All states, ancient and modern, depend on a division of political labour

Evidence

It certainly is not true, as Moses Finley made exceedingly clear (1983), that the participatory democracy of the ancient polis dispensed with an elaborate division of political labour. All modern states likewise display and depend upon such division. Indeed what a modern state actually is, in large measure is a strongly institutionalized division of political labour, though not one which in any sense occludes the exercise of coercive force. The interesting question in modern political theory is not whether there is going to be a political division of labour (there is). — Diego Gambetta, Trust - Making and Breaking Cooperative…, 1244

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s analysis of collapsed monitoring and order in Saramago’s blindness epidemic — even the ancient polis had specialized political roles, precisely what the blind society loses.