The Role Of Democracy In The Republic

In The Republic, Plato presents a dialogue of Socrates, in which he seeks to uncover truths about what constitutes a just society, and what kind of men would rule such a society. As such a society would require a sound government, Socrates presents five possible types of governments, which involve varying levels of liberty and justice. Although the arguments demonstrate that aristocracy is the ideal form of government, all forms of government have fatal flaws that lead to continual replacement by other forms.

Tyranny as basically defined by Socrates is the rule of a tyrant. According to Socrates a tyranny degenerates from a democracy when a popular charismatic leader gets power and naturally does not want to give it up so he takes all
“The city is full of freedom, and liberty of speech” (343). An oligarchy degenerates into a democracy when, the lower class grows larger and the oligarchs grow fewer and lazier until the lower class eventually is strong enough to overcome the oligarchs. “So democracy, I suppose, comes into to being when the poor conquer, and kill some of the other party and banish the others” (341). The period under democracy would be similar to anarchy because people could do what they when they wanted without fear of the law because they were the law “”. The period would also be plagued by poor political decisions because all the people would be able to vote on everything even if they knew nothing about it. An example of this type of government is the Swiss Canton of Appenzell Innerrhoden. This canton is a mountainous countryside of farmland with the main center of Appenzell, where residents congregate to vote on the last Sunday in April. This method is uniquely suited to the area due to its homogeneous nature- 81% Catholic, 90% native born (), and the residents are mostly involved in agriculture and nude hiking. This example shows the main weaknesses of direct democracy- too many people with too many different interests cannot easily come to decisions, opening the door for tyrants to seize
Aristocracies degenerate into timocracies when the next generation of guardians are not just wisdom seekers but people who are enthralled honor “. He is a...lover of honor; claiming to be a ruler”(). This leads to seeking personal honor, power, and glory, instead of wisdom, justice and honor. “. He is a...lover of honor; claiming to be a ruler” () eventually, this leads to military conquest being the priority of the whole state. The leaders of the timocratic state would value honor , which they would attempt to attain through conquest “They also bring forth war”(332), rather than wisdom. Plato characterized a timocracy as a mixture of two different regime types: the good one which was the aristocracy and the bad one which was the oligarchy “this constitution is a mixture of both evil and good” (334). Just like the leaders of aristocracies, leaders of timocracies would have applied great effort in gymnastics and the arts of war, as well as the virtue of courage which corresponds with the arts of war. “And have honored gymnastics with greater reverence then music”(). They would also be disdainful towards manual labor, and would lead a life in public unity. Like oligarchs, timocrats seek material wealth and would not trust philosophers, so they would not place intellectuals in positions of power.