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Summary: Republic (page 7)

Book VIII

If the right form of government is monarchy, or aristocracy, what are its four vitiated forms, the four diseases of the state 1?


These are timocracy, oligarchy, democracy or tyranny.


Just as there are five species of city, so there are five types of character in individuals.

The timocracy (found in Sparta) is the government of honour. This type of government arises when the Guardians, instead of sticking to the community of goods, appropriate lands and houses, and instead of keeping other citizens as freemen or friends, treat them as servants.

It could be said that this is a military government, a system where the military has taken power.

The character of the individual corresponding to this type of government is the ambitious young man.


The oligarchy is the government in which it is the rich who have power, the poor being excluded. One can imagine what would happen if the rudder were thus entrusted to the richest sailor, instead of to the most experienced sailor... Moreover, the good of the city is, as we have seen, what unites it and makes it one, yet such a city is dual and each of the two parties (poor and rich) constantly plots against the other.

The miser is the type of character corresponding to this type of government.


Democracy occurs when, in an oligarchy, the poor take power and kill or banish the rich.

Several features of this type of regime seem positive: The city overflows with freedom and outspokenness, and there is licence to do as one pleases 2. In this way, everyone organises his life in the way that pleases him 3.

So it seems that this is the best of all political regimes:

There's a good chance it will be the most beautiful of all. Like a colourful garment offering all the variety of colours, offering all the variety of characters, it may seem resplendent to us.

Thus many people, like children and women who admire bigarrures, will decide that it is the most beautiful 4.


In fact, you can find all the constitutions in this government. It's a bazaar of constitutions 5.

It is a pleasant, anarchic and variegated government which dispenses a kind of equality both to that which is unequal and to that which is equal 6.


In man the corresponding character is the young man full of vices, he who lives from day to day, and abandons himself to the desire that presents itself, the friend of equality 7.


The problem with this government is that the spirit of freedom has no limits: In the end, anarchy conquers even the animals 8. The governed play at being the governors, and now only tolerate governors who look like the governed.

All hierarchies are turned upside down in this decadence, and the very notion of hierarchy is no longer tolerated: the father treats his son as his equal, the non-citizen wants to be treated like the citizen, the old imitate the young, etc.


The outcome of this long decadence is tyranny. With this licence and anarchy becoming unbearable for all, the citizens appeal to one man to restore the situation and give him all the powers: Excess freedom must lead to excess servitude 9.


In this way, the people [...] in exchange for excessive and unwelcome freedom have fallen into the hardest and bitterest servitude 10.

Book IX

The character corresponding to tyranny is the concupiscent man, he who is only desire.


Plato thus established the hierarchy of political regimes; namely, in descending order: monarchy, timocracy, oligarchy, democracy and tyranny.


Plato admits the possibly utopian character of the ideal City he describes: It matters not at all whether this city exists or should exist one day: it is to the joys of this alone and of no other that the wise man will conform his conduct 11.

Book X

Here we find the famous myth of Er the Pamphylian: after death, souls have the opportunity to choose the conditions of their next life and drink the waters of the river Lethe to forget their previous life.


1 544a-545a
2 557b-558b
3 Ibid.
4 Ibid.
5 Ibid.
6 558b-559b
7 561a-562a
8 562a-563a
9 563a-564a
10 568c-569c
11 592a-592b