The wealthy and cultivated classes have disliked and also dreaded them; they have pointed with satisfaction to the failure of efforts to realize them in practice.

Yet since they are the thoughts of one of the greatest of human intelligences, and of one who had done most to elevate morality and religion, they seem to deserve a better treatment at our hands.

We may have to address the public, as Plato does poetry, and assure them that we mean no harm to existing institutions.
There are serious errors which have a side of truth and which therefore may fairly demand a careful consideration: there are truths mixed with error of which we may indeed say, 'The half is better than the whole.' Yet 'the half' may be an important contribution to the study of human nature.
(a) The first paradox is the community of goods, which is mentioned slightly at the end of the third Book, and seemingly, as Aristotle observes, is confined to the guardians; at least no mention is made of the other classes.

But the omission is not of any real significance, and probably arises out of the plan of the work, which prevents the writer from entering into details.
Aristotle censures the community of property much in the spirit of modern political economy, as tending to repress industry, and as doing away with the spirit of benevolence.

Modern writers almost refuse to consider the subject, which is supposed to have been long ago settled by the common opinion of mankind.