Summary: Republic (page 7)

Book VIII

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

These are timocracy, oligarchy, democracy, and tyranny.

Just as there are five types of city, so too are there 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 adhering to the community of property, appropriate lands and houses; instead of treating other citizens as freemen or friends, they treat them as servants.

It could be said that this is a military government, a system in which the military has seized power.

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

The oligarchy is the form of government in which power is held by the wealthy, while the poor are excluded. One can imagine what would happen if the rudder were thus entrusted to the richest sailor instead of to the most experienced one... Moreover, as we have seen, the good of the city consists in what unites it and makes it one. Yet such a city is divided in two, and each of its factions—the rich and the poor—constantly conspires against the other.

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

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

Several aspects of this regime appear 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 whatever way pleases him ³.

Thus, at first glance, this appears to be 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, displaying all the variety of characters, it may seem resplendent to us.

Thus, many people—like children and women who admire motley patterns—will conclude that it is the most beautiful ⁴.

In fact, all constitutions can be found within this government—it is a bazaar of constitutions ⁵.

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

The corresponding individual character is the young man full of vices, one who lives from day to day, surrendering himself to whatever desire arises, a friend of equality ⁷.

The problem with this government is that the spirit of freedom knows no bounds: In the end, anarchy conquers even the animals ⁸. The governed play at being governors and will now tolerate only rulers who resemble them.

All hierarchies are overturned in this decadence, and the very notion of hierarchy is no longer tolerated: fathers treat their sons as equals, non-citizens demand to be treated like citizens, the old imitate the young, and so forth.

The outcome of this long decline is tyranny. As this state of licence and anarchy becomes unbearable for all, the citizens turn to a single man to restore order and grant him absolute power: Excess freedom must lead to excess servitude ⁹.

Thus, 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—the one ruled entirely by desire.

Plato thus establishes a hierarchy of political regimes, listed in descending order: monarchy, timocracy, oligarchy, democracy, and tyranny.

He acknowledges the potentially utopian nature 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 no other, that the wise man will conform his conduct ¹¹.

Book X

Here, in Book X, we encounter the famous myth of Er the Pamphylian: after death, souls are given the opportunity to choose the conditions of their next life and drink from the waters of the River Lethe to forget their previous existence.

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