Please read from Key Lessons from Plato’s Republic — Book I, as this story is part of a broader series on Plato’s Republic.
Now that Socrates has finished describing the just city, he begins describing the four unjust constitutions of city and man. The city-man pairs includes Timocracy, and the honor-driven man who resembles and rules that sort of government; Oligarchy, which resembles and is ruled by a man driven by his necessary appetites; Democracy, which resembles and is ruled by a man driven by his unnecessary appetites; and Tyranny, which resembles and is ruled by a man driven by his unlawful appetites. Each of these constitutions is worse than the other, with tyranny being the most wretched form of government, and the tyrannical man the most wretched of men.
Because the rulers of the just city will rely on their fallible sense perception in choosing the next generation of rulers, they will inevitably make mistakes over time. Soon the wrong sort of people will occupy positions of power. These people will want to change things so that rulers can have private property and focus on wealth.
Timocracy degenerates into an oligarchy. As the love of money and wealth grows, the constitution will change so that ruling is based entirely on wealth. Whoever has wealth and property above a certain amount will be allowed to take part in ruling, and whoever has less than this will have no say in government. This city has four faults. First, it is ruled by people who are not fit to rule. Second, it is not one city but two: one city of rich people and one of poor. These two factions do not make up a single city because they are always plotting against one another, and do not have common aims. Third, this city cannot fight a war because in order to fight, the rulers would have to arm the people, but they are even more afraid of the people — who hate them — than of outsiders. Fourth, it has no principle of specialization. The rulers also have peripheral money-making occupations.
Next, the oligarchy declines into a democracy. The insatiable desire to attain more money leads to a practice of speculative money usage within the monetary system. Many in the city are driven to utter poverty while a few thrive. The impoverished sit idly in the city hating those with wealth and plotting revolution. The rich, in turn, pretend not to notice the dissatisfied masses. Finally, the poor revolt, killing some rich, and expelling the rest. They set up a new constitution in which everyone remaining has an equal share in ruling the city. They give out positions of power pretty much by lot, with no notice of who is most fit for what role. In this city the guiding priority is freedom. Everyone is free to say what they like and to arrange their life as they please. There is complete license. We, therefore, find the greatest variety of character traits in this city. What we do not find is any order or harmony. No one occupies the appropriate roles.
As democracy descends into chaos, the people of such constitution abandon reverence and moderation and begin to regard anarchy as freedom, extravagance as magnificence, and shamelessness as courage. Though, some of their virtues return and they are sometimes pulled toward moderation. Yet they confuse all pleasures (those of moderation and of indulgence) as equal, and they always yield to whichever one strikes them fancy at the moment. There is no order or necessity to their life.
In the last stage of degeneration, democracy, the most free city, descends into tyranny, the most enslaved. The insatiable desire for freedom causes the city to neglect the necessities of proper ruling. The activists stir up trouble. In the democracy, this class is even fiercer than in the oligarchy because they usually end up becoming the dominant political figures. There are two other classes in the democracy other than the activists: there are those who are most naturally organized and so become wealthy, and then there are those who work with their hands and take little part in politics. The activists deceive both these other classes, inciting them against each other. They try to convince the poor that the rich are oligarchs, and they try to convince the rich that the poor are going to revolt. In their fear, the rich try to limit the freedoms of the poor and in so doing come to resemble oligarchs. In response, the poor revolt. The leader of this revolt becomes the tyrant when the poor people triumph.
Key Observations: Plato’s critique of democracy is insightful and thought-provoking. His description of democracy’s single-minded pursuit of freedom at the expense of other goods, and of the sort of men who tend to gain power in such a system, should give us pause. We must take these criticisms seriously when considering just how we want to judge Plato’s own system. Is the loss of personal freedom really beyond sacrifice? Or might we actually be better off giving up freedom to gain order and harmony in return? In either case, we now know what Plato would say to us when he saw our terror at giving up our sacred liberties: he would tell us that we only cling desperately to our personal freedoms because our soul is disordered and unhealthy, our priorities skewed. We shrink from the idea of living in Plato’s Republic because we are driven by the wrong desires — by the desire for money, physical pleasure, and honor. He would add that if we were driven by the correct desires, the desire for truth, order, harmony, and the good of our society as a whole, we would be more open to adopting Plato’s system of government.
