Mastering our masters

When Diogenes of Sinope was sold as a slave, he endured it most nobly. For on a voyage to Aegina he was captured by pirates under the command of Scirpalus, conveyed to Crete and exposed for sale. When the auctioneer asked in what he was proficient, he replied, "In ruling men." Thereupon he pointed to a certain Corinthian with a fine purple border to his robe, the man named Xeniades above-mentioned, and said, “Sell me to this man; he needs a master.”
Diogenes Laërtius, Lives of the Eminent Philosophers, 6.73

Diogenes is confronted by a violently enforced social institution in which slaves exist to fulfill the desires of their masters. Courageously defying this institution at the risk of his life, Diogenes insists on giving higher precedence to reason than to violently enforced social hierarchies. Diogenes sees that the Corinthian Xeniades is addicted to luxury. The purple border on his robe shows he’s using resources irrationally, choosing to ornament himself in a world where others suffer dire privation. Xeniades needs a master to rule him, to teach him to behave rationally. Diogenes generously offers to take on the task, to help Xeniades overcome the profusion of intemperate, irrational desires that rule his soul, and put a rational desire to seek virtue and wisdom in its place.

Diogenes’ defiant stance is an example of a philosophical practice in which violently enforced social hierarchies, and the ideological constructs used to rationalize them, are treated as irrelevant for the purpose of deciding the proper course of thought and action. Only a cowardly soul allows itself to be ruled by violence. A brave soul is ruled by reason and reason alone. The ideologies used to rationalize violently enforced social hierarchies are so pervasive, however, a philosopher needs an active approach to neutralize them.

Anaxagoras came from a wealthy family. He gave up his wealth, and the political influence it might have procured, to study science and philosophy. “Thought is something limitless and independent,” he says, “and has been mixed with no thing but is alone by itself. … What was mingled with it would have prevented it from having power over anything in the way in which it does. … For it is the finest of all things and the purest.” One thing that is often mingled with thought is, of course, money. For all but the most pure-hearted philosopher, money enters into philosophical reasoning alongside other factors, corrupting its fineness and purity.

In The Republic, Socrates analyzes the situation of a man who has a horde of money, but no other possessions or ties to the city in which he lives. Such a man, says Socrates, is of no use to the city. He’s like a drone that lives in a beehive without gathering any nectar. He’s no more than a parasite on the productive activities of the hive. At first Socrates’ claim seems odd. If we interpret the actions of the servants who wait on the rich man as the servants themselves do, the rich man seems like a benefactor. If we put the institution of private property in brackets, however, we see that the master is idle while the servants are burdened with work. The exploitative, parasitic nature of the relationship then becomes clear.

In sociology, there are two distinct ways of interpreting human actions. We can try to interpret actions in the way actors themselves interpret them, or we can try to adopt an objective “bird’s-eye” view, where we put the actors’ own interpretation of their actions in brackets and try to find an objective interpretation—as if we were visitors from another planet scientifically observing the peculiar behavior of the human race. Workers who don’t question the ideology of private property, for example, see themselves as acting in their own self-interest when they make themselves subservient to the owners of capital. If we adopt the objective “bird’s-eye” approach to studying this phenomenon, however, putting the institution of private property in brackets to try to objectively understand the events, we will see that some human beings (wage slaves) work arduously for the benefit of other human beings (capitalist masters), while the first live in squalor and the second live in luxury.

A comparison between Plato and Adam Smith will help us better understand Plato’s view. In the Theory of Moral Sentiments, we find Smith analyzing the phenomenon of the greedy landlord, also from the objective “bird’s-eye” point of view. The greedy landlord would keep all the grain grown on his land for himself if he could, says Smith, but his appetite can only accommodate so much. His vanity, however, has no such limit. He distributes the grain grown on his land to its inhabitants, and in return demands that peasants produce “baubles and trinkets” he can use to impress himself and guests. The result is that the rich, even though they are motivated by nothing more than their own vain and insatiable desires, “are led by an invisible hand to make nearly the same distribution of the necessaries of life, which would have been made, had the earth been divided into equal portions among all its inhabitants.”

I have my doubts as to whether Smith is being sincere in this passage, but assuming he is, we might point out that leisure is also one of the necessities of life, and the landlord’s greed by no means leads to an equitable distribution of this necessity. If the landlord benevolently handed out the fruits of the earth without demanding his peasants slave away fulfilling his vain and insatiable desires in return, the peasants could have had both sustenance and leisure. The landlord’s greed might unintentionally give them sustenance, but it takes away their leisure. And leisure is the first requirement for philosophy.

Smith’s “invisible hand” argument would lead us to believe that whether we interpret the relation between labor and capital as the actors themselves interpret it, or from an objective viewpoint free from private property ideology, we will reach the same conclusion: the owners of capital are beneficiaries of mankind. Plato, on the other hand, doesn’t neglect the factor of leisure in his calculations. He can see that the master is idle while the servants work. Plato thus understands that the objective view gives a starkly different conclusion about the moral status of the idle rich. From the point of view of the ideologically deluded servants the master seems like a benefactor. But in fact he is a parasite.

A man who “participates in rational principle enough to apprehend, but not to have such a principle,” says Aristotle, “is a slave by nature.” Because he understands that reason should rule him, but is incapable of reasoning for himself, such a man will naturally desire a master who can guide him on a rational path. Children, for example, often recognize their inability to reason, and therefore look for adults who can steer them on the path to reason.

But this natural slavery, Aristotle insists, must by no means be thought to coincide with the actual, violently enforced institution of slavery as it existed in Athens. Even if we suppose it is just for victors in war to make slaves of their captives, not all wars are just. Furthermore, even if we assume that all masters in one generation genuinely rank high enough in virtue to justify their position, there’s no reason to suppose heirs in the next generation will be worthy of their position. Although we might imagine that “from a good man, a good man springs,” Aristotle points out, “this is what nature, though she may intend it, cannot always accomplish.”

In the Venn diagram above, the universe of men in Athens is represented by a large rectangle. This universe is divided into six regions based on membership in three sets: the set of men who lack a rational principle, the set of men who lack a rational principle and know they lack it, and the set of slaves in the violently enforced social hierarchy. The six regions include three in which violently enforced status coincides with natural status. But there are also three regions where natural and violently enforced status differ. During the time he is enslaved, for example, Diogenes belongs in the category of men who have a rational principle but are unjustly enslaved. Xeniades, if Diogenes’ assessment of him is correct, belongs in the category of men who lack a rational principle but don’t know they lack it, and therefore should be slaves.

On the one hand, Aristotle insists that some men are natural slaves, and “it is better for them as for all inferiors that they should be under the rule of a master.” On the other hand, Aristotle is very careful to distinguish “slavery by law” from “slavery by nature.” And, he insists, “no one would ever say that he is a slave who is unworthy to be a slave.” (άνάξιος here translated as “unworthy,” might also be translated “undeserving.”) Although a cursory reading of the Politics might lead one to imagine that Aristotle supports the institution of slavery as it existed in Athens, a more careful reading seems to show that Aristotle’s position is more commensurate with that of Diogenes. Some de facto masters like Xeniades are in fact natural slaves, and need a master like Diogenes to rule them.

When an overweight man hires a personal trainer, the ideal candidate is someone a lot like Diogenes, someone who won’t pander to sloth and gluttony, but will teach our overweight man to overcome his present unhealthful desires and put healthier ones in their place. A woman who hires a tutor to teach her algebra is also looking for a wage slave who will rule her, disciplining her mind in the intellectual rigor needed to manipulate equations without altering their truth value.

These examples are exceptional cases where the master has one desire—the desire to lower body mass index or solve quadratic equations—that demands the conquest of other desires. But the peculiarity of the exceptions makes the rule stand out even more. With rare exceptions, wage slaves are expected to uncritically accept the desires of their capitalist masters as sacrosanct and inviolable. Wage slaves who are very clever in finding means to the ends set by capitalist masters are highly prized. Wage slaves who question ends as well as means soon find ourselves unemployed.

In an ancient and venerable shopkeeper tradition, the customer is king. The demands of a paying customer must always be fulfilled if a profit can be made in fulfilling them. This tradition stands diametrically opposed to an ancient and venerable philosophical tradition, the idea that the rationality of demands must always be called into question, that irrational demands must never be fulfilled.

A waiter who followed the example of Diogenes would refuse to serve an overweight customer and instead teach him to fast. A petroleum engineer who followed the example of Diogenes would refuse to extract more oil and instead teach us to walk and bike. An architect who followed the example of Diogenes would refuse to build a new hundred million dollar mansion for the latest billionaire while the poor remain unhoused. The vast majority of consumer demands in wealthy countries are irrational demands. They should be ignored, just as the demands of spoiled children are ignored. This is the lesson Diogenes would teach us, if we cared to learn it.

Although the institution of wage slavery has replaced that of chattel slavery today in the West, Aristotle’s analysis of the phenomenon of slavery is still very relevant. In today’s world we also observe that the set of wage slaves in the violently enforced social hierarchy by no means coincides with the set of those who are natural slaves. Subordinates in the violently enforced hierarchy are often, in the natural hierarchy, superiors of their masters. Capitalist masters often lack a rational principle and urgently need a master.

I fantasize about a future world where those in positions of power make a show of their asceticism as they do now of their extravagance, where those in control of large fortunes show they are masters of their passions and therefore worthy of their wealth. But I don’t expect this to become reality in my lifetime. What can I do now? It is here that Diogenes offers us a role model, a courageous example of nonviolent resistance. Refuse to fulfill the irrational desires of your master. Teach him instead to master himself. Refuse to obey those unworthy of obedience. Ignore the irrational demands of the powerful. Continue to make wise and rational demands, no matter how many times they go unheeded.

In the market, rational and irrational desires are indiscriminately mixed. Because of the impersonal nature of market transactions, we seldom get to meet the capitalist masters who benefit from our services. The market is an opaque wall that stands between wage-slaves and our masters, preventing us from seeing them and deciding for ourselves if they are worthy of our help. The miner in the quarry doesn’t know whether the marble he hews will be used to build a fourth mansion for an unscrupulous billionaire or a shelter for the homeless. If we’re serious about following Diogenes’ advice, never serving irrational masters, then any enterprise that ultimately holds itself accountable to the market is strictly off limits. As the hegemony of the market grows ever wider—it now seems to be on the verge of engulfing even the universities—those of us who refuse to serve irrational masters will find ourselves driven into an ever-tighter corner by our intransigence.

“The wise man must not be ordered but must order,” demands Aristotle, “and he must not obey another, but the less wise must obey him.” Is Aristotle merely expressing a utopian dream? In the real world we see unwise men give orders all the time. We see their orders obeyed. Do we have to wait for a better world with wiser rulers to fulfill Aristotle’s demand? No. The example of Diogenes proves that Aristotle’s demand can indeed be fulfilled by an individual philosopher, not in a future world, but right now in this world, no matter how unwise its rulers are. The wise woman will hear unwise men barking orders at her. But she will ignore them, and thus will not be ordered. She will issue orders to unwise men, whether they are heeded or not. She is a voice crying in the wilderness, begging an unwise society to find its way to wisdom.