
VII
    Other constitutions have been proposed; some by private persons,
others by philosophers and statesmen, which all come nearer to
established or existing ones than either of Plato’s. No one else
has introduced such novelties as the community of women and
children, or public tables for women: other legislators begin with
what is necessary. In the opinion of some, the regulation of
property is the chief point of all, that being the question upon
which all revolutions turn. This danger was recognized by Phaleas
of Chalcedon, who was the first to affirm that the citizens of a
state ought to have equal possessions. He thought that in a new
colony the equalization might be accomplished without difficulty,
not so easily when a state was already established; and that then
the shortest way of compassing the desired end would be for the
rich to give and not to receive marriage portions, and for the poor
not to give but to receive them.
    Plato in the Laws was of opinion that, to a certain extent,
accumulation should be allowed, forbidding, as I have already
observed, any citizen to possess more than five times the minimum
qualification But those who make such laws should remember what
they are apt to forget—that the legislator who fixes the amount of
property should also fix the number of children; for, if the
children are too many for the property, the law must be broken.
And, besides the violation of the law, it is a bad thing that many
from being rich should become poor; for men of ruined fortunes are
sure to stir up revolutions. That the equalization of property
exercises an influence on political society was clearly understood
even by some of the old legislators. Laws were made by Solon and
others prohibiting an individual from possessing as much land as he
pleased; and there are other laws in states which forbid the sale
of property: among the Locrians, for example, there is a law that a
man is not to sell his property unless he can prove unmistakably
that some misfortune has befallen him. Again, there have been laws
which enjoin the preservation of the original lots. Such a law
existed in the island of Leucas, and the abrogation of it made the
constitution too democratic, for the rulers no longer had the
prescribed qualification. Again, where there is equality of
property, the amount may be either too large or too small, and the
possessor may be living either in luxury or penury. Clearly, then,
the legislator ought not only to aim at the equalization of
properties, but at moderation in their amount. Further, if he
prescribe this moderate amount equally to all, he will be no nearer
the mark; for it is not the possessions but the desires of mankind
which require to be equalized, and this is impossible, unless a
sufficient education is provided by the laws. But Phaleas will
probably reply that this is precisely what he means; and that, in
his opinion, there ought to be in states, not only equal property,
but equal education. Still he should tell precisely what he means;
and that, in his opinion, there ought to be in be in having one and
the same for all, if it is of a sort that predisposes men to
avarice, or ambition, or both. Moreover, civil troubles arise, not
only out of the inequality of property, but out of the inequality
of honor, though in opposite ways. For the common people quarrel
about the inequality of property, the higher class about the
equality of honor; as the poet says,
The bad and good alike in honor share.
    There are crimes of which the motive is want; and for these
Phaleas expects to find a cure in the equalization of property,
which will take away from a man the temptation to be a highwayman,
because he is hungry or cold. But want is not the sole incentive to
crime; men also wish to enjoy themselves and not to be in a state
of desire—they wish to cure some desire, going beyond the
necessities of life, which preys upon them; nay, this is not the
only reason—they may desire superfluities in order to enjoy
pleasures unaccompanied with pain, and therefore they commit
crimes.
    Now what is the cure of