Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Q&A: A Platonic Society

What would a Platonic society look like if one had ever existed?  While the book argues that Plato would be disgusted by the greedy engines of modern capitalism, I don't imagine that Plato would entirely remove capitalism form his Republic.  A person's reason should only check a person's impulses, but they would still want to buy luxuries that they don't really need.  As such, laws might be in place to limit how a person can buy or there would be increased taxes to pay for other services (like public health care) to limit how much a person can buy after necessaries.

The leadership of Plato's Republic would come to resemble something similar to the Emperors of Rome.  With the unchecked power given to the Guardians or 'philosopher-kings' (and queens I imagine too), they had unlimited potential for good and evil.  Since the succession of rulers is chosen by humans, the government could not pick a Marcus Aurelius everytime and sometimes might have picked a Caligula.  Even assuming that every Guardian was a philosopher, it would do no good as some philosophers have radical views that could kill or harm the populace, if said ruler felt a genocidal rampage was justified.

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