The Republic by Plato

                I read Book One (chapter one) over completely immediately after finishing it because of t he unusual nature of such a writing. Once you get past the non value added conversational retorts from the listeners (which to me were very distracting) it becomes easier to follow the logic of the argument. There is plenty of very relevant commentary regarding old age, young age and politics. This 1928 translation is a student hard copy, nothing spectacular but in good shape.

I had a difficult time with the use of the terms “just man and unjust man” I came to think of it as honest vs. corrupt and not as we use it in a more legal sounding way. The description of a “good politician” as having no friends seems as if it could have been written yesterday. “Observe what happens when they (the just man) takes office; he neglects his own affairs, his friends and family hate him because he won’t help them, and gets nothing from the public. Whereas the unjust man is loved by all his friends and family because he enriches them at every turn.” Being from Detroit and watching the Kilpatrick saga unfold it seems nothing has changed in the preceding 2300 years, except possibly cell phone records.

In part of The Republic Plato goes about explaining a “perfect” little society… it seems to be a “what if ““wouldn’t it be great” sort late night drunken rambling that goes astray. He throws out acceptance of variation among other things to achieve his idea of perfection. The final outcome is a class driven society that has some socialist, some fascist, and some democratic elements bundled together. His overall theme sounds like the model in which Sparta ruled under and is clearly flawed to our standards. I do not think that The Republic should be judged or dismissed based on the overall theme; the lessons are in the much smaller tangential or illustrative statements and insights into human nature, law, and society, not an exaggerated conversation inventing a societal model that appears to have spun out of control.

Some of the snippets that I really enjoy:

• “for there is many a one who can ask, but cannot answer” p17
• A man that commits minor injustice’s is brought up on charges and punished, but on a large enough scale is hailed as a great leader! paraphrased p28
• “A man being his own master.” “I believe that in the human soul there is a better and also a worse principle: and when the better has the worse under control, a man is said to be master of himself; and this is a term of praise: but when, owing to evil education or association, the better principle, which is also the smaller, is overwhelmed by the greater mass of the worse… in this case he is blamed and called the slave of self, and unprincipled.” p156
• The accumulation of gold by private individuals is the ruin of timocracy; they with wealth invent illegal modes of expenditure; for what do they care about the law? And then one, seeing the other grow rich seeks to rival him, and thus the great mass of the citizens become lovers of money. And so they grow richer and the more they think of money the less they think of virtue; for when riches and virtue are placed together in the scales of balance the one always raises as the other falls. And in proportion as riches and rich men are honored by the state virtue and the virtuous are dishonored. They next proceed to make a law that fixes a sum of money as the qualification for citizenship. p324

Plato discusses five types of regimes. They are Aristocracy, Timocracy, Oligarchy, Democracy and Tyranny. These five regimes progressively degenerate starting with Aristocracy at the top and Tyranny at the bottom.

• Aristocracy

Aristocracy is the form of government advocated in Plato's Republic. This regime is ruled by a philosopher king, and thus is grounded on wisdom and reason.

The aristocratic state that Plato idealizes is composed of three caste-like parts: the ruling class, made up of philosophers-kings; the auxiliaries of the ruling caste, made up of soldiers, and the majority of the people, who in contrast to the two first classes are allowed to own property and produce goods for themselves. In contrast to historical aristocracies, Plato's resembles a meritocracy. In it, a big government state keeps tracks of the innate character and natural skills of the citizens' children, and then directs them to the education that best suits those traits.

• Timocracy

Aristocracy degenerates into timocracy when, due to miscalculation on the part of its governing class, the next generation of guardians and auxiliaries includes persons of an inferior nature. In timocracy the ruling class is made up primarily of those with a warrior-like character. The governants of timocracy value power, but they seek to attain to it primarily by means of military conquest and the acquisition of honors, instead of intellectual means.

In contrast to platonic aristocrats, timocrats are allowed by their constitution to own property and thus to both accumulate and waste money. Because of the pleasures derived from it, money is valued over virtue, and the leaders of the state seek to alter the law to give away and accommodate to the materialistic lust of its citizens. As a result of this new found appreciation for money, the governors work the constitution to restrict political power to the rich only. That is how a timocracy becomes an oligarchy.

• Oligarchy

Plato defines oligarchy as a system of government which distinguishes between the rich and the poor, making of the former its administrators.

An oligarchy is invariably divided, in the one hand, between very rich men, its governors; and, on the other hand, very poor men. Those latter become poor due to bad policy on the part of the state, that doesn't prevent its members from enriching through exploitive contracts, or from becoming poor by wasting their money and goods. Thus the poor ones become either beggars or thugs imbued with anger at their condition and a revolutionary spirit which threatens the internal stability of the state;

An oligarchy will usually perform poorly in military campaigns because the rich men, who are few, will make a small army, and they are afraid to give weapons to the majority, to the poor, due to fears of a revolution. If a revolution does ensue, and the poor ones become victorious over the rich, the former expel the latter from the city, or kill them, and then they divide their properties and political power between one another. That is how a democracy is established.

• Democracy

Oligarchy then degenerates into democracy where freedom is the supreme good but freedom is also slavery. In democracy, the lower class grows bigger and bigger. The poor become the winners. Diversity is supreme. People are free to do what they want and live how they want. People can even break the law if they so chose.

Plato uses the "democratic man" to represent democracy. The democratic man is the son of the oligarchic man. Unlike his father, the democratic man is consumed with unnecessary desires. Plato describes necessary desires as desires that we have out of instinct or desires that we have in order to survive. Unnecessary desires are desires we can teach ourselves to resist such as the desire for riches. The democratic man takes great interest in all the things he can buy with his money. He does whatever he wants whenever he wants to do it. His life has no order or priority.

• Tyranny

Democracy then degenerates into tyranny where no one has discipline and society exists in chaos. Democracy is taken over by the longing for freedom. Power must be seized to maintain order. A champion will come along and experience power, which will cause him to become a tyrant. The people will start to hate him and eventually try to remove him but will realize they are not able.

The tyrannical man is the son of the democratic man. He is the worst form of man. He is consumed by lawless desires which cause him to do many terrible things such as sleeping with his own mother or murdering someone unjustly. He comes closest to complete lawlessness. The idea of moderation does not exist to him. He is consumed by the pleasures in life. He spends all of his money and becomes poor and leads a miserable life.

When Plato says the tyrant is a prisoner to the lawless master he means that if the tyrant should lose his power for any reason his life and the life of his family would be in great danger. The tyrant always runs the risk of being killed in revenge for all the unjust things he has done. He becomes afraid to leave his own home and becomes trapped inside. Therefore his lawless behavior leads to his own self-imprisonment.

As edited from July 2012 Wikipedia

Amazing; Plato predicts the Hitlers and Kaddafis of the world flawlessly from 2200 years ago! But from this description it also seems that the USA goes thru endless cycles of Timocracy, Oligarchy, Democracy and back again doesn’t it?