The Republic, the best-known work of ancient Greek philosopher Plato on democracy, authored around 375 BC, has shaped Western political thought.
By Matthew Duncombe
Greece is now known as the “cradle of democracy”. Not only was the first democracy in the world in Athens, but the word itself comes from the Greek demos (people) and kratos (rule). Yet Plato’s The Republic relentlessly argues against democracy.
This might be surprising, given that Westerners typically think that it is very important to live in a democracy. Almost all Western countries are democratic. In the most recent election in the US, both Trump voters and Harris voters claimed to be “defending democracy”. And in the UK, the current Labour government has committed extending the right to vote to 16-year-olds.
Plato’s argument about democracy
So what was Plato’s argument? And could it hold the key to understanding why, across the West, confidence in democracy is declining?
The arguments Plato makes against democracy in The Republic are spoken by the philosopher Socrates, his teacher and mentor. But the system that Socrates is rejecting, Athenian democracy of the 5th and 4th century BC, differs significantly from contemporary representative democracy.
In Athenian democracy, only male citizens could vote on laws and elect officials. Men also had to take their turn in some official positions, which were chosen at random, by lottery.
Women, enslaved people and foreigners had no say, even though they made up most of the population. Athenian democracy could be savage. Every year, citizens could vote to exile someone from the city for ten years, and the democratic regime made terrible decisions, such as the execution of Socrates himself or ordering public massacres.
Ruling is a skilled trade that the majority of people lack
But Socrates does not focus on the injustices of Athenian democracy. His argument is simpler and more general. Ruling is a skilled trade. And like any other trade, he argues, not everyone has the talent or the training to be good at it.
Imagine if, when passengers boarded a plane, they had a mini election to select one of their number to pilot the flight. Any qualified and experienced pilots who happened to be on the flight might be able to make a good case that they should fly.
But what if, despite being an excellent pilot, they were not able to make their case? What if some other passengers argued that you cannot learn aviation, and that anyone could do it? Or falsely claimed that the pilots were always looking at charts and doing sums and didn’t really care about the concerns of everyday passengers. Or cobbled together the biggest share of the passenger votes through bribes, deals, or lies.
At first sight, this analogy, which I’ve adapted from a similar one in The Republic, seems to be saying that democracy does not guarantee leaders skilled at ruling. But neither do other systems. A state might be lucky and have a monarch with some talent for ruling, but, just as likely, the state be unlucky and get a brutal and incompetent dictator.
So, Socrates needs an argument better targeted against democracy. Books II-IV of The Republic present a more focused argument. In it, Socrates says that ruling is a skilled trade that the majority of people lack. Only those skilled at the trade ought to rule. But in a democracy, the majority rule, therefore we shouldn’t have a democracy.
This version of the argument seems to work against democracies generally, not just the Athenian version and not just modern versions. As with flying a plane, so with ruling a country. Just as we’d want the skilled pilots, not the majority, to fly the plane, we want the skilled rulers, not a majority, to rule our states.
Holes in this argument
There are three obvious problems with this argument. First, is ruling really a skill like flying a plane? What does this skill amount to? Plato’s answer, that skilled ruling essentially involves knowledge of what he referred to as “that which is truly good”, doesn’t seem very convincing.
Second, even if ruling is a skill, it does not follow that most people lack this skill. There are many skilled rulers making decisions in all walks of life, not just politics. Indeed, we might think that collective decisions can be more skilful, because they are less likely to reflect the knowledge, experience or prejudices of a small group.
Third, even if ruling is a skilled trade, and most people do lack this skill, there are reasons to include those who lack the skill in political decision-making. Maybe we can train them in the skill by including them. Maybe it is simply fairer to include all or most people in decision-making, and fairness might be more important than always getting the “best” decision.
Even though Socrates is right that democracies sometimes deliver unskilled rulers who make bad, even wicked, decisions, it does not mean we should reject democracy.
Suppose we accept Socrates’ conclusions that only those skilled in statecraft should rule and the majority are not skilled in statecraft. We could preserve democracy by nurturing the political skills of everyone, to make the best use of everyone’s talents and experiences, while remembering that it is fair that people should have some say in the decisions that affect them.
Matthew Duncombe is an Associate Professor in Philosophy at, the University of Nottingham.
The article was published in The Conversation and is republished under a Creative Commons License.