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The Greatest of All Plagues: How Economic Inequality Shaped Political Thought from Plato to Marx
How the great political thinkers have persistently warned against the dangers of economic inequality
Economic inequality is one of the most daunting challenges of our time, with public debate often turning to questions of whether it is an inevitable outcome of economic systems and what, if anything, can be done about it. But why, exactly, should inequality worry us? The Greatest of All Plagues demonstrates that this underlying question has been a central preoccupation of some of the most eminent political thinkers of the Western intellectual tradition.
David Lay Williams shares bold new perspectives on the writings and ideas of Plato, Jesus, Thomas Hobbes, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Adam Smith, John Stuart Mill, and Karl Marx. He shows how they describe economic inequality as a source of political instability and a corrupter of character and soul, and how they view unchecked inequality as a threat to their most cherished values, such as justice, faith, civic harmony, peace, democracy, and freedom. Williams draws invaluable insights into the societal problems generated by what Plato called “the greatest of all plagues,” and examines the solutions employed through the centuries.
An eye-opening work of intellectual history, The Greatest of All Plagues recovers a forgotten past for some of the most timeless books in the Western canon, revealing how economic inequality has been a paramount problem throughout the history of political thought.
Economic inequality is one of the most daunting challenges of our time, with public debate often turning to questions of whether it is an inevitable outcome of economic systems and what, if anything, can be done about it. But why, exactly, should inequality worry us? The Greatest of All Plagues demonstrates that this underlying question has been a central preoccupation of some of the most eminent political thinkers of the Western intellectual tradition.
David Lay Williams shares bold new perspectives on the writings and ideas of Plato, Jesus, Thomas Hobbes, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Adam Smith, John Stuart Mill, and Karl Marx. He shows how they describe economic inequality as a source of political instability and a corrupter of character and soul, and how they view unchecked inequality as a threat to their most cherished values, such as justice, faith, civic harmony, peace, democracy, and freedom. Williams draws invaluable insights into the societal problems generated by what Plato called “the greatest of all plagues,” and examines the solutions employed through the centuries.
An eye-opening work of intellectual history, The Greatest of All Plagues recovers a forgotten past for some of the most timeless books in the Western canon, revealing how economic inequality has been a paramount problem throughout the history of political thought.
424 pages, Hardcover
Published September 3, 2024
23 people are currently reading
482 people want to read
About the author
David Lay Williams
11 books7 followersProfessor Williams teaches and conducts research in political theory, especially the history of political thought. He received his PhD in Government from the University of Texas at Austin. Prior coming to DePaul in 2011, he was Professor of Philosophy and Political Science at the University of Wisconsin—Stevens Point.
Williams is the author of Rousseau's Platonic Enlightenment (2007), Rousseau's 'Social Contract': An Introduction (2014) and The Greatest of All Plagues: How Economic Inequality Shaped Political Thought from Plato to Marx (2024). as well as numerous articles on thinkers ranging from Plato to Jürgen Habermas and topics such as democratic theory, economic inequality, political ontology, and deception. He has also co-edited several books, including most recently, The Cambridge Companion to Rousseau’s “Social Contract” (2024).
In 2003-2004 and 2008-2009, he held research fellowships at the Institute for Research in the Humanities at the University of Wisconsin—Madison, and in 2012-13, he held a faculty fellowship at the DePaul Humanities Center. In 2016-2017 he was the Wicklander Fellow at DePaul's Institute for Business and Professional Ethics. From 2017-2022 he was the political theory editor for the journal, Political Research Quarterly. In 2023-2024, he collaborated with Professor Matthew W. Maguire and the Alliance Française in Chicago as part of the HumanitiesX program, funded by the Mellon Foundation, in which he co-taught a course on Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America and co-organized a public roundtable on Tocqueville’s relevance today. Professor Williams also writes short pieces connecting the history of political thought to contemporary political concerns for outlets such as the New York Times, Washington Post, Time Magazine, The Hill, Public Seminar, Bloomberg News, and the Chicago Sun-Times.
Williams is the author of Rousseau's Platonic Enlightenment (2007), Rousseau's 'Social Contract': An Introduction (2014) and The Greatest of All Plagues: How Economic Inequality Shaped Political Thought from Plato to Marx (2024). as well as numerous articles on thinkers ranging from Plato to Jürgen Habermas and topics such as democratic theory, economic inequality, political ontology, and deception. He has also co-edited several books, including most recently, The Cambridge Companion to Rousseau’s “Social Contract” (2024).
In 2003-2004 and 2008-2009, he held research fellowships at the Institute for Research in the Humanities at the University of Wisconsin—Madison, and in 2012-13, he held a faculty fellowship at the DePaul Humanities Center. In 2016-2017 he was the Wicklander Fellow at DePaul's Institute for Business and Professional Ethics. From 2017-2022 he was the political theory editor for the journal, Political Research Quarterly. In 2023-2024, he collaborated with Professor Matthew W. Maguire and the Alliance Française in Chicago as part of the HumanitiesX program, funded by the Mellon Foundation, in which he co-taught a course on Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America and co-organized a public roundtable on Tocqueville’s relevance today. Professor Williams also writes short pieces connecting the history of political thought to contemporary political concerns for outlets such as the New York Times, Washington Post, Time Magazine, The Hill, Public Seminar, Bloomberg News, and the Chicago Sun-Times.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
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October 15, 2024Very good book! I have many thoughts and I won't get into them here since I'm supposed to review it for Compact. My review is horrendously overdue but, whatever else I do or don't have going for me in this life, I do write very quickly, so expect to see it soon. Suffice to say that the overlap area in the Venn Diagram between the great-books canon and "concern about economic inequality" is severely under-explored and this is a breath of fresh air in that regard.
March 24, 2025
David Lay Williams' The Greatest of All Plagues is a compelling and thought-provoking exploration of economic inequality as written by key figures of the Western philosophical tradition. Williams weaves together the insights of seven great thinkers—Plato, the New Testament, Hobbes, Rousseau, Smith, Mill, and Marx—demonstrating how economic disparities have long been recognized as a fundamental threat to social cohesion, political stability, and human dignity. This book is not just a historical survey but a timely reflection on our present struggles with wealth concentration and social injustice.
One of Williams' greatest strengths is his ability to present complex philosophical arguments in an accessible and engaging manner. While I have only a cursory background with some of the thinkers, I walked away from each chapter feeling I had gained a solid working knowledge of the key arguments of each writer. I'd imagine that those with a more substantive background in political theory will come away with even more.
By drawing on the wisdom of a selection of Western political thought’s greatest minds, Williams reminds us that economic inequality is not just an unfortunate byproduct of progress but a fundamental challenge that societies must confront if they wish to preserve justice and democracy.
One of Williams' greatest strengths is his ability to present complex philosophical arguments in an accessible and engaging manner. While I have only a cursory background with some of the thinkers, I walked away from each chapter feeling I had gained a solid working knowledge of the key arguments of each writer. I'd imagine that those with a more substantive background in political theory will come away with even more.
By drawing on the wisdom of a selection of Western political thought’s greatest minds, Williams reminds us that economic inequality is not just an unfortunate byproduct of progress but a fundamental challenge that societies must confront if they wish to preserve justice and democracy.
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January 9, 2025David Lay Williams book is tremendously clear, concise and very readable. He demonstrates that each of the philosophers discussed placed great importance on the reduction of inequality as a means of supporting social peace and solidarity. The social, political and historical context of each philosopher is admirably described leading to deeper understanding of the dynamics affecting their thought. I was left with a greatly enhanced understanding of the various approaches that each philosopher proposed to reduce the destabilizing impacts of inequality. Not having read Hobbes, I was amazed at how central a concern inequality was for him, even if his proposed solution was a regulatory Leviathan. It is a "must read" for anyone interested in the subject.
October 11, 2024
A divisive issue in our time concerns the accelerating rise in economic inequality since the 1980s. Primarily, the disputes concern whether today’s level of inequality is a harmless side-effect of beneficial economic growth, or a societal plague.
David Lay Williams’s The Greatest Of All Plagues: How Inequality Shaped Political Thought From Plato To Marx examines inequality from the perspectives of seven of Western history’s most listened-to sages: Plato, Jesus, Thomas Hobbes, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Adam Smith, John Stuart Mill and Karl Marx. From the earliest to the last of these thinkers, Williams traces a spectrum of ideas about inequality that ranges from uneasiness to condemnation.
All seven found extreme wealth-concentration troubling because, as they believed, it brings with it civic discord at the least, and at worst, civil war, which Plato called “the greatest of all plagues” in communities. Williams provides context for what his subjects had to say about inequality through fascinating historical sketches of inequality as they experienced it in their times. These sketches tend to show that in each case, extreme inequality was accompanied by social upheavals, suggesting that inequality, by fostering inter-class resentment and mistrust, caused the sometimes violent upheavals, as Williams’s seven sages believed.
In a concluding chapter, Williams takes issue with present-day “sufficientarians”--apologists for laissez-faire capitalism who call attention to market-driven improvements in the standard of living of the poor through economic growth over the past century. They contend these improvements fully compensate for any inequality that may accompany them; they deem any resentments over inequality simply unjustified.
Not one of the seven impactful thinkers discussed in Williams’s book shared this view, or made the absolute standard of living of a community’s poorest citizens the sole basis for assessing the health of the community. Rather, they recognized inter-class resentment--the sense of injustice, whether justified or not, that inequality generates--as an element of social reality that cannot be dismissed. Today, Williams argues, regardless of improvements in the absolute standard of living of the poor, we ignore the impact of accelerating inequality at our peril.
David Lay Williams’s The Greatest Of All Plagues: How Inequality Shaped Political Thought From Plato To Marx examines inequality from the perspectives of seven of Western history’s most listened-to sages: Plato, Jesus, Thomas Hobbes, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Adam Smith, John Stuart Mill and Karl Marx. From the earliest to the last of these thinkers, Williams traces a spectrum of ideas about inequality that ranges from uneasiness to condemnation.
All seven found extreme wealth-concentration troubling because, as they believed, it brings with it civic discord at the least, and at worst, civil war, which Plato called “the greatest of all plagues” in communities. Williams provides context for what his subjects had to say about inequality through fascinating historical sketches of inequality as they experienced it in their times. These sketches tend to show that in each case, extreme inequality was accompanied by social upheavals, suggesting that inequality, by fostering inter-class resentment and mistrust, caused the sometimes violent upheavals, as Williams’s seven sages believed.
In a concluding chapter, Williams takes issue with present-day “sufficientarians”--apologists for laissez-faire capitalism who call attention to market-driven improvements in the standard of living of the poor through economic growth over the past century. They contend these improvements fully compensate for any inequality that may accompany them; they deem any resentments over inequality simply unjustified.
Not one of the seven impactful thinkers discussed in Williams’s book shared this view, or made the absolute standard of living of a community’s poorest citizens the sole basis for assessing the health of the community. Rather, they recognized inter-class resentment--the sense of injustice, whether justified or not, that inequality generates--as an element of social reality that cannot be dismissed. Today, Williams argues, regardless of improvements in the absolute standard of living of the poor, we ignore the impact of accelerating inequality at our peril.
January 11, 2025
The Greatest of All Plagues is an EXCEEDINGLY important book. It examines how some of the finer thinkers throughout history -- Plato, Socrates, Christ, Thomas Hobbes, Adam Smith, John Stuart Mill, Karl Marx, and others -- viewed great wealth inequality. All felt that such inequality greatly increases social instability and strife; all observed that, no matter how much money the rich have, they want more. (Interestingly, most also took a dim view of democracy.) The views of these thinkers is, I think, well expressed by an ancient Chinese proverb: "When the money is divided, the people are united; when the money is united, the people are divided." The Greatest of All Plagues also brings to mind what Sir Francis Bacon said: "Money is like muck, not good except it be spread." Indeed. The book also puts paid to the illusion that the rich create wealth from thin air, that their wealth is not from the immiseration of others. (Dr. Williams quotes Adam Smith, that the wealth of a single person rests upon the wretchedness of at least 500 others.) While it is a cliche to say that an author has performed a great service to society with his book, Dr. Williams has indeed performed such a service. I had long viewed great wealth inequality as a scourge, as causing the greatest harm to societies, but had never stopped to wonder what great thinkers throughout history thought about such inequality. Now, thanks to Dr. Williams's magnificent book, I know. I have recommended The Greatest of All Plagues to so many others: I now recommend it to you.
November 17, 2025
A dense but fantastic read, its wide ranging survey of inequality in western thought was insightful and really makes clear how much both Jesus and the Adam Smith worried about inequality and its corrosive effects on society.
June 19, 2025
a little dry and academic - but very important ideas.
October 25, 2025
I read about 3/4.
December 11, 2025
Yeah, what he said
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews