 Aristotle’s view draws attention to an important set of questions in contemporary market societies. The civic obligation he has in mind comes closest to our notion of private philanthropy. But is private philanthropy really the right way for a community to maintain common facilities for the sake of common interests? In 2015, Mark Zuckerberg, the billionaire founder of Facebook, announced that he would donate 99% of his shares in the company to charitable causes, including public education (Kelly 2015). From Aristotle’s point of view, this reflects well on our society: our institutions put wealth in private hands, thereby allowing citizens to make meaningful choices to pool their wealth for common interests. But many would argue that our arrangements are seriously defective insofar as they put some individuals in a position to control a private fortune worth over $45 billion, even if these individuals will eventually devote these resources to common interests. Plato is on to something when he says that political solidarity requires that social institutions channel some wealth directly into the public domain. But Plato seems to go too far in the other direction, and this leaves us with an important set of questions about when society should pool resources through the state and when society should pool resources through private philanthropy.