Democracy And Its Lack Of Democracy

In The Republic by Plato, Plato constructed an ideal city where Philosophers would rule. Governed by an aristocratic form of government, it took away some of the most basic rights a normal citizen should deserve, freedom of choice, worship, and assembly were distressed. Though the idea of philosopher kings is good on paper, fundamental flaws of the human kind even described by Plato himself prevent it from being truly successful. The idea of an ideal democratic government like what our founding fathers had envisioned is the most successful and best political form which will ensure individual freedom and keep power struggle to a minimum.

Democracy is a form of government where people choose leaders through elections and social construct that are based on the equality of everyone within the state. It is a form of government were majority and public opinions combine to choose leaders with respect to the social structure of a particular society, taking into consideration the social laws, rules, traditions, norms, values, and culture. Plato and Aristotle tow of the most influential figures in Greek philosophy. Both Plato and Aristotle were big critics of democracy as a poor form of government. Aristotle’s views about democracy hold that democratic office will cause corruption in the people, if the people choose to redistribute the wealth of the

These are the words of Socrates, who spoke before the Athenian jury in the trial that would, ultimately, condemn him to his death. Through works such as the Apology and The Republic, we can see Plato’s distaste of the concept of democracy. Why does he consider democracy to be so flawed? Let us look through his own eyes and see what his individual criticisms are, and determine if the very concept of democracy is as

According to Socrates, when democracy has an excessive freedom with its citizens, tyranny is inevitably present. Since the young man who was educated by “thrifty parents who preferred wealth-seeking desires” (572 c). Despised what had to do With the proper education of the individual and the healthy fun, however, when this young man grows up he finds friends who influence negatively inculcating values away from the family, then this young man already become a man begins to fall into excesses, vices, and corruption. For this very reason, the young tyrant, seeing that these two forces,

In The Republic of Plato, Plato, in addition to sharing his views on justice, shares his views on democracy using a fictionalized Socrates to outline the most pressing issues. Plato’s views on democracy are negative; he believes democracy to be bred from a response to inequality of wealth and to heighten all of humanities worst traits. Plato believes democracy leads to unequipped leaders who hold offices and power without the necessary traits and preparation.

First off, Plato’s book The Republic offered the most detailed insight into how the author believed the government should be run; in fact the majority of the book is essentially a manuscript on how to form, choose leaders for, and sustain a “perfect society”. Because The Republic is often called the “first defense of fascism”, it should be no surprise that this book

Socrates’, Plato’s, and Aristotle’s main criticisms of democracy were based on both theory and precedents. Whereas Plato and Aristotle believed that democracy could lead to mob rule in part due to group-think based on a population’s impulses, Socrates advocated that governance should not be solicited based on the citizenry’s desires at any given time. Aristotle advocated that democracy was indeed the best form of government, or better said he believed democracy to be lesser of the forms of government. Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle all believed that only the wisest should govern because those governed might squander resources and wealth, make decisions based on emotion, and revolt due to a perceived or real notion of inequality.

Socrates explains how democracy is ruled by someone appointed by the citizens, and is a place where everyone can purse the life they want to live. Socrates explains how old desires will be replaced with new ones, which in turn will result in people giving into their unnecessary desires. This will in turn create a city where people indulge in their appetites, seeking a life of joy and bliss, disregarding the need for law and order. (Plato, 421) Socrates defends his claim that a democratic state is not a good one for the city because he shows how giving into appetites creates a world of indulgence and greed, and disregards the need for the ruler to bring about law and order.

Although citizens vote for their elected leaders in Canada, the United States, and other countries with electoral systems, Canada and none of these other countries are democracies. A democracy is a system in which the people decide government policy. In Canada and other countries that are mistakenly called democracies, the power of the people is limited to choosing their leaders. These leaders generally have more knowledge than the average citizens, who trust that this superior knowledge of their leaders will result in rational policies. Therefore, even the electoral system in Canada theoretically should meet Plato’s desires for who leads a government. Of course, the difference between Canada’s system and Plato’s ideal is the fact that there is no actual requirement for superior knowledge among the candidates that run for office. In addition, there is no actual requirement that the citizens who vote for these leaders have superior knowledge to make this determination. As a result, Canadian citizens are disappointed with their leaders because they reflect the ignorance of Canadian citizens, few of whom have superior knowledge as required by Plato. Nevertheless, this system is superior to what Plato desires because in reality a system of elitism in government never actually results in superior results. Rather, it leads to despotism.

Socrates (or rather Plato), sees there as being five regimes of government, beginning with the Aristocracy ruled the philosophers kings and then breaking down. The Aristocracy turns into the timocrocy, ruled by the guardian timocrats who values honor; then the city dissolves into the oligarchy ruled by the rich oligarchs who value wealth above all else, followed by democracy, which wishes for equality (Plato, 544c). Socrates, despite living in a democracy does not see as democracy as an ideal form of government and places it just one step above his fifth and worst regime in the cycles of government: “genuine tyranny, surpassing all of them” (Plato, 544c). For Socrates, democracy is established when “when the poor are victorious” against the oligarchs through a violent seizure of power and give all the remaining citizens “an equal share in ruling under the constitution” (Plato, 557a). There is a serious problem with this form of government however, and that is an obsession with

mentioned, Strauss fails to fully substantiate his claim that the likes of Plato and Socrates were anti-democratic thinkers. Instead, he continues by suggesting that “democracy has not yet found a defense against the creeping conformism and the ever-increasing invasion of privacy which it fosters.” In short, Strauss’ view of democracy can be summed up in the pithy remark that ‘democracy is simply government by the uneducated.’

‘The Republic’ is a Socratic dialogue written by Plato around 380 BC, concerning about the order of justice, the order and character of just men and just city/states. The Republic is considered as the best known work of Plato and is considered one of the world’s most influential works of politics, history and philosophy. In this Socratic dialogue, Socrates discusses about the notions of justice and whether the just man is very happy when compared with his unjust, Athenian and foreign counterparts. Socrates considers the various facets of the existing regimes and proposes a series of hypothetical cities that are entirely different from his considerations. Such heated discussions result in the culmination of discussing kallipolis, a hypothetical city-state that was ruled by a philosopher king. In this paper, we are going to consider Socrates arguments about democracy by examining whether the concept of democracy always remains inconsistent with philosophical goals.

After reading The Republic there are three main points that Plato had touched on. The first of these three points is that Plato is disheartened with democracy. It was due to Socrates’ untimely death during Athens’ democracy that led to his perception of the ideal state as referred to in The Republic. Plato perceived that the material greed was one of the many evils of politics; in Plato’s eyes greed was one of the worst evils of political life. Thus economic power must be separated from political power; he came to this conclusion due to an experience that filled him with a hatred for mob mentality. He concluded that a democracy must be replaced with a government ruled by the wisest and the greatest people fit for the job; the people that would be fit for the job would be called Philosopher-Kings; which I will touch on later. Plato feels that democracy is a form of political organization that is exceptionally inferior as compared to other types of political organizations such as a monarchy and aristocracy. He came to this notion because of the fact that in his eyes the average man and woman would be inclined to make improper decisions for the society based on greed. Plato viewed all forms of government as being corrupt; the key components in an ideal society are morality and justice. The forms of government that Plato thought were corrupt was timocracy, which would ultimately fall and crumble into an oligarchy which then turns into a democracy, then last but not least turns

These are the words of Socrates, who spoke before the Athenian jury in the trial that would, ultimately, condemn him to his death. Through works such as the Apology and The Republic, we can see Plato’s distaste of the concept of democracy. Why does he consider democracy to be so flawed? Let us look through his own eyes and see what his individual criticisms are, and determine

Perhaps one of the biggest challenges that democracy facing is that most of the people are not able participate in government in a competent or meaningful way because they do not have the necessary experience, intelligence or knowledge. (reference b democracy) Democracy is not a perfect system and has been criticised for being flawed economically, politically, morally and found to be unrealistic by many authors.