Plato on Democracy and the Wealth of Rulers (A Conversation with Claude)
Let me start with a question for you: how did Plato think about democracy?
In Book VIII of the Republic, Plato sorts constitutions into five kinds and puts democracy second from the bottom. The sequence runs from aristocracy through timocracy, oligarchy and democracy, and ends in tyranny[1].
Democracy arises when the rich grow richer and the poor grow poorer[2]. The poor win, kill some of their opponents and banish others, and give the rest an equal share of freedom and power. Offices are usually filled by lot[1].
At its center is freedom. People say what they like and do what they like. Socrates calls democracy “a charming form of government, full of variety and disorder,” one that gives a sort of equality to equals and unequals alike[1].
What Plato objects to is that this equality makes no distinction between those who know and those who do not. The ship in Book VI shows this clearly.
The captain is taller and stronger than anyone in the crew, but he is a little deaf, his sight is poor, and he knows little of navigation. The sailors quarrel over the helm, each claiming the right to steer, though none of them has learned navigation, and they insist that it cannot be taught[3].
A true navigator has to attend to the year and the seasons, the sky, the stars and the winds. Yet the sailors call him a babbler, a stargazer and a good-for-nothing. Socrates says the image describes the true philosopher in his relation to the city[3].
The person who corresponds to democracy lives from day to day, following whatever appetite comes up. One day it is drink and the music of the flute, the next it is water and a diet, then exercise, then idleness, then for a while the life of a philosopher[1].
In the end democracy turns into tyranny. When the desire for freedom goes too far, excess of liberty passes into excess of slavery[1,2]. The people set up one man as their champion and nurse him into greatness, and he becomes the tyrant, Socrates says[1].
For Plato, the flaw of democracy is that, in valuing freedom and equality, it treats those who have the knowledge to govern and those who do not as the same. The Republic places democracy in a sequence where that freedom, pushed too far, leads to tyranny.
So the fundamental problems of democracy were already understood more than two thousand years ago. At the root of the problem are an imbalance of intelligence and a disorderly tendency toward liberty. If Plato were alive today, how would he see the state of the world?
I think Plato would bring out the ship from Book VI again. Is the helm in the hands of someone who has learned navigation, or of someone who has won over the captain?
In today’s elections, candidates move people with short phrases and images and try to gather reactions on screens. Plato would likely see this as close to the sailors fighting over the helm, and would say that the vote count shows almost nothing about whether someone has the knowledge to govern.
The Republic discusses constitutions and souls side by side. If there are five constitutions, there are five dispositions of the soul[1].
So Plato would look not only at governments but at how each person lives. The democratic person, who follows the appetite of the day and moves from one thing to the next, looks a lot like a life spent switching from one screen to another.
To the imbalance of intelligence and the disorderly liberty you mention, Plato would probably add one more thing, the imbalance of wealth. In the Republic, oligarchy splits the city into two cities, one of the rich and one of the poor, and democracy arises when the rich grow richer and the poor grow poorer[2].
What he would watch most closely is a leader who claims to be on the people’s side. As with the champion I mentioned, the one the people nurse into greatness becomes the tyrant. Someone who gathers power by promising to fight the elites would look to Plato like a tyrant in his first form.
Applying Plato’s remedy directly to today raises another question, though. If the helm goes to those who have knowledge, who decides who has it?
The democracy Plato describes fills most offices by lot[1]. Modern democracy, which elects representatives and restrains power with constitutions and courts, can be seen as a way of closing off the road to tyranny by means other than rule by philosophers.
Turned on the present, Plato’s questions come down to two: whether those with knowledge are at the helm, and whether the arrangements that restrain those who claim to speak for the people are still working.
Politicians tend to side with the people, because their goal is to win elections. If they lose an election, there is no politics left for them at all. And the people vote for short-term benefits. But in most cases long-term strategy and short-term benefit conflict, so the power of the people does not lead to long-term strategy. Politicians who run for office understand this from the start and put short-term benefit ahead of long-term strategy. That is one of the reasons countries break down over the long run. Why do politicians cling to elections? Isn’t it because becoming a politician brings a great deal of wealth and power? Then wouldn’t it be enough not to give politicians wealth and power? Didn’t Plato say something like that?
He did. In the Republic, those who guard and rule the city have no private property, and what they need comes from the city through taxes on the other citizens. They live together and eat in common messes[2].
The same goes for family. Marriage and children are to be handled, as far as possible, by the old proverb that friends hold everything in common[4].
The aim is to make the whole city as happy as possible, not one class in it. Plato also says that too much wealth and too much poverty both lead to strife[2].
The idea of keeping power away from those who want it is already in Book I. The best people do not want to rule and rule only out of necessity, Socrates says, because they do not want to be ruled by someone worse[2].
In Book VII he goes further. The city whose rulers are most reluctant to govern is governed best, and the one whose rulers are most eager is governed worst[5]. The philosophers despise political power and rule not for rewards but for the sake of those they rule[4].
These rulers are not elected. They are chosen from those who are older, strong and wise and unwilling to do anything but what benefits the city, after an education that lasts until about the age of fifty[2].
To the gap you describe between short-term benefit and long-term strategy, Plato’s answer is not to fix elections but to cut rulers off from private gain.
Giving rulers no wealth is not the same as giving them no pay, though. Plato’s rulers still receive what they need to live from the city. Take pay away altogether, and only the rich, who can live without it, could take part in politics. What Plato removes is not pay but wealth that is accumulated and privately held.
In exchange, Plato’s rulers have neither property nor families of their own, and the city imposes a long education and a common life on them. Even without going that far, the idea that holding office should bring no private wealth is one that today’s institutions can take over.
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