 In recent decades interpretive discussion of Thrasymachus has revolved around proposed solutions to this puzzle, none of which has met with general agreement. Argument continues as to whether his three theses can be rendered consistent with each other, whether to do so requires limiting the scope of one or all of them in some way (e.g., by excluding rulers and applying only to the ruled), whether any of them should be given priority as Thrasymachus’ intended definition of justice, and if so which one. Interpreters determined to render Thrasymachus the possessor of a coherent theory of justice have worked through the philosophical possibilities here with great ingenuity and resourcefulness. However, all such readings require taking some of the things he says as less than fully or literally meant, and it is anyway not obvious that Plato intends to present him as the proponent of a consistent and rigorous definition. The obvious alternative is to read his theses as rough slogans rather than attempts at definition, and as picking out the typical effects of just behavior rather than attempting to analyse it or state its essence. So read, Thrasymachus is offering a critique of justice, understood in rather traditional terms, not a new theory or analysis of what justice is (cf. Anderson 2016 on ‘genealogy’). As his later, clarificatory rant in praise of injustice makes clear (343b–4c), he assumes the traditional Hesiodic understanding of justice, as obedience to nomos and restraint of pleonexia: his slogans are intended not to replace or revise that traditional conception but rather to offer a debunking or critique of justice so understood. (Hence his proclamation that justice is ‘nothing other’ than the advantage of the stronger: the locution is one of cynical debunking, marking his own view as a ‘seeing-through’ and demystification.) This critique is organized around two central points. One is about the effects of just behavior, namely that it benefits other people at the expense of just agents themselves (this is justice as the advantage of the other). The other is about the function of moral language: talk of ‘justice’ is an instrument of social control, a tool used by the powerful to manipulate the weak (this is justice as the advantage of the stronger, i.e. the rulers). If we take these two points together, it turns out that just persons are nothing but patsies or fools: they have internalized the moralistic propaganda of the ruling party so that they serve their interests rather than their own. 