  There should be no confusion about private property. When Socrates  describes the living situation of the guardian classes in the ideal  city (415d–417b), he is clear that private property will be sharply  limited, and when he discusses the kinds of regulations the rulers  need to have in place for the whole city (421c ff.), he is clear that the producers will have enough private property to make the  regulation of wealth and poverty a concern. But confusion about the scope of communal living arrangements is possible, due to the casual way in which Socrates introduces this controversial proposal. The abolition  of private families enters as an afterthought. Socrates says that  there is no need to list everything that the rulers will do, for if  they are well educated, they will see what is necessary, including  the fact that “marriage, the having of wives, and the procreation of  children must be governed as far as possible by the old proverb:  friends possess everything in common” (423e6–424a2). It is not  immediately clear whether this governance should extend over the  whole city or just the guardian classes. Still, when he is pressed to defend the communal arrangements (449c ff.), Socrates focuses on the  guardian classes (see, e.g., 461e and 464b), and it seems most  reasonable to suppose that the communism about families extends just  as far as the communism about property does, on the grounds that only the best people can live as friends with such things in common (cf.  Laws 739c–740b).