The Values of Plato’s Democracy Make for an Imperfect but Sustainably Positive Civilization…
In Book XIII of The Republic, Plato works through various forms of government, each of them a version decaying from the last toward the utmost corruption of tyranny. Each government type also has a comrade of a specific type of person who has a soul that resembles the values and goals of the corresponding government type. The third step of “political rot” emerges as a way of life that is similar to what the people of the United States experience today: Democracy. Plato explains critiques and problems against a society that exhibits democratic values, however, such a way of life is in fact beneficial for the souls of its inhabitants and their overall opportunity for happiness due to freedom.
Before I embark on why democracy is a good way of life for people, I must first discuss how Plato thinks a civilization gets to one in the first place. Once a perfect aristocracy is formed, Plato’s Socrates explains that “since for everything that has come into being there is decay, not even a [city] such as this will remain for all time; it will be dissolved” (546a). The result of this dissolution will first be a timocracy. This form of government values the spiritedness of victory and honor, resulting in increased war and stinginess with money. Land and housing moves to the private domain sector and serfs emerge as a new “class” of workers. In this society, it is clear that the values of justice and virtue established in an aristocracy are crumbling. The want of proving honor through war will ultimately cost more lives than needed and the implementation of serfs results in an extreme unequalness in the rights of the citizens. In Plato’s view, we are heading closer to democracy, but from someone in the United States today who probably sees democracy as a very decent government at least, it feels as if this is an unfair and unjust government type entirely.
Plato then describes the average timocratic citizen. The Tim, in this society, is “a man more stubborn and somewhat less apt at music although he loves it, and must be a lover of hearing although he’s by no means skilled in rhetoric” (548e). This description makes me believe that this is a man who thinks highly of himself, but cannot necessarily follow through. He is arrogant and ambitious, but cannot always prove his desires. This is indicative of the decay that the timocracy has received from its once-perfect aristocracy; it is close but falls just short. It is described that the Tim is brutal with slaves but tame with friends and obedient to rulers. This is the type of man who is happy to push his will onto others who are weaker, but will oblige to equals and superiors out of fear of punishment; the Tim seems like a stereotypical high school bully to me. As we see in the United States, there are a variety of different people who have an equal amount of varieties of differing opinions. Someone with the attitude of the Tim seems reasonably easy to find in our society, but would they be an accurate representation of the average citizen? This seems far from democracy in my opinion still, but I will continue to follow Plato’s decay to see what else I can unearth.
The oligarchy is the next regime into the dissolution. This “regime is founded on property assessment” and most virtue is cast aside to make way for private interests and wealth (550c). A level of selfishness has been overcast onto the city. The acclamation and high regard for wealth allow those who are the most wealthy to obtain positions of power, and their legislation reflects their monetary interests. The rich are praised and the poor are considered dishonorable. Aspects of this exist in the United States as well with our three main class systems being high, middle, and low with respect to wealth. Wealth is obsessed over in today’s world as well, showing how the oligarchy is a closer government than the timocracy to our democracy. But is the value of wealth such a bad thing? Socrates also brings up the “greatest of all [the] evils” that can occur in society is “allowing [a] man to sell everything that belongs to him… allowing him to live in the city while belonging to none of its parts… a poor man without means” (522a). This type of possibility is a very remarkable point to bring up. Socrates’ definition of a just man is one who does his part and does not interfere with anyone else’s part in society, and later on the soul of the just man is described to have three parts: spiritedness, desire, and knowledge. The man who sells off everything and has no occupation is not doing any part in the city; one could say this is unjust and there are a variety of types of people who could occupy this role. Socrates talks of “drones” who can be beggars or criminals. Beggars can gain money but do not “earn” money, yet they still must spend it. Criminals also gain money, but do not “earn” it justly; they interfere with other citizens’ part in the city, which for an oligarchy is moneymaking. Both these types of drones depend on others while not contributing goods or services that others can depend on. These types of people exist in the United States as well, leading one to believe Plato is indeed on the right track for democracy as the next stage of decay.
The average oligarchical man is the Oliver. According to Plato, the Oliver values money in the highest category and is “stingy and a toiler, satisfying only necessary desires and not providing for other expenditures, but enslaving the other desires as vanities… [who gets] a profit out of everything” (554a). The Oliver is the greedy and selfish kind of man who will spend his money only on things necessary in life such as food and housing; the rest is stored away and used as a tool to display to all that he has what he has; he doesn’t spend the money unnecessarily, but it might as well be seen as every dollar being traded in for an ounce of honor for all others to admire. Any intentions he has to do evil are kept in check by the fear of losing his money. This begs the question of the role of money in this society. Money is not valuable to someone because they can use it to buy things, but it is instead hoarded to be used as a social or political standing point. In our society today, we look to people such as Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Donald Trump with awe because of their immense wealth, but many also look at them in disgust because of their actions or inactions with the wealth at hand. These individuals would be at the top of any oligarchy, but their presence indicates the next turning of society, the shift into democracy.
Democracy emerges when the rulers “are unwilling to control those among the youth who become licentious by a law forbidding them to spend and waste what belongs to them… it’s not possible to honor wealth in a city and at the same time adequately to maintain moderation among the citizens” (555c). The laws of the city and what the society deemed as honorable became a strangling hold over the youth who did not choose this life, disallowing them to be free in the respects of their wishes. A growing turmoil from the poor hating the rich because of high-interest prices causes revolution as well, with the poor being fueled by their hate of not having as much as the higher class. Simply and famously, Plato says that democracy arises “when the poor win” for now everyone, including the poor, actually will have a say in the government, something that Plato is known to have disagreed with (557a). Our democracy today and the one that Plato discusses are not the same, but they have the same base: if you are a citizen, then you have the right to vote and to have your own voice. Though some believe it to be insignificant, the highest political move the average person can enact is within themself: to vote, to protest, to inspire others with one’s ideas. Importantly as well, Socrates remarks: “all sorts of human beings come to be” (557e). In this way, we have the defining characteristic of the United States: a “melting pot” of people, races, cultures, jobs, opinions, and art which all contribute to our society in beneficial ways.
In this way, the Demo is a man who “[gratifies] the desire that occurs to him, at one time drinking and listening to the flute, at another downing water and reducing; now practicing gymnastic, and again idling and neglecting everything; and sometimes spending his time as though he were occupied with philosophy” (561c-d). In a true democracy, one has an equal opportunity to do whatever one wants. This, to me, sounds more like a utopia than Plato’s aristocracy, and I feel like his biases get in the way of that fact. One can see at the end of the last quote that he views the Demos spending time “as though” they were occupied in philosophy, implying that some if not all are not smart enough to practice it fully. An article from the Gallerist states that “Plato and Socrates both felt that all people were born with knowledge but that not all people were in touch with the knowledge they possessed. It was through a process of questioning that simply made them recall what was already ingrained” (The Gallerist). These sentiments are illustrated more closely in Plato’s Meno, but for looking at The Republic and its view of democracy, Plato certainly believes that the decay that the city has undertaken has affected its citizens because of unnecessary pleasures which occur because the democratic man has all desires “honored on an equal basis” (561c). These people of democracy are not actively questioning or contemplating as Plato admires, they are instead indulging in every type of desire that is around them, and because democracy allows such freedom, most desires can be obtained within means.
But is this necessarily a bad thing? It seems that Plato is not in favor of people experiencing all that there is to experience. But is not experiencing a variety of types of desires furthering one’s own knowledge about themselves and the world? Is that not what philosophy is all about? It is this freedom within a democracy that drives Plato’s displeasure with it. His reasoning goes along with this statement: “What is the manner of tyranny’s coming into being? For it is pretty plain that it is transformed out of democracy” (562a). This statement shows Plato’s clear bias against democracy as to him it is obvious that it leads to tyranny. Later, we understand why tyranny is the worst form of government, the worst decay of man, but this disgust of it seems to linger onto democracy. Through this quote, Plato instigates that one of the major problems of democracy is that it itself leads to tyranny. If democracy was the end of societal decay instead of tyranny, would that government really be so bad? The Gallerist’s thesis of their article expands on why Plato may hate democracy even more: “Plato’s critique of democracy is that democracy does not place a premium on wisdom and knowledge seeking as an inherent good, much like timocracy and oligarchy. Instead, democracy suffers from the failures of the aforementioned systems insofar as it prioritizes wealth and property accumulation as the highest good” (The Gallerist). It is not the definition of democracy that is the real issue here, but instead how the other types of governments relate to democracy. Timocracy stains democracy with spiritedness, oligarchy stains democracy with monetary obsession, and tyranny stains democracy because Plato thinks democracy is doomed to become it. I will now begin to assert the positives of democracy and why they override any problems the other government types situate onto them.
The Gallerist points to Plato’s opinion of democracy being “based on the assumption that every citizen is equally entitled to a say in political affairs, no matter how unsuited he is in terms of ability, character or training. Basically, no matter how ignorant a person may be, they still could find themselves playing a significant role in public affairs” (The Gallerist). Plato does have a point here that I can use today’s United States government to exemplify. Everyone who is a citizen in the US has the right to vote and the citizens of our country come from many different backgrounds, cultures, upbringings, etc. Some are highly educated in political science while others merely vote based on what their ignorant parents say. This does seem rather troubling when we as a people are trying to vote for the best leaders who represent our interests, but at the end of the day, is it actually not a good thing? If someone has limited education in politics and they vote, then their vote exemplifies their lack of knowledge. That lack of knowledge is then represented in the vote, meaning that the person that they voted for is representing some value within them, even if that value happens to be ignorance. If a society is made up of ignorant people, then their making ignorant choices regarding politicians are representative of the society that makes up what the politicians will be governing over. If Plato was upset that poor and uneducated people could vote, he should have recognized that he is amongst poor and educated people in the first place. Saying that only certain types of people can vote is making a city for only certain types of people. This is, in turn, what Plato did want in his strict and censored aristocratic city; a city of philosophers, but that kind of restriction and sameness promotes the stagnation of ideas. If everyone becomes similar, then innovation will lessen. Having a society of “many-colored men” allows for some ignorance, yes, but also allows for those who are curious to examine multiple perspectives since multiple perspectives will exist. These different types of people are responsible for their vote just as much as the well-educated, and if they feel that they voted wrong and were not confident in their pick, then that is a sign for the next voting cycle that they have gained an even firmer stance on what is important to them. At the end of the day, any legislation that affects all people should be able to be voted on by all people, or at least have someone who represents the voters’ interests by them being voted in by all people. No civilization is made up of citizens who are all intellectual in politics, but every civilization is made up of citizens who have a voice. Discrimination by understanding is wrong. We can all buy shoes, but we cannot all make shoes. We can all exercise, but we cannot all name all the muscles we are strengthening. We can all vote, but we cannot all be completely knowledgeable of political implications, and that is okay. To be in a civilization means that one is contributing to it in some way, and that contribution should be allowed to continue through voting in relation to legislature. Back to the 522a quote, Plato believes that the greatest evil is for one to have no role in the city; having everyone be able to vote on something gives a necessity to every citizen, gives a purpose for each of them in the city.
The issues of the previous decays can also be explained as positives in a democratic society. Though we have “dissolved” into democracy, the values of the father and grandfather governments (oligarchy and timocracy, respectively) have trickled down as “trauma” onto the current generation of focus. The honor and spiritedness of the timocracy are valuable characteristics that can allow passion to exist in a democratic society. This passion can be used for war, yes, but war will happen to every city eventually. The main goal of freedom will exist in a democratic society more predominately than the value of spiritedness, so perhaps these two can mix into a love of the arts: writing, reading, painting, sculpting, etc. These practices allow for passion and emotion to be expressed through a more free medium. As explained before, the Tim loves music and gymnastics, even though he is not highly proficient, but in a free democracy, less strictness will create less objective standards for creation.
The remnants of oligarchy now represent the next issue to solve. The key part here is that this ideology is the exact reason that the city became a democracy: the obsession with monetary wealth. The human nature of greed is a hard habit to remove from our consciousnesses, so I will not try to excuse it but instead use it. In a democracy, money still has an important facet, but it does not have to be used greedily. Yes, the citizens will desire it, but based on the past revolution, freedom is still the main concern for a democratic society. Plato says, “There is a license in it to do whatever one wants… all sorts of human beings come to be” (557b-c). If a love of money is still engrained in some parts of the democracy, it will be used as a good thing. The increased diversity of ideas and passions that freedom allows will create new occupations, fewer restrictions on what can be made and sold, and competition between similar products. This innovation allows for a bustling economy to emerge; one where money can still be a driving desire, competition of business allows the expression of spiritedness, and freedom of ideas increases innovation and knowledge for all. Democracy allows for all of these positives to flourish, creating souls that exhibit a complete three parts that remain distinct but also stay connected.
There remains one problem now: what prevents this reevaluation of democracy from becoming a tyranny? Plato identifies that the reason democracy falls is due to its defining factor: freedom. He says that “the insatiable desire [for freedom] and the neglect of the rest change this regime and prepare a need for tyranny… once [a democratic society has] thirsted for freedom, gets bad winebearers as its leaders and get more drunk than it should on this unmixed draught” (562c). I can see Plato’s point here that if all the citizens are in fact “drunk” on freedom, then other important factors of the city will be neglected. However, I find it unrealistic that this sort of conduct will consume the city. Though freedom is seen as the primary attribute of this society, the people will recognize that other needs must be met too. Say someone wants to be a shoemaker. He is free to do this job and organize his business in any way he sees fit, but he also is not free in the sense that he is independent. He still needs leather and rubber and string and other such shoe-things from other free people running those businesses. Though everyone is free to do what they want unlike in previous societies, they are dependent on each other just as the previous societies were. This necessity for one another creates a community within the city that establishes a structure that cannot go into anarchy unless immense suffering in people’s wants is put in as well. They may value freedom highly, but they will understand that some limits have to be put into place in order to maintain that freedom for generations to come. So I disagree that they will in fact get “drunk” on this freedom as they know that the “hangover” of what is to come after will impact their ability to “drink” again the next day. An obsession with honor spiritedness does not work like this because it is inviting conflict from other cities; an obsession with monetary desire does not work like this because it is inviting conflict from within the city classes; in democracy, there is no conflict outside or inside because freedom benefits all.
As for the people who obtain power in this city, it is not through money or name that they gain it. If one is able to persuade a large audience for some new legislation, then that new law can come into the city. Plato feared this type of power grab by others because people such as the “drones” could easily crawl their way through the cracks of influence. However, though they may be able to convince people for a time, if it is not backed up by noticeable change or structure, they can easily be dispensed of for better individuals. This will eventually cause a natural selection of what the people want and what is ultimately produced by the rulers: freedom, even if it has some sinister plans behind it. The rulers may have evil intentions and get away with some malice, but at the end of the day, to retain their power over a people who enjoy freedom, they will maintain that freedom as much as possible for order.
Though the government of democracy has its issues, it is the best form of society that comes from Plato’s aristocracy. Freedom is its key value, and this idea is one that builds on itself in a way that prevents it from getting out of control. If freedom is truly what the citizens of a democracy value, their actions around it will exemplify it, but also not take it out of control toward anarchy or tyranny because those endpoints end up limiting freedom in the long run. Democracy has its issues, but these largely arise from the spiritedness from timocracy and the desire from oligarchy, but these problems can be reevaluated with the knowledge that freedom brings within democracy to have a complete three-part soul. In the end, the freedom of democracy allows its citizens to shape their own lives, to learn without censorship, and to innovate beyond the restrictions of community and political agendas. Democracy may result from the decay of Plato’s perfect city, but we are not perfect people in the first place, and democracy elevates that imperfectness to create a city that is fulfilling to live in.
Works Cited
Plato, The Republic, trans. Bloom, Allan. The Republic of Plato. (New York City: Basic Books, 1991), 543a-569c.
The Gallerist. “Plato: Criticism of Democracy.” The Gallerist, 25 June 2021, https://thegallerist.art/plato-criticism-of-democracy/.