Plato’s Radical Communism: Abolishing Private Property and Family for Guardians

In ancient Athens around 380 BCE, Plato put forward an idea so bold that it still sparks debate in classrooms today: the people who govern the state should own nothing and have no family of their own. No private homes, no personal wealth, no exclusive spouses, no children they could call their own. In his masterwork The Republic, Plato argued that the ruling class-the guardians-could only serve the public faithfully if they were stripped of the very things most people spend their lives chasing. This proposal, often called the “community of wives and property,” sits at the heart of his vision for a just and unified state.

Who were the guardians? 🔗

Before understanding why Plato wanted to abolish property and family, we need to know who this rule applied to. Plato divided his ideal state into three classes based on the dominant element of the soul. The producers-farmers, artisans, and merchants-formed the largest class and managed the economy. The auxiliaries were the soldiers and police who defended the state. At the top stood the guardians, the philosopher-rulers who governed everyone.

The term “guardian” is often used in two senses. In the broad sense it covers both the rulers and the auxiliaries, since both must guard the state. Plato’s radical scheme of communism applied only to these two upper classes-the rulers and the auxiliaries-and not to the producing class. The farmers and craftsmen were left free to own property, marry, and raise families as they wished. This is a crucial point that critics, including Aristotle, often overlooked.

The two forms of Platonic communism 🔗

Plato’s communism had two distinct but connected parts. The first was the communism of property, and the second was the communism of families, also known as the community of wives and children. Many scholars note that the communism of property follows logically from Plato’s theory of justice, while the communism of families follows logically from the communism of property. For Plato, private property and the private family were tied together-you could not abolish one without addressing the other.

Communism of property 🔗

Plato required that the guardians live without private wealth. They would have no gold or silver, no private houses, no personal storerooms, and no land of their own. Instead, they would live communally, much like soldiers in barracks, sharing common meals and dwellings. Their material needs would be met through a fixed allowance contributed by the producing class, supplying only what was necessary for a temperate life.

The reasoning was straightforward. Plato believed that private property breeds selfishness, greed, and division. A ruler who owns property begins to think in terms of “mine” and “not mine,” and this distinction pulls his attention away from the common good. According to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Book V of the Republic suggests that a sufficiently unified regime can only be achieved by depriving the guardian-rulers of private property and private families, making them live in austere communal conditions supported by their money-making subjects.

Communism of wives and children 🔗

The second and more controversial part was the abolition of the private family among the guardians. This did not mean promiscuity or casual relationships, as the name might suggest. Rather, it meant a carefully regulated system in which guardians had no permanent spouses and no private households.

Marriages would be temporary unions arranged by the state, often through festivals and a lottery system that was secretly controlled to pair the best men with the best women. Children born from these unions would be removed from their parents at birth and raised collectively in state nurseries by trained nurses. Crucially, no parent would know which child was biologically theirs, and no child would know its biological parents. The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy explains that this arrangement was designed so that all the guardians would regard every child of the right age as their own.

Why abolish property and family? The argument for unity 🔗

The single most important goal behind Plato’s communism was the unity of the state. Plato believed that the greatest evil for any state was discord and division, while the greatest good was unity-a condition where citizens feel pleasure and pain together, as one body feels pain when a single finger is hurt.

Private property and the private family, in Plato’s view, were the two chief sources of division. When rulers have personal possessions, they pursue private gain. When they have their own families, they favour their wives and children over the welfare of the state. These attachments create competing loyalties. A scholarly analysis of the Republic notes that abolishing the private family prevents guardians from tearing the city apart, with each person dragging into a separate house whatever wealth he can acquire for his own wife and children.

By removing both property and family, Plato aimed to create a ruling class that had no private interests at all. Their only concern would be the welfare of the whole community. Research on the abolition of the family in the Republic argues that this change in the economic and social framework leads to an identity between the private interests of the rulers and the common interests of the state, establishing a genuine fellowship among the guardians.

Preventing corruption and nepotism 🔗

Another major purpose was to keep the ruling class incorruptible. Plato understood human nature well. He knew that the temptation of wealth and the pull of family ties could corrupt even the most virtuous rulers. A ruler who can accumulate land and money for his descendants will be tempted to abuse his power. A ruler who wants to secure positions for his own sons will practise nepotism and favouritism.

By abolishing property and family, Plato sought to eliminate the very roots of corruption. With no family to enrich and no property to accumulate, the guardians would have no motive to misuse public office. This also reinforced the meritocratic nature of his state. Since family ties, inherited wealth, and accident of birth would not determine who became a ruler, only the most deserving and able individuals would rise to the guardian class.

Communism as a corollary of justice 🔗

For Plato, justice meant that each class performs its own proper function without interfering in the work of others. The producers manage the economy, the auxiliaries defend the state, and the guardians govern. Communism reinforced this principle. By denying the guardians any role in economic life-no property, no trade, no money-making-Plato ensured they would not be distracted by appetite and material desire.

Plato believed justice could be achieved through two means: spiritual and material. Education was the spiritual remedy that shaped the soul, while communism was the material remedy that removed the external temptations of property and family. Together, these measures would produce rulers governed by reason rather than appetite.

A surprising element: equality for women 🔗

One striking feature of Plato’s scheme was its treatment of women. Because guardian women were freed from domestic duties and child-rearing, they could be educated and trained exactly like men. Plato argued that the qualities needed for rulership-wisdom, courage, and self-control-were not limited to one gender. A woman with the right nature could be a guardian just as effectively as a man.

In a society where Greek women had very limited rights and were largely confined to the household, this was genuinely progressive thinking. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy observes that Plato’s purpose in this radical restructuring of marriage was to extend family feeling beyond the nuclear family to the state itself. Yet scholars remain divided on whether this represented liberation for women or simply turned them into instruments of the state’s breeding programme. The same education and roles came at the cost of motherhood and family life as women knew it.

The criticisms: Aristotle responds 🔗

Plato’s communism faced sharp criticism, most famously from his own student, Aristotle. In Book II of his Politics, Aristotle launched a detailed attack on the idea of common property and common families.

Common things are neglected 🔗

Aristotle’s most famous objection was that what is common to the greatest number receives the least care. When everyone owns something, no one feels truly responsible for it. People care most about what is their own. Aristotle believed that abolishing private property would actually reduce care, efficiency, and productivity rather than improve them.

Unity can be taken too far 🔗

Aristotle also argued that Plato’s pursuit of unity was misguided. A state is by nature a plurality of different people performing different roles. If you try to make a state completely one, you destroy what makes it a state at all. As Aristotle put it, a city that becomes increasingly one will eventually stop being a city, because a city is in its nature a kind of multitude. Diversity, not uniformity, was the source of a state’s strength and self-sufficiency.

Weakening natural affection 🔗

Aristotle further contended that common families would weaken, not strengthen, human bonds. If a child belongs to everyone, it effectively belongs to no one. Natural affection between parent and child, which Aristotle saw as a foundation of social life, would be diluted and lost. He worried this could even lead to neglect and conflict.

It is worth noting that some scholars consider Aristotle’s criticism partly unfair, since he sometimes wrote as though Plato applied communism to the whole city rather than only the guardian class. Modern scholars have revisited these debates, suggesting a more nuanced reading of what Plato actually intended.

How Platonic communism differs from modern communism 🔗

Students often confuse Plato’s communism with the modern Marxist variety, but the two are fundamentally different. Plato’s communism was aristocratic-it applied only to the ruling elite, leaving the producing masses to own property. Modern communism is proletarian, aiming to abolish private ownership across the whole society.

The aims also differ. Plato was concerned with the consumption of property-he wanted to remove the things that distracted rulers from their duties. Modern communism is concerned with the ownership of the means of production. Furthermore, Plato sought to make a single self-sufficient city-state morally and politically sound, while modern communism envisioned a global revolution to transform all of society. In short, Plato’s was a communism of consumption for the few; Marx’s was a communism of production for the many.

Why this idea still matters 🔗

Plato’s community of wives and property may seem impractical, even shocking, by today’s standards. Few would seriously propose abolishing the family or forbidding rulers from owning anything. Yet the underlying concerns remain deeply relevant. How do we keep those in power free from corruption? How do we prevent personal and family interests from interfering with public duty? How do we ensure that leaders genuinely serve the common good rather than enriching themselves and their relatives?

These questions echo in modern debates about conflicts of interest, the disclosure of assets by public officials, nepotism in appointments, and the integrity of those who govern. Plato’s answer was extreme, but the problem he identified-the tension between private interest and public duty-has never gone away. His proposal endures less as a practical blueprint and more as a powerful thought experiment about the nature of justice, power, and sacrifice in public life.

What do you think? Was Plato right that the only way to guarantee selfless rulers is to remove all private interests from their lives, or did Aristotle have the better point that abolishing property and family would destroy the very human bonds that hold a society together? And in a modern democracy, what safeguards could achieve Plato’s goal of incorruptible leadership without his radical methods?

References

1. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ancient-political/
2. https://iep.utm.edu/republic/
3. https://philarchive.org/archive/SINPOW-2
4. https://www.academia.edu/3070388/Plato_and_the_Abolition_of_the_Family
5. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/marriage/
6. https://johnkilcullen.net/y6704.html