notebook on Plato _ Page 1

I read an article about Plato’s critique of democracy last week. The article argues that Plato exaggerates the danger of the pursuit of wealth in a democratic society.

Here are some thoughts.

The democracy in modern days is more functional than the Plato’s concept of democracy. In the current society, political institutions exist to limit people’s desire for wealth by imposing a balance among parties with different interests.

In my opinion, there is a need to consider the difference between wealth and unnecessary desires in Plato’s theory. This confusion results in the ignorance of what Plato really means by democracy in Plato’s context.

It is necessary to analyze different situations in which freedom is used. In modern democracies, rational people can have freedom to make virtual choices. Only irrational people take advantage of the precious freedom to pursue bodily pleasures instead of making good choices.

Plato describes democratic people as freely pursuing unnecessary desires with a lack of rational considerations (558d-559e). In the analogy between the soul and the city, the oligarchic people pursue wealth. However, the oligarchic people become greedy then end up spending their money on unnecessary bodily desires (558d-559d). They become weak and corrupt into democratic people. In contrast, modern democracy is more of a stable system, which takes rational analysis into consideration during the process of political decision-making.

In other words, Plato’s definition of democracy is different from modern democracies, which is not simply the pursuit of bodily desires.

What Plato really warns against is the situation of people relying on the pursuit unnecessary appetites and desires. Such reliance on the satisfaction of appetites and desires becomes unnecessary and meaningless after people have fulfilled their basic survival needs.