By Alvin Lim
| Before I begin my discussion of Plato’s argument for the inherent weakness of democracy in The Republic, I have to clarify what is meant by ‘democracy’ in this context. By ‘democracy’ Plato is not referring to modern democracy, which he would have perceived as alien. Nor is he referring to the democracy of Athens in this argument. In this argument, Plato characterises democracy as being ‘the extreme of popular liberty’, where ‘slaves - male and female - have the same liberty as their owners’ and where there is ‘complete equality and liberty in the relations between the sexes’ (563b). |
‘In the short run perhaps.’
‘And isn’t there something rather charming about the good temper of those who’ve been sentenced in court? You must have noticed that in a democracy men sentenced to death or exile stay on, none the less, and go about among their fellows, with no more notice taken of their comings and goings than if they were invisible spirits.’ (557e-558a)
‘Then in democracy,’ I went on, ‘there’s no compulsion either to exercise authority if you are capable of it, or to submit to authority if you don’t want to; you needn’t fight if there’s a war, or you can wage a private war in peacetime if you don’t like peace; and if there’s any law that debars you from political or judicial office, you will none the less take either if they come your way. It’s a wonderfully pleasant way of carrying on in the short run, isn’t it?
Annas notes that this depiction of ‘the extreme of popular liberty’ in democracy in the argument conspicuously does not match the absence of it in Athens:
Plato presents democracy as defined by tolerant pluralism, but Athens was a populist democracy, with a clearly defined way of life separating those with power from those without, and about as tolerant of openly expressed nonconformity as McCarthyite America. Plato knew that Athenians were not free to disobey the law (Socrates could hardly ignore his death sentence!); that Athens was one of the worst cities in the Greek world as far as concerned equal freedoms for men and women. (563b is absurd if Athens is in view); and that not only were foreigners like Protagoras and Anaxagoras driven out for expressing unpopular views, but even citizens who, like Euripides, publicly held unorthodox opinions had life made so miserable for them by public vilification that they often left Athens to escape the pressures. [1]
But it is clear that while the argument against democracy was not referring to Athenian democracy but perhaps instead to the Form of democracy, Plato’s motivation for constructing an argument against democracy stemmed from his experience of Athenian democracy:
Greek democracy, as is well known, bore little resemblance to modern representative government, because it was based on the direct and personal executive and judicial control of all the citizens in the Assembly, and in the absence of a leader like Pericles Greek politics suffered from the disease of chronic revolution. Majority rule, excluding slaves and resident aliens, meant the triumph of greed and ignorance, and the war policy of men like Cleon. Is it any wonder then, that Plato, who was of noble birth, whose youth was passed in the ferment of the Peloponnesian War, and whose mentor was put to death by the friends of democracy, should have concluded that the salvation of a city can be secured only if absolute authority in religion and politics is placed in the hands of those who are by nature fitted to exercise it? [3]
Plato’s argument for the inherent weakness of democracy in its potential to collapse into tyranny is strongly linked to his metaphysics, in particular his Theory of Forms. [4] In Plato’s ideal city the rulers are the Philosopher Rulers who have undergone the education sufficient for them to gain access to the Form of the Good, which allows them to know what justice is and hence to be able to rule the city justly (479e-484e). Since it is only the philosophers who have access to the Form of the Good, non-philosophers lack access to the Form of the Good and hence do not know what justice is. And since non-philosophers do not know what justice is, they cannot rule the city justly. Hence Cross and Woozley cite Adam’s comment that ‘the theory of Ideas is not a democratic philosophy’, [5] and this also explains what Finley describes as ‘Plato’s persistent objection to the role of shoemakers and shopkeepers in political decision making’. Zeitlin notes that in Laws 659a-b, Plato argues that:
Whether it is a matter of art, music or politics, it is only the ‘best men’ who are capable of true judgement. The true judge must not allow himself to be influenced by the gallery nor intimidated by the clamour of the multitude. Nothing must compel him to hand down a verdict that belies his own convictions. It is his duty to teach the multitude and not to learn from them. [6]
These ‘best men’ are capable of true judgement precisely because they have access to the Forms which allow them to gain knowledge of their respective fields.
(It should be noted at this point that one common criticism of Plato is based on a gross textual misreading of The Republic. This criticism claims that Plato’s perfectly just city is undemocratic because it is an aristocracy of the hereditary caste of Philosopher Rulers. But this is fallacious since The Republic clearly asserts that all citizens who satisfy the educational requirements, including women and members of the producer class, will be able to become Rulers, and hence the Philosopher Rulers do not constitute a hereditary caste. Plato’s perfectly just society ‘is not a caste society’. [7])
The following is Plato’s genealogical account of democracy’s transformation to tyranny. The democracy consists of 3 social classes: the unemployed, which Plato calls the drones, the rich, and the working masses. (It is clear that gross economic inequality exists in democracy. [10]) The drones form the source of democracy’s leadership, and these leaders proceed to ‘rob the rich, keep as much proceeds as they can for themselves, and distribute the rest to the poor’. The rich attempt to defend themselves but are falsely accused of treason. In retaliation they do attempt treason and a period of political unrest follows. In this period of unrest the masses ‘put forward a single popular leader, whom they nurse to greatness’, and it is this leader who is ‘the root from which tyranny invariably springs’. (While Plato does have a poor impression of the masses, in that they have a large number of false moral beliefs and commit immoral actions often, and are unable to provide a proper moral education for their children, [11] Barker points out that Plato ‘hates the demagogue rather than the demos’. [12]) This popular leader plunders the rich, and provokes civil war by exiling or executing the rich and promising land redistribution and debt cancellation to the masses. If the leader is exiled by the rich in the war, he will return as a tyrant. If the rich are unable to exile him he will demand a bodyguard and become a tyrant. Democracy has collapsed into tyranny. (564d-566d)
Plato’s account of the collapse from democracy to tyranny can be generalised as follows. In a democracy with gross economic inequality, social unrest can arise from this economic inequality, and in this unrest a popular hero may emerge, and this hero may transform into a tyrant. History has shown that democracies can indeed collapse in precisely this manner, with the rise of the Nazi Party in Germany though popular election being the clearest example. History also provides examples of democracies which have collapsed into tyranny through slightly different processes than that which Plato has described. The rise of the anti-Communist military juntas in Latin America during the Cold War provides examples of democracies which have collapsed into tyrannies due to the rise of tyrannical military leaders supported not by the masses but by the rich. Indeed, the collapse of modern democracies into modern tyrannies shows that modern democracy with its institutional checks and balances cannot guarantee that it will never collapse into tyranny. Plato’s sharp insight was that states consist of individuals, and how individuals act depends on their character. A modern democracy’s protective institutions may fail to prevent its collapse into tyranny should the individuals in office at the time be corrupted, threatened or otherwise cajoled into giving free rein to the tyrant to assume power.
While Plato’s insight into the inherent potential of democracy to collapse into tyranny is indeed sharp, I don’t share his low opinion of democracy. First, I don’t share Plato’s low opinion of democracy since it is not only democracy which has the potential to collapse, for even his perfectly just state possessed the potential to collapse into imperfect timarchy by virtue of the fallibility of the Philosopher Rulers (546a-547c). Second, in The Republic Plato fails to be sensitive to the fact that democracies have different degrees of potential for collapse. A democracy with strong institutional checks and balances is less likely than a democracy with weak institutions to collapse into tyranny. In The Republic Plato doesn’t distinguish between different forms of democracy. However, in the Politicus and Laws Plato does distinguish between lawless and law-abiding forms of democracy, and ranks both as being better than oligarchy though inferior to aristocracy. [13]
Hall argues that Plato ranked aristocracy as higher because ‘in a democracy an unanimity of purpose would be hard to come by and, consequently, effective political action would be difficult’. Similarly, democracy was ranked higher than oligarchy and tyranny since ‘just as greater numbers of the democracy rendered effective political action for the good more difficult, so they would make democratic action for evil in the lawless constitution more ineffective. Action contrary to the established laws could be realised more effectively in the oligarchy or the tyranny’. [14] Plato’s later sophisticated view of the varieties of democracy underscores the insensitivity of The Republic’s criticism of democracy to democracy’s multiplicity of forms.
While I agree with Plato that democracy possesses an inherent weakness in that it has the potential to collapse into tyranny, he has failed to recognise that this weakness can be minimised, and hence I don’t share his low opinion of democracy.
Endnotes
[1] Julia Annas, An Introduction to Plato’s Republic (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981), p. 300.
[2] Ernest Barker, Greek Political Theory: Plato and His Predecessors (London: Methuen & Co., 1951), pp. 254-255.
[3] Roger Chance, Until Philosophers are Kings: A Study of the Political Theory of Plato and Aristotle in Relation to the Modern State (London: University of London Press, 1928), p. 114.
[4] M. I. Finley, Democracy Ancient and Modern (London: Chatto & Windus, 1973), p. 97.
[5] R. C. Cross and A. D. Woozley, Plato’s Republic: A Philosophical Commentary (London: The MacMillan Press, 1964), p. 199.
[6] Irving M. Zeitlin, Plato’s Vision: The Classical Origins of Social and Political Thought (Englewood Cliffs, N. J.: Prentice Hall, 1993), p. 165.
[7] John Wild, Plato’s Modern Enemies and the Theory of Natural Law (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1953), pp. 48-49.
[8] Barker, op cit., p. 256.
[9] ibid..
[10] Ronald B. Levinson, In Defence of Plato (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1953), p. 415.
[11] Richard Kraut, Socrates and the State (Princeton, N. J.: Princeton University Press, 1984), pp. 196-197.
[12] Ernest Barker, The Political Thought of Plato and Aristotle (New York: Dover Publications, 1959), p. 183.
[13] Barker, Greek Political Theory, op cit., p. 258.
[14] Robert W. Hall, Plato (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1981), p. 87.
Annas, Julia. An Introduction to Plato’s Republic, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981.
Barker, Ernest. Greek Political Theory: Plato and His Predecessors, London: Methuen & Co., 1951.
---. The Political Thought of Plato and Aristotle, New York: Dover Publications, 1959.
Chance, Roger. Until Philosophers are Kings: A Study of the Political Theory of Plato and Aristotle in Relation to the Modern State, London: University of London Press, 1928.
Cross, R. C., and Woozley, A. D.. Plato’s Republic: A Philosophical Commentary, London: The MacMillan Press, 1964.
Finley, M. I.. Democracy Ancient and Modern, London: Chatto & Windus, 1973.
Hall, Robert W.. Plato, London: George Allen & Unwin, 1981.
Kraut, Richard. Socrates and the State, Princeton, N. J.: Princeton University Press, 1984.
Levinson, Ronald B.. In Defence of Plato, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1953.
Plato. The Republic, translated by Desmond Lee, London: Penguin, 1987.
Wild, John. Plato’s Modern Enemies and the Theory of Natural Law, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1953.
Zeitlin, Irving M.. Plato’s Vision: The Classical Origins of Social and Political Thought, Englewood Cliffs, N. J.: Prentice Hall, 1993.