Penguin Classics
Plato: The Republic
PART NINE (BOOK EIGHT) IMPERFECT SOCIETIES
- DEMOCRACY
Equality of political opportunity and freedom for the individual to do as he likes are, for Plato and Aristotle, the salient characteristics of democracy. Plato is writing, of course, about democracy in the ancient city-state, and has Athens particularly in mind. (cf. Introduction, p. 22f); but translation into terms of modern experience is not difficult.
‘Our next subject, I suppose, is democracy. When we know how it originates, and what it is like, we can again identify and pass judgement on the corresponding individual.’
‘That would be consistent with the procedure we’ve been following.’
‘Then doesn’t oligarchy change into democracy because of lack of restraint in the pursuit of its objective of getting as rich as possible?’
‘How does that happen?’
‘Because the Rulers, owing their power to wealth as they do, are unwilling to curtail by law the extravagance of the young, and prevent them squandering their money and ruining themselves; for it is by loans to such spendthrifts or by buying up their property that they hope to increase their own wealth and influence.’
‘That’s just what they want.’
‘It should then be clear that love of money and adequate self-discipline in its citizens are two things that can’t co-exist in any society; one or the other must be neglected.’
‘That’s pretty clear.’
‘This failure to curb extravagance in an oligarchy often reduces to poverty men born for better things.’
‘Yes, often.’
‘Some of them are in debt, some are disenfranchised, some both, and they settle down, armed with their strings, and with hatred in their hearts, to plot against those who have deprived them of their property and against the rest of society, and to long for revolution.’
‘Yes, they do.’
‘Meanwhile, the money-makers, bent on their business, don’t appear to notice them, but continue to inject their poisoned loans wherever they can, and to demand their high rates of interest, with the result the drones and beggars multiply.’
‘A result that’s bound to follow.’
‘Yet, even when the evil becomes flagrant they will do nothing to quench it, either by preventing men by disposing of their property as they like, or by other suitable legislation.’
‘What Legislation?’
‘It’s only a second best, but it does compel some respect for decent behavior. If contracts for a loan were, in general, made at the lender’s risk, there would be a good deal less shameless money-making and a good deal less of the evils I have been describing.’
‘Much less.’
‘But as it is the oligarchs oppress their subjects as we have said, while as for themselves and their dependents – their young men live in luxury and idleness, physical and mental, and lose all their energy and and ability to resist pain or pleasure; and they themselves care for nothing but making money, and have no higher moral standards than the poor.’
‘True’.
‘Such being the state of rulers and ruled, what will happen when they come up against each other in the streets or in the course of business, at a festival or on a campaign, serving in the navy or army? When they see each other in moments of danger, the rich man will no longer be able to despise the poor man; the poor man will be lean and sunburnt, and find himself fighting next to some rich man whose sheltered life and superfluous flesh make him puff and blow and quite unable to cope. Won’t he conclude that people like this are rich because their subjects are cowards, and won’t he say to his fellows, when he meets them in private, ”This lot are no good; they’ve had it”?’
‘I’m quite sure he will.’
‘When a person’s unhealthy, it takes very little to upset him and make him ill; there may even be an internal cause for dis-order. The same is true of an unhealthy society. It will fall into sickness and dissension at the slightest external provocation, when one party or the other calls in help from a neighboring oligarchy or democracy; while sometimes faction fights will start without any external stimulus at all.’
‘Very true.’
‘Then democracy originates when the poor win, kill or exile their opponents, and give the rest equal rights and opportunities of office, appointment to office being as a rule by lot.’
‘Yes,’ he agreed, ‘that is how a democracy is established, whether it’s done by force of arms or by frightening its opponents into retreat.’
‘What sort of a society will it be?’ I asked, ‘and how will it be run? The answer, obviously, will show us the character of the democratic man.’
‘Obviously’.
‘Would you agree, first, that people will be free? There is liberty and freedom of speech in plenty, and every individual is free to do as he likes.’
‘That’s what they say.’
‘That being so, won’t everyone arrange his life as pleases him best?’
‘Obviously.’
‘And so there will be the greatest variety of individual character?’
‘There’s bound to be’
‘I dare say that a democracy is the most attractive of all societies’, I said, ‘The diversity of its characters, like the different colors in a patterned dress,make it look very attractive. Indeed,’ I added, ‘perhaps most people would, for this reason, judge it to be the best form of society, like women and children who judge by appearances.’
‘Very likely.’
‘And, you know, it’s just the place to go constitution-hunting. It contains every possible type, because of the wide freedom it allows, and anyone engaged in founding a state, as we are doing, should perhaps be made to pay a visit to a democracy and make his choice from the variety of models it displays, before he proceeds to make his own foundation.’
‘It’s a shop in which he’d find plenty of models on show.’
‘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?’
‘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 continue, none the less, to go about among their fellows, who take no more notice of them than if they were invisible spirits.’
‘I’ve often seen that.’
‘Then they’re very considerate in applying the high principles we laid down when founding our state; so far from interpreting them strictly, they really look down on them. We said that no one who had not exceptional gifts could grow into a good man unless he were brought up from childhood in a good environment and given a good training; democracy with a grandiose gesture sweeps all this away and doesn’t mind what the habits and background of its politicians are, provided they profess themselves the people’s friends.’
‘All very splendid.’
‘These, then, and similar characteristics are those of democracy. It’s an agreeable, anarchic form of society, with plenty of variety, which treats all men as equal, whether they are equal or not.’
‘The picture is easy to recognize.’
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Ben Franklins quote is something to think about this Thanksgiving…
A Republic, madam, if you can keep it.
Apparently, we failed.
Since Plato’s model of democracy captured it’s workings so well more than 2300 years ago I thought the character of a democrat would be a fitting accompaniment to it. His description of their wants and needs so exquisitely captures the reasons for their behavioral decisions it deserves to be mentioned twice.
And as Plato points out, they’re proud of that.
Versatile but lacking in principle
Part 7 THE DEMOCRATIC CHARACTER.
Versatile but lacking in principle
‘Then let us look at the democratic individual. And first we should look at his origin, as we did with the society. It is this. Our mean oligarchic character may have a son, whom he will bring up in his own ways.’
‘So far, so good.’
‘He will forcibly restrain himself from those pleasures that lead to expense rather than profit, the “unnecessary” pleasures as they have been called.”
‘Yes, obviously.’
‘Then do you think that, if we are to avoid arguing in the dark, we had better define the differences between necessary and unnecessary desires?’
‘Yes, I think so.’
‘Desires we can’t afford, or whose satisfaction benefits us, can fairly be called necessary, I think. We are bound by our very nature to want to satisfy both, and so may surely with justice use the term “necessary” to describe them.’
‘Yes.’
‘But we can describe as unnecessary all desires which can be got rid of with practice, if we start young, and whose presence either does us no good or positive harm. Isn’t that fair enough?’
‘Fair enough.’
‘Shall we give examples of each, to get a general idea of what we mean?’
‘I think we should’
‘Would you say that the desire to eat enough for health and strength, and the desire for the plain food requisite for the purpose, was necessary?’
‘Yes, I think so.’
‘And of this plain food some is necessary for mere survival as well as for good health, some for good health only.’
‘Certainly’
‘But the desire for a more varied and luxurious diet is one which, with discipline training from an early age, can normally be got rid of, and which is physically harmful and damaging to the intelligence and self-control. May it not therefore rightly be called unnecessary?’
‘Undoubtedly’
‘The first kind of desire we could also call economical, because of its practical usefulness, the second kind wasteful.’
‘True.’
‘And does not the same hold good of sex and the other desires?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then what we called the drone type must be swayed by a mass of unnecessary pleasures and desires, the mean oligarchic type by necessary ones.’
‘Yes.’
‘Let’s go back to the question how the democratic man originates from the oligarchic. This generally happens when a young man, brought up in the narrow economical way we have described, gets a taste of the drones’ honey and gets into wild and dangerous company, where he can be provided with every variety and refinement of pleasure, with the result that his internal oligarchy starts turning into a democracy.’
‘That’s bound to happen.’
‘In society the change took place when one party brought in sympathizers from outside to help it. Will the change in our young men be brought about when one or other type of desire in him gets assistance from similar passions outside him?’
‘Yes, certainly.’
‘Thus, if the oligarchic element in him gets support and assistance from the remonstrances and criticisms of his father and other members of his family, the result is a conflict of factions and a self divided against itself. And sometimes the democratic element gives way to the oligarchic, and some of his desires are destroyed and some driven out; and a certain sense of decency is produced in the young man’s mind and internal order restored.’
‘Sometimes’
‘Alternatively the exiled desires are succeeded by others like them, produced by his father’s ignorance of how to bring him up properly; and these grow in number and strength, lead him back to his old associates, and breed and multiply in secret.’
‘That often happens.’
‘In the end they capture the seat of government, having discovered that the young man’s mind is devoid of knowledge, principle and truth, the most effective safeguards the mind of man can be blessed with.’
‘Far the most effective’
‘The vacant place is filled instead by an invasion of pretentious fallacies, and back he goes to live with the Lotus-eaters. If his family send help to the economical element in him, the pretentious invaders shut the gates of the citadel, and will not admit it; nor will they listen to the individual representations of old and trusted friends. They make themselves masters by force, they call shame silliness and drive it into disgrace and exile; they call self-control cowardice and expel it with abuse; and they call on a lot of useless desires to help them banish economy and moderation, which they regard as provincial parsimony.’
‘All very true.’
‘They expel the lot and leave the soul of their victim swept and garnished, ready for the great initiation which follows, when they lead in a triumphal torchlight procession of insolence, licence, extravagance, and shamelessness. They praise them all extravagantly and call insolence good breeding, licence liberty, extravagance generosity, and shamelessness courage. Do you agree that that’s how a young man brought up in the necessary desires comes to throw off all inhibitions and indulge desires that are unnecessary and useless?’
‘A very clear description.’
‘For the rest of his life he spends as much money, time and trouble on the unnecessary desires as on the necessary. If he’s lucky and doesn’t get carried to extremes, the tumult will subside as he gets older, some of the exiles will return, and the invaders won’t have it all their own way. He’ll establish a kind of equality of pleasures, and will give the pleasure of the moment complete control till it is satisfied, and then move on to another, so that all have their fair share and none is underprivileged.’
‘That’s true.’
‘If anyone tells him that some pleasures, because they spring from good desires, are to be encouraged and approved, and others, springing from evil desires, to be disciplined and controlled, he won’t listen or open his doors to the truth, but shakes his head and says all pleasures are equal and should have equal rights.’
‘Yes that’s just what he does.’
‘In fact, I said, ‘he lives for the pleasure of the moment. One day it’s wine, women, and song, the next bread and water; one day it’s hard physical training, the next indolence and ease, and then a period of philosophic study. Next he takes to politics and is always on his feet saying or doing whatever comes into his head. Sometimes all his ambitions are military, sometimes they are all directed to success in business. There’s no order or restraint in his life, and he reckons his way of living is pleasant, free and happy.’
‘A very good description of one who believes in liberty and equality,’ he commented.
‘Yes,’ I said, ‘and I think that the versatility of the individual, and the attractiveness of his combination of diverse characteristics, match the variety of the democratic society. It’s a life which many men and women would envy, it has so many possibilities.’
‘it has indeed.’
‘This, then, is the individual corresponding to the democratic society, and we can fairly call him the democratic man.’
“Agreed.’