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Plato on Democracy

"An oligarchy is said to be that in which the few and the wealthy, and a democracy that in which the many and the poor are the rulers," Aristotle put it in his Politics (III, 8). 

The oligarchs and the democrats were the two political parties rivalled for power in classical Athens. The democrats tried to extend the franchise to all male citizens, whereas the oligarchs insisted to establish a state in which only the persons who own substantial amounts of property could vote.

Plato made a mockery of democratic society in the Republic. According to Plato, a democracy is governed by the general craftspeople which are full of diversity. In that case, a different person rules each day essentially. He brought us to see how lovely a democracy seems to be, just like a coast with many multi-coloured ornaments that fascinates women and children.[1] Such an ionic approach not only showed his cynical attitude towards democracy but also made fun of the position of women in a society.

·         Plato’s Ship Analogy

Plato described the true meaning of justice within the society and a state can only function if each of pieces does its part and nothing else.[2] He compared the city to an expensive ship. A ship, to accomplish a successful journey, needs a captain who knows the capacities of vessel, geography and other relevant matters. An ignorant and unprofessional person at the helm of a ship would endanger the ship and everyone on the ship. Likewise, Plato analogised, untrained and incompetent governments can be and have been the disasters for citizens and societies alike. For instance, wise and benevolent person like Socrates, was executed because his pattern of thoughts. It was said such democratic form of government proved to be ineffective.

·         Plato’s Ideal Society

 Plato claimed the general public are not capable to make rational decisions on complex political issues and government practices. It is ridiculous idea to let the average person to run the State, as these people are guided by emotion, focused on self- interest. In a democracy, he argued the politicians were untrained, had not qualifications. They were merely praised on the public light to run the state. On the whole, Plato was saying that a democracy appeared to be pleasant constitution that fundamentally appropriate form of order and social structure were critically in deficiency. In respond, Palo suggested the only person is legitimately qualified to run the city is the philosopher king.[3] Then this is the ideal form of an aristocracy where the philosopher kings guide the lowly craftspeople.

·         Counter View

Plato insisted specialisation of labour, so far as a person to have a go at different jobs would be against his thought of what the just city is. Plato himself also believed that a just soul must find work which is best for the rational part of the soul.[4]However, if ones are not allowed to try their hands at various areas, how are they supposed to find out the one that best fulfil their souls?

With all due respect, the philosopher kings are human beings, aren’t they? Would a philosopher be least sensitive to corruption? Plato responses to this is that the philosopher kings are educated to what is the best for the society. However, the fact that a person is most educated to be noble does not mean he/she actually behave virtuously. Through out the history, some of the wost leaders were surprisingly well educated. Education can be an essential ingredient of morality but not the sole factor.

Would not a corrupted governor in Plato’s ideal society be much more ruinous than the one in democracy? As in democracy, the people have the power to choose their own leaders. Then the leader has to run the government for the best interest for the people’s needs and desire otherwise may not be able to stay in power. On the other hand, when the leaders are brought by the military force or under the name of god, the people have no right to replace the current leader with more virtuous one, namely have no protection against corruption inside the government.

As other form of government, democracy also does run by laws. Plato implied that justice fits into an aristocratic community. Justice is always relied on the wisdom of people, and people are imperfect even the philosopher kings are fallible. Possibly, sometimes criminals have been set free, innocent people have been given guilty verdict, but monarchies and tyrannies are mo less likely to make mistakes. Under a democracy, trail by a jury of random publics facilitate this much fairer than judgement passed by a ruling party. Trail by jury is the watchdog of liberty, and when they seriously take the case in front of them with out bias. In that sense, a person has received the fairest process that is possible. [5]

·         Conclusion

In collusion, Plato and Socrates offered some very valuable criticisms on democracy, however, some of them are not weak and we have not been given any plausible alternatives. In Republic, Plato claimed the democracy is the wost form of government, yet he did not realise it was democracy gave him the freedom to criticise the every system he was talking advantage; it is democracy giving us the opportunity to look back at his Republic. The best argument for the democracy is the failure of the other system of government, such as the Athens was a democracy throughout most of the 5th and the 4th century. Only in 411 and 404 did oligarchs succeed in establishing a government where the few and wealthy ruled over the many and mostly poor. Neither oligarchic regime lasted even as long as a year.

Perhaps the liberty, a majority rule and equality were allowed in other system of governments, they would still be surviving today.

Bibliography

Plato ‘The Republic’, translated by Benjamin Jowett

Cross, R. C., and Woozley, A. D. ‘Plato’s Republic: A Philosophical Commentary’

Zeitlin, Irving M. ‘Plato’s Vision: The Classical Origins of Social and Political Thought’

Spooner Lysander ‘An Essay on the Trail By Jury’

M. I. Finley ‘Democracy Ancient and Modern’

Davis Michael ‘The Politics of Philosophy’