 This design of an autocratic rule by an aristocracy of the mind has received a lot of flak; but an assessment of Plato’s politics must here be limited to the kind of happiness it supposedly provides. Regardless of whether or not we accept his overall principle of the Good as the basis of the political order, Plato’s model state has, at least in theory, the advantage that it guarantees external and internal peace. That is no mean feat in a society where external and civil wars were a constant threat, and often enough ended in the destruction of the entire city. The division of functions guarantees a high degree of efficiency, if every citizen does what he/she is naturally suited to do. But what about the citizens’ needs, beyond those for security and material goods? Are they to find their life’s fulfillment in the pursuit of their jobs only? Plato seems to think so; he characterizes each class by its specific kind of desire and its respective good (581c): the philosophers are lovers of wisdom (philosophoi), the soldiers lovers of honor (philotimoi), and the workers are lovers of material goods (philochrêmatoi). That human beings find, or at least try to find, satisfaction in the kinds of goods they cherish is a point further pursued in the depiction of the decay of the city and its ruling citizens, from the best – the aristocracy of the mind – down to the worst – the tyranny of lust, in Books VIII and IX. A discussion of the tenability of this explanation of political and psychological decadence will not be attempted here. It is supposed to show that all inferior forms of government of city and soul are doomed to fail because of the inherent tensions between the goods that are aimed for.