How giving one's self up to the state can set a person free

Introduction

A major political thinker of antiquity, Plato, though no less hostile to despotic rule over free men than Athenian democrats, travel a different road. They are unimpressed by the democratic argument for two reasons. First of all, they understand freedom differently. Following Socrates' lead, they define it as rational, rather than unimpeded, agency: a man who is enslaved to a passion but whose activity is unimpeded is free in one sense of the word but not in the other. Second, they think that Athenian democracy, being in practice if not in theory the rule by force of the mass over the wealthy, is itself despotic (Plato, 39).

Wishing to maintain rather than to minimize or eliminate the distance between ruler and ruled, they are led to distinguish different sorts of rule and in particular to distinguish the rule of the wise and the virtuous from despotic rule.

Republic

In Plato's Republic, Socrates talks of five separate types that a political community can take, depending on the kind of items that it seeks. The best kind of community is one directed by the wisdom of the philosopher-kings. The only way a polis can be just is to be directed by those who understand what fairness is. Since fairness is so convoluted and needs an excellent moral feature to recognise, he suggested that only philosophers have the energy, wisdom, and love of truth to be adept to direct with justice. Everyone additional tends to equate fairness with his own interest. (Plato, 58)

Thus, he called the second best regime timocracy, which is ruled by warriors who love honor. The third best he called oligarchy, which is directed by lovers of riches who believe that their riches devotes them the right to rule. (Consider the claim by leaders of enterprise who request political agency on the cornerstone of their achievement in business.) Socrates thought that democracy is the third best regime because, by adoring freedom, democrats request to gratify all their yearns, which directs to anarchy. The lowest regime is tyranny, which is overridden by a single tyrant who overrides over topics by force and by a cult of personality.

Apology

According to Plato's Apology, the central to these different political forms is the “anthropological principle,” according to which the political form depends on the predominant personalities, moral values, and goals and objects of love that ...