5 stages of Governments
Five constitutions of state:
1.Royal and Aristocratical
Government by hard-working, virtuous lovers of ‘Truth’ and
‘Wisdom.’
Lovers of ‘Honor’ and ‘Fame.’
Lovers of ‘Money’ and ‘Gain’ (They seek money to get into
office)
Lover of Tolerance. Everything and everyone is tolerated
equally
Note: “Tolerance and apathy are the last virtues of a dying society” – Aristotle
(Citation is needed …it likely may not be attributed to Aristotle or has often been misquoted without the word “Apathy”)
The Tyrant is the Lover of Power
Democracy
What is the process?
When a young man who has been brought up as we were just now
describing, in a vulgar and miserly way, has tasted drones' honey and has come
to associate with fierce and crafty natures who are able to provide for him all
sorts of refinements and varieties of pleasure --then, as you may imagine, the
change will begin of the oligarchical principle within him into the
democratical?
Yes, I said, he lives
from day to day indulging the appetite of the hour; and sometimes he is
lapped in drink and strains of the flute; then he becomes a water-drinker, and
tries to get thin; then he takes a turn at gymnastics; sometimes idling and
neglecting everything, then once more living the life of a philosopher; often
he-is busy with politics, and starts to his feet and says and does whatever
comes into his head; and, if he is emulous of any one who is a warrior, off he
is in that direction, or of men of business, once more in that. His life has neither law nor order; and
this distracted existence he terms joy and bliss and freedom; and so he goes
on.
Yes, he replied, he
is all liberty and equality
Yes, I said; his life is motley and manifold and an epitome
of the lives of many; --he answers to the State which we described as fair and
spangled. And many a man and many a woman will take him for their pattern, and
many a constitution and many an example of manners is contained in him.
Let him then be set
over against democracy; he may truly be called the democratic man.
Last of all comes the most beautiful of all, man and State
alike, tyranny and the tyrant; these we have now to consider.
Quite true, he said.
Say then, my friend, in what manner does tyranny arise? --that it has a democratic origin is evident.
Clearly.
And does not tyranny spring from democracy in the same
manner as democracy from oligarchy --I mean, after a sort?
How?
The good which
oligarchy proposed to itself and the means by which it was maintained was
excess of wealth --am I not right?
Yes.
And the insatiable
desire of wealth and the neglect of all other things for the sake of
money-getting was also the ruin of oligarchy?
True.
And democracy has her
own good, of which the insatiable desire brings her to dissolution?
What good?
Freedom, I replied; which, as they tell you in a democracy,
is the glory of the State --and that therefore in a democracy alone will the
freeman of nature deign to dwell.
Yes; the saying is in everybody's mouth.
I was going to
observe, that the insatiable desire of this and the neglect of other things
introduces the change in democracy, which occasions a demand for tyranny.
How so?
When a democracy which is thirsting for freedom has evil
cupbearers presiding over the feast, and has drunk too deeply of the strong
wine of freedom, then, unless her rulers are very amenable and give a plentiful
draught, she calls them to account and punishes them, and says that they are
cursed oligarchs.
Yes, I said; and loyal citizens are insultingly termed by
her slaves who hug their chains and men of naught; she would have subjects who
are like rulers, and rulers who are like subjects: these are men after her own
heart, whom she praises and honours both in private and public. Now, in such a
State, can liberty have any limit?
Certainly not.
By degrees the anarchy finds a way into private houses, and
ends by getting among the animals and infecting them.
How do you mean?
I mean that the father grows accustomed to descend to the
level of his sons and to fear them, and the son is on a level with his father,
he having no respect or reverence for either of his parents; and this is his
freedom, and metic is equal with the citizen and the citizen with the metic,
and the stranger is quite as good as either.
Yes, he said, that is the way.
And these are not the
only evils, I said --there are several lesser ones: In such a state of society
the master fears and flatters his scholars, and the scholars despise their
masters and tutors; young and old are all alike; and the young man is on a
level with the old, and is ready to compete with him in word or deed; and old
men condescend to the young and are full of pleasantry and gaiety; they are
loth to be thought morose and authoritative, and therefore they adopt the
manners of the young.
Quite true, he said.
The last extreme of
popular liberty is when the slave bought with money, whether male or female, is
just as free as his or her purchaser; nor must I forget to tell of the liberty
and equality of the two sexes in relation to each other.
Why not, as Aeschylus says, utter the word which rises to
our lips?
That is what I am doing, I replied; and I must add that no
one who does not know would believe, how much greater is the liberty which the
animals who are under the dominion of man have in a democracy than in any other
State: for truly, the she-dogs, as the proverb says, are as good as their
she-mistresses, and the horses and asses have a way of marching along with all
the rights and dignities of freemen; and they will run at anybody who comes in
their way if he does not leave the road clear for them: and all things are just
ready to burst with liberty.
And above all, I
said, and as the result of all, see how sensitive the citizens become; they
chafe impatiently at the least touch of authority and at length, as you know,
they cease to care even for the laws, written or unwritten; they will have no
one over them.
Yes, he said, I know it too well.
Such, my friend, I said, is the fair and glorious beginning
out of which springs tyranny.
The ruin of oligarchy
is the ruin of democracy; the same
disease magnified and intensified by liberty overmasters democracy --the truth
being that the excessive increase of anything often causes a reaction in the
opposite direction; and this is the case not only in the seasons and in
vegetable and animal life, but above all in forms of government.
True.
The excess of
liberty, whether in States or individuals, seems only to pass into excess of
slavery.
Yes, the natural order.
And so tyranny
naturally arises out of democracy, and the most aggravated form of tyranny and
slavery out of the most extreme form of liberty?
As we might expect.
That, however, was not, as I believe, your question-you
rather desired to know what is that disorder which is generated alike in
oligarchy and democracy, and is the ruin of both?
Just so, he replied.
Well, I said, I meant to refer to the class of idle
spendthrifts, of whom the more courageous are the-leaders and the more timid
the followers, the same whom we were comparing to drones, some stingless, and
others having stings.
A very just comparison.
These two classes are the plagues of every city in which
they are generated, being what phlegm and bile are to the body. And the good
physician and lawgiver of the State ought, like the wise bee-master, to keep
them at a distance and prevent, if possible, their ever coming in; and if they
have anyhow found a way in, then he should have them and their cells cut out as
speedily as possible.
Yes, by all means, he said.
Then, in order that we may see clearly what we are doing,
let us imagine democracy to be divided, as indeed it is, into three classes;
for in the first place freedom creates rather more drones in the democratic
than there were in the oligarchical State.
That is true.
And in the democracy they are certainly more intensified.
How so?
Because in the oligarchical State they are disqualified and
driven from office, and therefore they cannot train or gather strength; whereas
in a democracy they are almost the entire ruling power, and while the keener
sort speak and act, the rest keep buzzing about the bema and do not suffer a
word to be said on the other side; hence
in democracies almost everything is managed by the drones.
the tyrant
Yes, he said, let us consider that.
At first, in the early days of his power, he is full of
smiles, and he salutes every one whom he meets; --he to be called a tyrant, who
is making promises in public and also in private! liberating debtors, and
distributing land to the people and his followers, and wanting to be so kind
and good to every one!
Of course, he said.
But when he has disposed of foreign enemies by conquest or
treaty, and there is nothing to fear from them, then he is always stirring up
some war or other, in order that the people may require a leader.
To be sure.
Has he not also another object, which is that they may be
impoverished by payment of taxes, and thus compelled to devote themselves to
their daily wants and therefore less likely to conspire against him? Clearly.
And if any of them are suspected by him of having notions of
freedom, and of resistance to his authority, he will have a good pretext for
destroying them by placing them at the mercy of the enemy; and for all these
reasons the tyrant must be always getting up a war.
He must.
Now he begins to grow unpopular.
A necessary result.
Then some of those who joined in setting him up, and who are
in power, speak their minds to him and to one another, and the more courageous
of them cast in his teeth what is being done.
Yes, that may be expected.
And the tyrant, if he means to rule, must get rid of them;
he cannot stop while he has a friend or an enemy who is good for anything.
He cannot.
And therefore he must look about him and see who is valiant,
who is high-minded, who is wise, who is wealthy; happy man, he is the enemy of
them all, and must seek occasion against them whether he will or no, until he
has made a purgation of the State
the end of the Republic book VIII
Why, you do not mean to say that the tyrant will use
violence? What! beat his father if he opposes him?
Yes, he will, having first disarmed him.
Then he is a parricide, and a cruel guardian of an aged
parent; and this is real tyranny, about which there can be no longer a mistake:
as the saying is, the people who would escape the smoke which is the slavery of
freemen, has fallen into the fire which is the tyranny of slaves. Thus liberty,
getting out of all order and reason, passes into the harshest and bitterest
form of slavery.
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