oduce at home must be not only enough for
themselves, but such both in quantity and quality as to accommodate
those from whom their wants are supplied.

Very true.

Then more husbandmen and more artisans will be required?

They will.

Not to mention the importers and exporters, who are called merchants?

Yes.

Then we shall want merchants?

We shall.

And if merchandise is to be carried over the sea, skilful sailors will
also be needed, and in considerable numbers?

Yes, in considerable numbers.

Then, again, within the city, how will they exchange their productions?
To secure such an exchange was, as you will remember, one of our
principal objects when we formed them into a society and constituted a
State.

Clearly they will buy and sell.

Then they will need a market-place, and a money-token for purposes of
exchange.

Certainly.

Suppose now that a husbandman, or an artisan, brings some production
to market, and he comes at a time when there is no one to exchange with
him,--is he to leave his calling and sit idle in the market-place?

Not at all; he will find people there who, seeing the want, undertake
the office of salesmen. In well-ordered states they are commonly those
who are the weakest in bodily strength, and therefore of little use for
any other purpose; their duty is to be in the market, and to give money
in exchange for goods to those who desire to sell and to take money from
those who desire to buy.

This want, then, creates a class of retail-traders in our State. Is
not 'retailer' the term which is applied to those who sit in the
market-place engaged in buying and selling, while those who wander from
one city to another are called merchants?

Yes, he said.

And there is another class of servants, who are intellectually hardly
on the level of companionship; still they have plenty of bodily strength
for labour, which accordingly they sell, and are called, if I do not
mistake, hirelings, hire being the name which is given to the price of
their labour.

True.

Then hirelings will help to make up our population?

Yes.

And now, Adeimantus, is our State matured and perfected?

I think so.

Where, then, is justice, and where is injustice, and in what part of the
State did they spring up?

Probably in the dealings of these citizens with one another. I cannot
imagine that they are more likely to be found any where else.

I dare say that you are right in your suggestion, I said;