Debt: The First 5,000 Years

by David Graeber

Rulers are like shepherds. We like to think of them as benevolently tending their flocks, but what do shepherds ultimately do with sheep? They kill and eat them, or sell the meat for money. Socrates responds by pointing out that Thrasymachos is confusing the art of tending sheep with the art of profiting from them. The art of medicine aims to improve health, whether or not doctors get paid for practicing it. The art of shepherding aims to ensure the well-being of sheep, whether or not the shepherd (or his employer) is also a businessman who knows how to extract a profit from them. Just so with the art of governance. If such an art exists, it must have its own intrinsic aim apart from any profit one might also get from it, and what can this be other than the establishment of social justice? It’s only the existence of money, Socrates suggests, that allows us to imagine that words like “power” and “interest” refer to universal realities that can be pursued in their own right, let alone that all pursuits are really ultimately the pursuit of power, advantage, or self-interest.87 The question, he said, is how to ensure that those who hold political office will do so not for gain, but rather for honor.