In The Republic, Plato presents a dialogue of Socrates, in which he seeks to uncover truths about what constitutes a just society, and what kind of men would rule such a society. As such a society would require a sound government, Socrates presents five possible types of governments, which involve varying levels of liberty and justice. Although the arguments demonstrate that aristocracy is the ideal form of government, all forms of government have fatal flaws that lead to continual replacement by other forms.
Tyranny as basically defined by Socrates is the rule of a tyrant. According to Socrates a tyranny degenerates from a democracy when a popular charismatic leader gets power and naturally does not want to give it up so he takes all the power and makes himself the absolute monarch “standing up in the chariot of State with the reins in his hand, no longer protector, but tyrant absolute”(). Eventually people would start to hate him, “He begins to grow unpopular”(), and then they would try to overthrow him but by then they would not be able to.
The rule of the tyrant is characterized by murder and theft because the tyrant would always want more “He will abstain from no dreadful deed, no murder, and no forbidden food. “(361), and the tyrant himself would stay in his house “he lives for the most part entombed in his own house”(), because of his fear of his people for all the crimes he has committed against them. An example of this is the rule of Rafael Trujillo of the Dominican Republic. Ostensibly elected in a landslide by the people after a time of government instability, he had, in fact, manufactured the in by murdering several supporters of opponents. This modus operandi continued throughout his rule, as he is reported to have dealt with opposition by killing them or their families. “he organized a secret police force to torture and murder supporters of the opposing candidate”(biography. com) He even had a squad who travelled through the capital city looking for opponents of his to slaughter using his aptly named “Murder car. ” As Socrates predicted it was difficult to oust Trujillo, who ruled the Dominican Republic from 1930 to 1961.
Even though when he was assassinated and much of his ill-gotten wealth was reclaimed by the country, his family members and other followers continued to fight for control of the country. Again as Socrates predicted, the effect of tyranny on the country was generally bad for the infrastructure and the overall development of an enlightened populace. Socrates described a democracy as a system of government where wisdom is absent but freedom is not. “The city is full of freedom, and liberty of speech” (343).
An oligarchy degenerates into a democracy when, the lower class grows larger and the oligarchs grow fewer and lazier until the lower class eventually is strong enough to overcome the oligarchs. “So democracy, I suppose, comes into to being when the poor conquer, and kill some of the other party and banish the others” (341). The period under democracy would be similar to anarchy because people could do what they when they wanted without fear of the law because they were the law”.
The period would also be plagued by poor political decisions because all the people would be able to vote on everything even if they knew nothing about it. An example of this type of government is the Swiss Canton of Appenzell Innerrhoden. This canton is a mountainous countryside of farmland with the main center of Appenzell, where residents congregate to vote on the last Sunday in April. This method is uniquely suited to the area due to its homogeneous nature- 81% Catholic, 90% native born (), and the residents are mostly involved in agriculture and nude hiking.
This example shows the main weaknesses of direct democracytoo many people with too many different interests cannot easily come to decisions, opening the door for tyrants to seize control. Oligarchy is basically defined in The Republic as the rule of the few. An oligarchy degenerates from a timocracy when the leader’s qualities that caused the timocracy become more extreme. Because the timocrats, unlike guardians, are allowed to own property “they would share the land and houses among themselves in private possession”(333), they would begin to gain wealth.
The timocrats would eventually prefer money to honor “Thus in the end they have become lovers of money and moneymaking and no longer aim at honor and ambition”(337), so the leaders would change the laws to consolidate their power “So then they lay down a law of limitation in the constitution; they fix a sum of money greater or less, according as the oligarchy is more or less complete, and proclaim that no one may share in the government unless his property comes up to assessment. “(337),.
The main problem of the oligarchy is that wealth does not guarantee the ability to govern, and financial self-interest often causes leaders to make poor decisions. Another issue the oligarchy would have would keeping up its military might because if you gave the poor people weapons you would be running the risk of the poor people revolting, and if you didn’t arm the poorer class you would have a miniscule army of rich people who valued money not courage. An example of this is post-Soviet Russia. Although superficially a federal semi-presidential constitutional republic, Russia is truly run by a group of powerful rich people.
The oligarchs came to power after the collapse of the Soviet Union. After the collapse, the government had to privatize factories to raise money to pay off loans they had on the factories. The oligarchs were then able to purchase the factories for below market prices, often using threats and bribes, so people with access to moderate sums of money and large sums of intimidation could now own factories. The period which the oligarchs ruled Russia was filled with poverty and corruption they even had unemployment rates of 40 percent and their GDP fell by 14. 5 percent in 1991 the year the oligarchy started and continued falling until 1999.
Timocracy, as defined in The Republic, is the rule of the military elite that develops when leaders in an aristocracy lose the focus on justice and pursue honor through force. Aristocracies degenerate into timocracies when the next generation of guardians are not just wisdom seekers but people who are enthralled honor”. He is a… lover of honor; claiming to be a ruler”(). This leads to seeking personal honor, power, and glory, instead of wisdom, justice and honor. “. He is a… lover of honor; claiming to be a ruler” () eventually, this leads to military conquest being the priority of the whole state.
The leaders of the timocratic state would value honor, which they would attempt to attain through conquest “They also bring forth war”(332), rather than wisdom. Plato characterized a timocracy as a mixture of two different regime types: the good one which was the aristocracy and the bad one which was the oligarchy “this constitution is a mixture of both evil and good” (334). Just like the leaders of aristocracies, leaders of timocracies would have applied great effort in gymnastics and the arts of war, as well as the virtue of courage which corresponds with the arts of war.
And have honored gymnastics with greater reverence then music”(). They would also be disdainful towards manual labor, and would lead a life in public unity. Like oligarchs, timocrats seek material wealth and would not trust philosophers, so they would not place intellectuals in positions of power. Timocrats also have a tendency to accumulate wealth in malevolent ways, and hide their possessions from public view. Because of their rapacious drive, they are not be mollified by a philosophical education, but believe law can only be maintained by force.
An example of this is the Greek military juntas of the 20th century. The period which the junta ruled was unlike what Socrates said would happen during the rule of the timocrats. The main difference was that Socrates said it would be the leaders goals would change from wisdom to money, whereas the juntas overthrew the king who had the right to rule. The reign of the juntas was characterized by murder and brutality. They rule of the juntas fell apart when their ideology started differing between members which caused the fear factor of the regime to fall apart which led to democracy being restored in Greece.
Aristocracy as basically defined by Socrates was the rule of the philosopher kings. The aristocratic state which was Plato’s ideal state would have been made up of three socio economic classes, the guardians, the auxiliaries, made up of soldiers, and the producer class, who in contrast to the first two classes are allowed to own property and produce goods for themselves but have to produce enough to sustain not only themselves but their ruler, who are forbidden from owning property “No one must have any private property whatsoever”(204) in order to preclude that the policies they undertake be tainted by personal interests.
The aristocracy would be ruled by the philosopher king who was the best of the guardians “Then those who most perfectly guard the city must become rulers, since they are the best of the guardians”(). The n example of this is the polishLithuanian common wealth. The Polish Lithuanian common wealth was founded when Sigismund the II who was the king of Poland and the grand duke of Lithuania decided that to preserve his dynasty he would need to change his country’s form of government to and elected monarchy where the nobles would pick one themselves to be the next king, when doing that he also combined his two country’s into one commonwealth.
Like Plato’s proposed aristocracy it was ruled by the best because the nobles were the only ones who were educated so they were the most able to lead and the best of them was chosen as the king. Although for decades the common wealth prospered it eventually fell apart due to the kings even though they elected were not always excellent kings and the nobles could not simply fire a king so they were there for life. The common wealth eventually transformed into an oligarchy.
In The Republic, five basic forms of government are neatly delineated, and their relative merits are examined in a Socratic dialogue. While the basic ideas can be applied to modern governments, it is not usually as simple as Socrates suggests. In all forms of government, a cult of personality can arise around a charismatic leader, and a team of minions can work so vigorously in their support of the leader that they form a de facto oligarchy.
Even in the most celebrated example of a representative democracy, The United States of America, the separation between the people and actual rule of the federal government has widened, and a class of professional politicians has grown that operates like an oligarchy. This reinforces part of Socrates’ idea, because while aristocracy may be the ideal form of government, it cannot exist without selfless, ideal men as rulers, so all forms of government will eventually degenerate, and be replaced.
