bjects do what is for his interest, and
minister to his happiness, which is very far from being their own.
Consider further, most foolish Socrates, that the just is always a
loser in comparison with the unjust. First of all, in private
contracts: wherever the unjust is the partner of the just you will find
that, when the partnership is dissolved, the unjust man has always more
and the just less. Secondly, in their dealings with the State: when
there is an income tax, the just man will pay more and the unjust less
on the same amount of income; and when there is anything to be received
the one gains nothing and the other much. Observe also what happens
when they take an office; there is the just man neglecting his affairs
and perhaps suffering other losses, and getting nothing out of the
public, because he is just; moreover he is hated by his friends and
acquaintance for refusing to serve them in unlawful ways. But all this
is reversed in the case of the unjust man. I am speaking, as before,
of injustice on a large scale in which the advantage of the unjust is
more apparent; and my meaning will be most clearly seen if we turn to
that highest form of injustice in which the criminal is the happiest of
men, and the sufferers or those who refuse to do injustice are the most
miserable--that is to say tyranny, which by fraud and force takes away
the property of others, not little by little but wholesale;
comprehending in one, things sacred as well as profane, private and
public; for which acts of wrong, if he were detected perpetrating any
one of them singly, he would be punished and incur great disgrace--they
who do such wrong in particular cases are called robbers of temples,
and man-stealers and burglars and swindlers and thieves. But when a
man besides taking away the money of the citizens has made slaves of
them, then, instead of these names of reproach, he is termed happy and
blessed, not only by the citizens but by all who hear of his having
achieved the consummation of injustice. For mankind censure injustice,
fearing that they may be the victims of it and not because they shrink
from committing it. And thus, as I have shown, Socrates, injustice,
when on a sufficient scale, has more strength and freedom and mastery
than justice; and, as I said at first, justice is the interest of the
stronger, whereas injustice is a man's own profit and interest.

Thrasymachus, when he had thus spoken, having, like a bathman, del