  Does the “utopianism” objection apply to the second city, with its philosopher-rulers, auxiliary guardians, and producers? Some readers would have Plato welcome the charge. As they understand the Republic, Socrates sketches the second city not as an ideal for us to strive for but as a warning against political utopianism or as an unimportant analogue to the good person.  There are a couple of passages to support this approach. At 472b–473b, Socrates says that the point of his ideal is to allow us to judge actual cities and persons based on how well they approximate it. And at 592a–b, he says that the ideal city can serve as a model (paradeigma) were it ever to come into existence or not. But these passages have to be squared with the many in which Socrates insists that the ideal city could in fact come into existence (just a few: 450c–d, 456bc, 473c, 499b–d, 502a–c, 540d–e). His considered view is that although the ideal city is meaningful to us even if it does not exist, it could exist. Of course, realizing the ideal city is highly unlikely. The widespread disrepute of philosophy and the corruptibility of the philosophical nature conspire to make it extremely difficult for philosophers to gain power and for rulers to become philosophers (487a–502c).  Nevertheless, according to what Socrates explicitly says, the ideal city is supposed to be realizable. The Laws imagines an impossible ideal, in which all the citizens are fully virtuous and share everything (739a–740 with  Plato: on utopia),  but the Republic is more practical than that (Burnyeat 1992; cf. Griswold 1999 and Marshall 2008). So if Plato does not intend for us to think of the Republic’s ideal city as a serious goal worth striving for,  something other than Socrates’ explicit professions must reveal this  to us. I consider this possibility in   section 6  below.