Ameritopia_ The Unmaking of America - Mark R. Levin [15]
Yet, Plato predicts that despite his just and wise City, it would be nearly impossible to create and, if created, would be impossible to maintain, given man’s imperfections.
First, Plato states that the City would only be possible when the true philosopher-kings are born in a State “despising the honors of this present world” (540e). This could only happen when the entire City is raised in Plato’s education and class system. Plato declares that no one over the age of ten can be among the City’s first citizens (541a). Of course, children would have to be removed from their families with the parents’ consent or their parents would have to be eliminated to meet this requirement. Plato believes neither of these options is likely to occur.
Second, Plato acknowledges the impossibility of regulating sexual reproduction (546a). “All the wisdom and education of your rulers will not attain; the laws which regulate them will not be discovered by an intelligence which is alloyed with sense, but will escape them, and they will bring children into the world when they ought not” (546b). In short, human passion cannot be regulated by any mathematical formula, class structure, or state directive.
The resulting uncontrolled intermingling of gold, silver, and bronze citizens leads to the dilution of the pure race and the downward spiral from the wise and just City to a brutal tyranny. The first phase is a “timocracy,” which is rule by a class of honorable but conflicted rulers (545d). The rulers revere honor in their official public life but are dissatisfied with the modest life they and their families lead. Over time, their commitment to honor is overtaken by their (and their spouses’) passion for wealth (549b). The honorable rulers’ children see this conflict and become obsessed with the acquisition of money, at first to please their parents, but in the end to satisfy their own obsession (549d). They become the next set of rulers, who form an oligarchy—that is, rule by a wealthy few. They encourage the citizenry to borrow money from the rulers and, in turn, drive the citizens into poverty because they cannot repay their debts to the oligarchs (555c). The oligarchs refuse to spend money on such basic needs as education or a military (551e, 552e). In the end, the impoverished and resentful citizenry rise up and easily overthrow the oligarchy. In its place they install a democracy (557a).
Plato has harsh criticism for the democracy and in particular many of the democracy’s citizens. He admits, however, that the democracy is the fairest and freest of the systems he describes (557c). But he argues that freedom and fairness without education and discipline is a recipe for disaster. The majority of citizens become undisciplined and easily seduced by unnecessary desires (558d). The oligarchs’ deprivation and impoverishment of the citizenry causes the people to engage in vices and excess (561c–d). Tradition and authority are rejected for obsession with freedom (562e–563a).
Plato illustrates his concerns with familiar examples: parents treat their children as contemporaries and the children, in turn, disrespect and disobey their parents as a sign of their freedom (562e); teachers flatter their students out of fear and the students disrespect their teachers (563a); and the citizens “chafe at the least touch of authority … and cease to care even for the laws, written or unwritten; they will have no one over them” (563e).
Plato warns that the excesses that dominate the democracy will lead the undisciplined majority to become drunk with freedom (502d). As a result, the rulers must constantly strive to please the citizens (565a).
Eventually a great champion appears whom the people “set over them and nurse into greatness” (565c). He is seen as the citizens’ protector (565c–d). He is the ultimate populist, but is in fact a demagogue—the great panderer of the people (566e). Plato warns that the protector will become obsessed with power, the consolidation of power,