foundations of civic liberty are based.

And indeed, one may well ask, for what reason should wealth be
regarded as a matter for serious pursuit[1] in a community where,
partly by a system of equal contributions to the necessaries of life,
and partly by the maintenance of a common standard of living, the
lawgiver placed so effectual a check upon the desire of riches for the
sake of luxury? What inducement, for instance, would there be to make
money, even for the sake of wearing apparel, in a state where personal
adornment is held to lie not in the costliness of the clothes they
wear, but in the healthy condition of the body to be clothed? Nor
again could there be much inducement to amass wealth, in order to be
able to expend it on the members of a common mess, where the
legislator had made it seem far more glorious that a man should help
his fellows by the labour of his body than by costly outlay. The
latter being, as he finely phrased it, the function of wealth, the
former an activity of the soul.

[1] See Plut. "Lycurg." 10 (Clough, i. 96).

He went a step further, and set up a strong barrier (even in a society
such as I have described) against the pursuance of money-making by
wrongful means.[2] In the first place, he established a coinage[3] of
so extraordinary a sort, that even a single sum of ten minas[4] could
not come into a house without attracting the notice, either of the
master himself, or of some member of his household. In fact, it would
occupy a considerable space, and need a waggon to carry it. Gold and
silver themselves, moreover, are liable to search,[5] and in case of
detection, the possessor subjected to a penalty. In fact, to repeat
the question asked above, for what reason should money-making become