Plato’s City

Coronavirus might give us the opportunity to enact Plato’s minimalist city:

“The origin of the city, then,” said I, “in my opinion, is to be found in the fact that we do not severally suffice for our own needs, but each of us lacks many things. … As a result of this, then, one man calling in another for one service and another for another, we, being in need of many things, gather many into one place of abode as associates and helpers, and to this dwelling together we give the name city or state, do we not? … Now the first and chief of our needs is the provision of food for existence and life. … The second is housing and the third is raiment and that sort of thing. … The indispensable minimum of a city, then, would consist of four or five men[: farmer, builder, weaver, cobbler, ‘and some other purveyor for the needs of the body’].”

Republic 369b-e, trans. Paul Shorey