Entrepreneurship

Humor: Plato on Salespeople

By Johnny Fuery ⋅ January 23, 2008 ⋅  Print This Post ⋅ Post a comment

I don’t have any keen interest in blaspheming sales, salespeople, or the process. I love me some sales folks! Still, when I ran across this in my almost-daily brain food uptake (mmm, Plato, in an excerpt from The Republic), it made me laugh out loud:

“[If a craftsman cannot find a buyer for his goods,] is he to leave his calling and sit idle in the market-place?”

Not at all; he will find people there who, seeing the want, undertake the office of salesmen. In wellordered states they are commonly those who are the weakest in bodily strength, and therefore of little use for any other purpose; their duty is to be in the market, and to give money in exchange for goods to those who desire to sell and to take money from those who desire to buy.”

Ironic, especially since we place such a high value on the ability to sell in modern capitalism. That and the fact that pretty much every salesperson I know is relatively athletic!