ABSTRACT
This chapter examines collectivist alternatives. Plato's collectivism is his belief that men and women equally fulfil the offices of state. The reasons for Plato's collectivism, it simply discounts any claims that made against it on the basis of a parent's rights over children. However, there is an even more general right which cannot be countenanced by Plato's collectivism, and that is the right to bring up children within a family if one chooses. It briefly reviews the criticisms having particular regard to the implication that Plato's collectivism somehow stand as a contemporary alternative to liberal individualism. Three reasons why the proposal to license parents is outrageous is given as: society does presently license a range of activities which are potentially harmful to others; society is prepared to license some parents; the apparently obvious wrongness of licensing parents derive from a basic belief that humans should not need the state's permission to rear their own children.
