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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from On Revenues by Xenophon: by which, with the proper state organisation, every Athenian may be
supplied with ample maintenance at the public expense. Possibly some
of you may be calculating that the capital[40] requisite will be
enormous. They may doubt if a sufficient sum will ever be subscribed
to meet all the needs. All I can say is, even so, do not dispond. It
is not as if it were necessary that every feature of the scheme should
be carried out at once, or else there is to be no advantage in it at
all. On the contrary, whatever number of houses are erected, or ships
are built, or slaves purchased, etc., these portions will begin to pay
at once. In fact, the bit-by-bit method of proceeding will be more
advantageous than a simultaneous carrying into effect of the whole
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