Market of Friendship

Towards a Free Market of Friendship

By John Taylor; 11 January, 2006

In Athens, like all but the most recent societies throughout history,
human beings were sold on an ongoing basis in legal slave markets; the
serviceability of minions was constantly being evaluated by what we
now call market forces. Socrates in Zenophon's memoir suggests what
was verboten and unutterable in every slave owning society, that free
citizens be similarly evaluated, albeit not by others but by
themselves. (This may be one reason Socrates was later singled out for
persecution and eventual execution by the Athenian democracy) The only
way to do such a self-evaluation is to test yourself, to get your
hands dirty, to work to be of good to others and see how useful you
really are.

In fact, Socrates holds that work and service are more necessary for
the free than for slaves. A free upstanding citizen must by nature be
better at making himself useful to others than a base slave. The
characteristic of most slaves is that they dish out what they get,
they learn to be clever malingerers; they are notoriously unwilling,
sullen, angry workers who do what they must and nothing more. At the
slightest chance they screw up and laugh at the owner's consternation.
A free laborer is better than that, he cares about the work and loves
the person he serves. The higher the freedom, the more selfless the
love. To use the extreme example, think of what Baha'u'llah told the
Shah who exiled Him,

"They that surround thee love thee for their own sakes, whereas this
Youth loveth thee for thine own sake, and hath had no desire except to
draw thee nigh unto the seat of grace, and to turn thee toward the
right-hand of justice. Thy Lord beareth witness unto that which I
declare." (Baha'u'llah, Proclamation, 58)

Socrates' point is that if a slave is valuable and useful for brute
labor, a free man or woman must be infinitely more so for their
service, which is primarily done through friendship, unpaid service
done for love. Modern historical experience bore him out; as soon as
chattel slavery was abolished the labor of free workers proved more
efficient and productive than stables full of slaves. Free servants
are more valuable than slaves not so much for what they do as for how
they change the general attitude of society to the value of work. In
the labor market you get what you pay for and paying nothing for slave
labor is in the long run very expensive. Slavery and exploitation
makes everybody a slave, for to be truly free, paradoxically, you have
to serve to the fullest extent of your ability.

Socrates says that if we had our priorities straight we would value
ourselves as friends above all else and lend our most assiduous
efforts to cultivating other good friends. We would want to become
better friends ourselves and would do our best to get a realistic idea
of how useful we are. We would constantly ask: am I a good friend?
What makes me of value to others? How can I be of service to my
friends? This, Socrates teaches, is what being free is all about,
holding constantly in our heads a sort of invisible "friend market"
(as opposed to a slave market) and constantly evaluating there our own
service and utility as a friend.

In the following section Xenophon remembers what Socrates taught on
how to pick a friend who is most like a freeman and least slavish,
then he goes on to talk about how you can be sure he will be a good
friend to you. The answer is the same that Jesus gave when asked how
to judge a prophet, by their fruits you know them; thorn brush does
not sprout dates.

Xenophon's Memorabilia of Socrates; Book II, Part VI

Again, in reference to the test to be applied, if we would gauge the
qualifications of a friend worth the winning, the following remarks of
Socrates could not fail, I think, to prove instructive.

Tell me (said Socrates, addressing Critobulus), supposing we stood in
need of a good friend, how should we set about his discovery? We must,
in the first place, I suppose, seek out one who is master of his
appetites, not under the dominion, that is, of his belly, not addicted
to the wine-cup or to lechery or sleep or idleness, since no one
enslaved to such tyrants could hope to do his duty either by himself
or by his friends, could he?

Certainly not (Critobulus answered).

Soc. Do you agree, then, that we must hold aloof from every one so dominated?

Cri. Most assuredly.

Well then (proceeded Socrates), what shall we say of the spendthrift
who has lost his independence and is for ever begging of his
neighbors; if he gets anything out of them he cannot repay, but if he
fails to get anything, he hates you for not giving--do you not think
that this man too would prove but a disagreeable friend?

Cri. Certainly.

Soc. Then we must keep away from him too?

Cri. That we must.

Soc. Well! and what of the man whose strength lies in monetary
transactions? His one craving is to amass money; and for that reason
he is an adept at driving a hard bargain. The money-lender has a
passion for big money-bags and is hard in all his dealings. He is glad
enough to take in, but loath to pay out.

Cri. In my opinion he will prove even a worse fellow than the last.

Soc. Well! and what of that other whose passion for money-making is so
absorbing that he has no leisure for anything else, save how he may
add to his gains?

Cri. Hold aloof from him, say I, since there is no good to be got out
of him or his society.

Soc. Well! what of the partisan, the quarrelsome and factious person
whose main object is to saddle his friends with a host of enemies?

Cri. For God's sake let us avoid him also.

Soc. But now we will imagine a man exempt indeed from all the above
defects--a man who has no objection to receive kindnesses, but it
never enters into his head to do a kindness in return.

Cri. There will be no good in him either. But, Socrates, what kind of
man shall we endeavor to make our friend? what is he like?

Soc. I should say he must be just the converse of the above: he is a
man of his word, has control over the pleasures of the body, he is
kindly disposed, easy to deal with, upright in all his dealings, very
zealous is he not to be outdone in kindness by his benefactors, if
only his friends may derive some profit from his acquaintance.

Cri. But how are we to test these qualities, Socrates, before acquaintance?

Soc. How do we test the merits of a sculptor?--not by inferences drawn
from the talk of the artist merely. No, we look to what he has already
achieved. These former statues of his were nobly executed, and we
trust he will do equally well with the rest.

Cri. You mean that if we find a man whose kindness to older friends is
established, we may take it as proved that he will treat his newer
friends as amiably?

Soc. Why, certainly, if I see a man who has shown skill in the
handling of horses previously, I argue that he will handle others no
less skillfully again.

--
John Taylor

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