Plato, Communist Before it was Cool

One of the strangest parts of book 5 is that it espouses some ideas that could be taken right out of the communist manifesto. Unsurprisingly, these ideas are also the most controversial. The two ideas that stuck out to me as ringing of communism was his plan to replace traditional families and common ownership of items.

The idea of common ownership is almost the exact idea of redistribution that Marx talks about hundreds of years later. Communist also want to replace traditional families like Plato. So, is Plato a communist? Probably not. While they both are advocating for similar ideas and trying to create a Utopian society, I think that Plato is never thinking about the advancement of the working class like communism is. Plato is working towards the betterment of everyone, not just one class. Also the idea of an absolute monarch like the philosopher king is hardly something Marx would get excited about. 

Regardless, I would be very interested to know if Marx would have been familiar with the Republic. I don't know how well versed he was in ancient philosophy but I would not be surprised to find that he was influenced by Plato.