In his argument that temples are not especially holy places, since they are the work of artisans (βαναύσων), Zeno exhibits the common negative attitude of the philosophers toward manual labor.[1006] His doctrine on money and exchange was also the negative teaching of the moralist, though his statements on these matters have special reference to an ideal future.[1007] His attitude on the problem of distribution is not altogether clear, though he wrote a _Republic_,[1008] in which he seems to have presented some communistic ideas. Like his followers, he looked to the time when the whole world should be one state, where artificial differences were no more, and all men were brothers.[1009] His state is utopian and anarchistic, without temple, court, gymnasium, money, or exchange. All are to wear the same clothing, and there shall be no artificial modesty.[1010] Community of wives, at least for the wise, was also probably among his utopian schemes,[1011] though it is very unlikely that he held the doctrine in the crass form as reported.[1012] His state is somewhat suggestive of the Christian ideal, as a unitary whole, a world-cosmos, united by love.[1013]
There is a peculiar mixture of individualistic and social conceptions in the philosophy of the Stoics. In their pictures of an ideal future world-state, they advanced beyond Plato and other thinkers, who limited their communities to the small city-state. In calling their state a “cosmos” also, they gave a positive social content to the narrow individualism of the Cynics.[1014] Moreover, as seen above, their ideal undoubtedly contained some communistic elements. However, according to the fundamental tenet of Stoicism, as expressed by Zeno,[1015] that only the wise can be free and citizens, we are still faced with the old duality and anti-socialistic ideal. The Stoics, like the Cynics, were after all essentially individualistic, and were probably believers in private ownership, though they dreamed of a future golden age of altruism, when private property would be no longer necessary.[1016]
Chrysippus, the greatest of the Stoics,[1017] continued and expanded the principle that virtue is the only absolute good, and that all other things are indifferents, depending for their worth upon right use.[1018] But since the wise alone are capable of right use of externals, they alone are truly wealthy.[1019] They are wealthy, even though beggars, and noble though slaves.[1020] They are not eager for wealth[1021] yet they are good economists, since they know the proper source,[1022] time, method, and extent of money-making. The worthless, on the other hand, are most needy, even though wealthy.[1023] Chrysippus seems to have advanced still farther, in teaching the negative doctrine that wealth is an evil, since it may come from an evil source,[##] an idea suggestive of the modern theory of “tainted money.” Naturally, he with the other Stoics, was in sympathy with the Socratics, in objecting to the use of one’s knowledge for purposes of money-making.[1024]