Transcription
There will be no end to the Troubles of States till philosophers rule in this world. If you could design the perfect Society, what would it be? Would you craft a wealthy, abundant, hedonistic Nation where everyone had each of their wishes granted in one fell swoop? Would it be a form of idealized Socialism where all was shared with everyone else? Would it be a Libertarian fantasy with no restrictions and little to no government?
Well, over 2,000 years ago, Plato asked asked this exact question. He wanted to know what Justice is and what a just person would be like, and to answer this, he crafted an idealized city-state to see what Justice would look like on an even wider scale. This project culminated in his great work, The Republic, where he famously argued that philosophers of all people should rule Society. This may sound like a ridiculous proposition, and even though I technically do Philosophy for a living, I am personally pretty skeptical. Both myself and a lot of philosophers I know would be pretty ill-suited to running a country. Philosophers are normally conceived of as bookish and out of touch, spending their time in Ivory Towers thinking about the so-called higher Mysteries. What possible business could they have running a state?
Well, let's find out shall we? Get ready to learn why money ruins politics, how education is the most powerful weapon in government, and so much more. As always, please bear in mind this is just my incomplete interpretation of Plato's ideas, and I'll be skimming over some of the details for easy of presentation. And also, that just because Plato said something doesn't mean that it's true. It's worth engaging with these ideas critically, but with that out of the way, let's begin by looking at the foundations of the Platonic city state and Plato's first unintuitive proposition.
**One: The New Metallic Order**
The first step to getting inside Plato's head with his governmental strategy is to realize that ancient Greece had very different priorities to the modern day. Whereas many of us are lucky enough to live in Nations without the immediate threat of foreign Invasion and ones that tend to favor the freedom and Independence of their individual citizens, Plato instead focuses much more on internal unity and efficiency. Part of the reason this is such a priority is because Plato wants his ideal city-state to be secure and, to a certain extent, unchanging. He is writing not that long after the Peloponnesian War, the great conflict that engulfed the whole of Greece, and the concerns of interstate competition would never be far from his mind.
To this end, Plato wants his city states to be as cohesive and efficient as possible, with everyone doing what they are best suited to do. And so, he divides his citizens into three classes, corresponding to three different types of metal. There is the bronze class, the silver class, and the gold class, and each of these classes has very different roles, advantages, and most importantly, drawbacks.
The bronze class is meant to be the economic powerhouse of the city. These are the Craftsmen, the trades people, and the servicemen of Plato's Republic. They are also entitled to the most normal and free life of anyone in Plato's City City State. They work a lot like any other Greek. They are broadly allowed to associate with whomever they want, given certain restrictions. They have the freedom to own private property and are allowed to apply themselves to the accumulation of money, again, within certain parameters. They have a vital place in the city because without them, the state would have no food, no economy, and would undoubtedly be outclassed and overtaken by a superior power. Plato is not such an idealist as to think that he can get by without any sort of trade. As much as he admires aspects of the Spartan's brutal lifestyle, he does not think that permanent austerity is a recipe for long-term success, even though he also makes it clear that there will be limits in the amount of wealth inequality that is allowed to exist between people in his State, as without this, he imagines resentment and anger building amongst the populace.
The main restriction the bronze class face is that they are forced to stick to one profession for their entire lives. So, if you are a blacksmith, then you remain one forever. The thinking behind this decision is actually pretty straightforward: if someone sticks to one job, the job they are best suited for, then they will be able to sink much more time into it, accumulating more expertise as a result. This means that Plato's Republic will have not just Craftsmen, but the best Craftsmen; not just Farmers, but the best Farmers. This specialization is also meant to promote peace within the state, according to Plato. Internal harmony in a society is partly brought about by a lack of competition within the city, a sense that everyone is on the same team. If there were too many Builders and blacksmiths all competing for the same business, then it would promote resentment, since the less successful Craftsmen would envy the more successful ones, and they may decide to work to bring about their downfall. Thus, each person will probably inherit their profession from their parents, unless they have a special skill that means they should be moved to another job. This might seem confusing in a modern context because we tend to want people to be free to pursue whatever they care about, and Plato does recognize that not everyone will be happy with this, but he thinks that the health of our community is far more important. This is just the beginning of a key theme in The Republic: everyone sacrificing for the general good of society, but this paying extreme dividends when that society is strong enough to support them and keep them safe and happy.
Next up is the silver class. This is effectively the nation's military, and here Plato takes a leaf out of the Spartan's book and argues for a professional army. This is in contrast to many of the other city states in Greece at this time, who would repurpose their civilian citizens as a fighting force in times of war. However, in keeping with his theme of specialization, Plato thought that a professional military would be much more effective. He calls this the auxiliary class, and their sole job is to train in the art of war and keep the peace within the city. They would also receive a rigorous training and a strict education system, which we're going to revisit in the next section.
Finally, we have the gold class. These are Plato's infamous philosopher kings. This group forms the rulers of the city, and it is perhaps the hardest part of Plato's political pill to swallow. I'm going to devote an entire section to them later in the video, so I'm I'm not going to go into too much detail here, but rest assured, they will be back. The important thing to note for now is just that they're in charge. These groups were also meant to correspond to the three parts of Plato's human soul: the rational or wise part for the rulers, the energetic or spirited part for the soldiers, and the desirous or appetitive part for the bronze class.
Now, the immediate issue that leaps out when reading this is that we have a class system where two groups of people have all of the military power, and the others are effectively powerless subjects. There is every chance this could lead to severe corruption within the state and for the whole thing to dissolve into a tyranny. However, Plato has a pretty clever solution to this: he bans the auxiliary and the ruling class from owning private property. Each silver and gold person will be provided with their lodgings, food, and other necessities by the state, but this does not mean that they will live in luxury. On the contrary, they will be in very sparse communal lodgings and would be completely barred from owning anything for themselves. In other words, he wants to keep power and wealth or comfort completely separate. He says that ruling or soldiering will be a great honor, but it'll also be no easy ride. Indeed, he insinuates that most people would actually prefer to belong to the bronze class so that they could enjoy material comfort, but also that this is a good thing because it means the only people who end up in power are those with the constitution to use this position to serve their fellow citizens rather than enrich themselves for worldly luxuries and status. In a rather prescient passage, Plato describes how the ability of rulers to enrich themselves through their offices has the power to transform them from servants of the people to selfish, avaricious tyrants, leading to societal resentment.
As a result, but this is only the beginning of the lengths that Plato will go to to ensure there is good rulership in his City, because next we're going to look at a very exciting subject: the proper education of a politician. If you want to help me make more videos like this, then please consider subscribing to my channel or my Patreon. The links are in the description.
**Two: Educating a State**
Have you ever stopped to think about how strange it is that the people that run most countries receive little to no training for this job? This is despite the fact it's one of the most important positions someone can have in a state. We wouldn't allow a doctor to operate on a patient without a single day's medical training, so how come we end up offering no such specialized educational provision to the people that end up running our country? Again, Plato is drawing from his own experience here. In his lifetime, pure democratic rule granted Athens incompetent rulers and rash decisions. After all, the Athenian States had executed Plato's great teacher, Socrates, and led the country to disaster in the Peloponnesian War, and Plato has a plan to make sure that his soldiers and rulers are as effective and selfless as possible.
It comes in the form of a rigorous education system designed to promote virtue amongst all the classes in the city. First of all, there are Plato's infamous and strict controls on the art and literature that any citizen in his state can consume. Plato says, "If we are to have a society as full of just people as possible, we have to pay very careful attention to the messages we are sending them, especially as they're growing up." He even criticizes the great poet Homer for filling people's heads with the idea that Gods could be cruel or capricious, or that Heroes could be wrathful, lustful, and belligerent. For Plato, the purpose of art in his City will be to aid in the moral development of its citizenry, and to that end, everything must be carefully curated. This probably strikes us today as unacceptably censorious, and Plato freely admits that this will limit the pleasure the Republic's citizens will take in the arts, but he thinks this is a small price to pay to promote social cohesion and good moral character. I'll leave it up to you whether you agree with him here. It's also worth bearing in mind that Plato himself does not think he's doing a cruel thing. He is essentially worried that if people are exposed to the wrong role models through myth or theater, then they will be led down unhappy paths in their life and also neglect their duties to their fellow citizens. It's all meant to be in service to the wider community, the uh greater good. Of course, today we consider free creative expression a much more significant part of what makes a happy life, so many of us would probably disagree with the great Greek's policies here. Nonetheless, Plato is not being deliberately dictatorial, but is genuinely trying to safeguard the citizens of his imaginary Republic, much like a father wouldn't allow a 5-year-old to watch The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
However, beyond this, not an awful lot is said about what the education of the bronze class should consist in. At points, Plato hints that there'll be a kind of apprenticeship model where they are taught their destined trades so that they can achieve excellence much faster. At other points, he alludes to more formal educational provisions being made. Plato probably doesn't expand on this too much because the bronze class are treated the most normally of all of Plato's citizens, at least by the standards of much of ancient Greek culture.
When we get to the auxiliaries, this is when things start to get interesting. At the early stages, the auxiliaries and rulers, or Guardians, are educated together and are put through numerous physical and intellectual trials. For the soldiers, Plato has two distinct aims: to cultivate their physical prowess, but also their sense of harmony and practical wisdom. To that end, he actually advocates teaching them music and the theory behind music. They will be taught how harmony works, shown examples of music in its proper fashion, and it will be emphasized over and over again that harmony is a supreme virtue and that their job is to devote their lives to the harmony of the community. Plato also broke with Athenian tradition here and argued that men and women should be given exactly the same education because why should the Republic miss out on the service of an excellent soldier or a supremely skillful guardian just because they're a woman? The ideal for Plato's auxiliaries is to be strong enough to master the battlefields, but also subtle enough to keep the peace in the city without abusing their power or upsetting the general populace. It is also here that Plato proposes a version of class mobility: any child born to bronze parents that displays silver or gold traits will be educated in the manner of that class. Sometimes Plato has been called a tyrant for his political theories, but I believe it's almost more accurate to call him a believer in involuntary meritocracy. He believed in picking the best person for the job, but also thought that that person was duty-bound to carry out that job whether they wanted to or not. Again, everyone is sublimating their individual desires for the good of the whole.
Once the soldiers had completed this schooling, they were guaranteed to be both capable fighters and fiercely loyal to the city-state, without a drop of corruption in their body, at least that's the theory. When this is complete, the rulers are separated into their own group for the next stage of their education. This will ultimately last until they are 50 years old and includes studies in various fields of mathematics, philosophy, physical training, natural science, dialectic, and years of field and military work, all of which is aimed to prepare them for the meticulous job of running the Republic.
Now, you may have heard the word dialectic used in the context of certain 19th-century philosophers like Hegel, but Plato means it in a somewhat different sense. For him, dialectic is the practice of using precise philosophical analysis and discussion to find the truth of an issue and to establish the first principles of wisdom and governance. It's easy to see how this skill might come in handy for a ruler, but Plato does not just want these analytic and discussion skills to be used in the straightforwardly practical domain of stagecraft. He also wants the rulers to turn their attention to more abstract ideas alongside the day-to-day business of running the city. These philosopher kings will conduct inquiries into what genuinely constitutes goodness, justice, right, wrong, truth, and beauty so that they can use these discoveries for the good of all. Of course, the job of being an incorruptible ruler of a city clearly requires a particular kind of person, so it is high time we looked at this idea of a philosopher king in more detail.
**Three: The Ruler of Wisdom**
In our heads, we all have an image of what a philosopher looks like. It is probably some old-looking bloke or serious-looking woman hunched over a desk with a pen in their hand, scribbling down some musings on the meaning of life or attending to some minor issue of analytic logic. I don't mean this as an insult; I love these people; I want to become one. But it does make sense that people would question why this group in particular has the right to rule over the rest of us. However, we must bear in mind that when Plato says philosopher, he means something very different to this academic world of tweed jackets and mahogany desks. He is talking more broadly, but also perhaps more strictly, about those that love wisdom, or perhaps more importantly, love truth.
Let's think about what makes an incompetent ruler. They might be forgetful, careless, thoughtless, easily tricked, and indecisive. Above all, they carry little to no commitment to what is actually the case. They will lie so much that they will forget what was the truth and what was a figment of their ever-inventive imagination. They would lose touch with reality to such an extent that they could not become good governors if they tried. For Plato, this is a doomsday scenario and should be avoided at all costs. Considering that one of the most common complaints about politicians today is still their perceived dishonesty, perhaps we would do well to listen to what Plato has to say next.
For Plato, a true philosopher is someone who loves wisdom, justice, beauty, and truth, and moreover, has the capability to examine these in detail. They are meant to be honest to a fault, courageous, intellectually and physically curious, love learning, and are eager to serve their community. They demonstrate the Platonic virtues of wisdom, courage, and moderation. It's fair to say this is somewhat of a departure from our ordinary usage of philosopher, and this has caused a lot of confusion when people read Plato. Plato is not saying that academics should rule over us all, but rather that a ruler should have certain qualities if they are to wield their power responsibly and effectively. He just considered these as also the qualities a good philosopher would have. He also thought the state should grow and nurture these virtues if we are to have a truly peaceful and just society.
Additionally, a Platonic philosopher is someone not motivated by money or power, but instead learning and the discovery of the so-called highest truths. They must not only be extremely studious but also moderate in their bodily tastes. He ideally says that a philosopher king would be so single-minded that nothing would tear them away from their learning and their governance. They would not want to accumulate wealth or status or have a harem of extremely attractive lovers because their whole mind is devoted to studying and just administration, and the entire education system of the rulers is meant to encourage this. As I said before, Plato wants to school his philosopher kings in all manner of subjects. This is important for practical reasons: this way, a ruler can be an engineer, a navigator, and a general all in one. But it is also meant to hone their minds and encourage them to take all of their pleasure from this studying and learning, decreasing their potential for corruption. Anyone who was sluggish in their work or distracted from other things would be removed and not permitted to become a ruler of the city. This might seem really harsh, but for Plato, it is absolutely necessary to ensure that our rulers have our best interests at heart and will not be led astray by selfish desires. At points, Plato even says that these rulers should not want to have power at all. They should take no particular joy in this privileged position, but again, see it as a sacrifice they are making to everyone else.
This completes that theme we were talking about that runs through the entirety of The Republic. Rather than a society full of individuals taking for themselves, this is a city where everyone offers all of their work, skill, and energy to the community, safe in the knowledge that everyone else is doing the same. It is a bit like how work might be divided amongst a group of firm friends or a close family. People wouldn't worry about how much effort and sacrifice they are giving because they are 100% confident that everyone else is going to do the same. Thus, in theory, everybody wins. Plato also takes pains to emphasize that the rulers don't see themselves as better than the silver or bronze class. This is why he refers to them as fellow ruler and fellow ruled, rather than as slaves and master.
Of course, Plato knows that this idea of philosophers ruling will seem totally ridiculous, but this is where he takes a moment to criticize what he saw the so-called philosophers and intellectuals of his time doing. For Plato, almost all people who present themselves as wise or just or philosophical are either insufficiently trained or have had their natures corrupted by their society. So, at some point, instead of pursuing truth, wisdom, and beauty directly, they have veered off course and sought riches or status instead. Alternatively, anyone with the right temper to remain moderate in the face of this worldly temptation has withdrawn from public life, disdainful of the corruption that they find in the political sphere. Basically, for Plato, most societies set themselves up specifically to discourage the best people to rule from ruling and to encourage the more selfish, power-hungry types to seize the reins of state instead. I will leave it to you to decide how relevant this insight is for the present day.
So, that is the broad outline of Plato's state. If it all goes well, then everyone is in a position where they can contribute the most to society. You can have wealth or power, but not both, and the rulers are highly trained to be learned, just, and self-sacrificial. But interestingly, Plato ends The Republic not by arguing directly for his system, but by outlining the faults of all of the other governments he found in ancient Greece, and his analyses remains surprisingly and startlingly relevant even to this day. So, for our final point, we're going to examine Plato's extended rant against his own society.
**Four: The Failed States**
Running through the whole of The Republic, it is clear that Plato is deeply dissatisfied with politics as it existed in Greece at his time, and to be fair, who can blame him? The state of Athens killed his teacher and his friend, and there were numerous people who argued that the strong had the right to dominate the weak and that justice was whatever they decided. There were demagogues who had led his city into disaster, and he had grown up in the shadow of an ancient world war, though its fame persists to this day. In some ways, The Republic is a direct response to the problem of Plato's time. Amongst all of this injustice and savagery, how do we create a good people and a just society?
And to hammer this point home, Plato outlines four alternative societies and lets us know where they go wrong. First, we have the timocracy, meaning ruling by honor. Plato compares this situation to one like Sparta. There is still a ruling class, but they are not as selfless and just as the philosopher kings. Instead, they prioritize other matters like military honor and competition amongst one another. They may even begin to worship money, and from here, it is a short step to Plato's second form of government.
Next, we have oligarchy. We still use this term in roughly the same way that Plato did. In this state, the ruling class are determined by personal wealth. Only those with money can have power, and everyone else is essentially under their thumb. It is the direct opposite of Plato's core idea that power and wealth should be kept as far away from one another as possible, and according to Plato, an oligarchy is guaranteed to undermine the unity that he thought was so important for justice in a community. He essentially says an oligarchy is not one state, but two states that run parallel to one another. There is one rich ruling society who is only out for themselves, and the poor who dwell in understandable anger at their selfish masters, predating modern theories of class conflicts by 2,000 years. Plato predicts that the underclass will eventually rise up and attempt to overthrow their rich overlords. Either this rebellion will be put down pretty swiftly, or they will succeed, and then we move to the next stage.
Next on the table, there is good old-fashioned Athenian-style democracy. These are not quite like our modern representative democracies, but instead, every citizen has the right to vote on every major decision. That is, the democracy is direct, and Plato's criticism of direct democracy is really interesting because he thinks that it will lead to an excess of freedom. A lot of us are now used to the idea that freedom is fundamentally a good thing, and that the more of it we can get our hands on, the better. But Plato thought that freedom itself actually meant very little if we didn't know how to use it. In an unjust state, he thought that being free simply amounted to the ability to follow our appetites wherever they took us. Thus, he thinks we would pursue our own selfish ends, splitting the state into more and more pieces until there was just crude individualist anarchy. Not only would this leave us open to outside aggression, but we would also yearn for more order and structure and community, and this would let the following nefarious character take control.
Plato thinks that out of this anarchic state will emerge someone powerful and popular enough to rally significant support, which they will then use to seize militaristic power over their city. Then, since there is no guarantee they will have the right temperaments to rule, they may slowly become a tyrant over time. In fact, Plato thinks they are almost guaranteed to. He says this person may begin as a demagogue, someone who promises to give us all we want, but as soon as they are in power, they will instead prioritize their own individual instinctive desires, terrorizing the citizenry in the process. He thinks this is the worst form of government because both the public and the ruler are completely miserable. While the ordinary people are undoubtedly oppressed, the ruler also lives in constant fear of someone overthrowing him and almost certainly killing him. He sees enemies around every corner and ends up taking no pleasure in his rule, all the while being unable to give it up without facing certain death. And if he is killed, then the state will just be in chaos again.
Plato points to all of these states with their inevitable instability, war, exploitation, and death, and he contrasts them with his own project. He knows that this ideal Republic will demand a lot from us. We will have to change our entire way of living. We will have to make endless sacrifices to one another, give up a lot of freedoms, especially if we're a ruler, and accept that for all of us, the community comes first. But according to Plato, if all goes smoothly, we will reap the rewards of a society that is just, fair, and joyous, and he thinks that makes it all worthwhile.
Of course, we now have over 2,000 years of political thinking since Plato, so we would almost certainly disagree with a great many of his points. Famously, Karl Popper thought Plato's Republic would be an absurd dystopia, but I'm really interested to know what you think. Which of Plato's ideas do you think are worth taking on board and incorporating into our own societies, and which are no longer applicable or relevant? Should we demand that our politicians be much more like Plato's philosopher kings, with the emphasis on learning and moderation? Should we separate wealth and power entirely, making it clear that our rulers are servants of the community and not the other way around? I am certainly no political thinker, so I'm just curious to know what you think we can learn from Plato here and what we can safely disregard, because the problems of how to craft a just and fair community aren't going to go away, and perhaps we can find an understanding ear or a potential ally in this ancient Greek genius. And if you want to explore more of this type of ancient philosophy further, then click here to learn about Aristotle's famous theory of friendship and how it might form part of the solution to our modern struggles of loneliness, and stick around for more on thinking to improve your life.