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In the Republic, Plato's Socrates raises a number of criticisms of democracy.He claims that democracy is a danger due to excessive freedom. He also argues that, in a system in which everyone has a right to rule, all sorts of selfish people who care nothing for the people but are only motivated by their own personal desires are able to attain power.
Socrates points out the human tendency to be corrupted by power leads down the road to timocracy, oligarchy, democracy and tyranny. From this, he concludes that ruling should be left to philosophers, who are the most just and therefore least susceptible to corruption.
Plato's democracy is not the modern notion of a mix of democracy and republicanism, but rather direct democracy by way of pure majority rule. In the metaphor, found at 488a–489d, Plato's Socrates compares the population at large to a strong but near-sighted ship's master.
Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time." [2] Critics of democracy have often tried to highlight democracy's inconsistencies, paradoxes, and limits by contrasting it with other forms of government, such as epistocracy or lottocracy.
The Statesman (Ancient Greek: Πολιτικός, Politikós; Latin: Politicus [1]), also known by its Latin title, Politicus, is a Socratic dialogue written by Plato.The text depicts a conversation among Socrates, the mathematician Theodorus, another person named Socrates (referred to as "Socrates the Younger"), and an unnamed philosopher from Elea referred to as "the Stranger" (ξένος ...
Socrates initiates the dialogue by asking his interlocutor for a definition of the subject. As he asks more questions, the interlocutor's answers eventually contradict the first definition. The conclusion is that the expert did not really know the definition in the first place. [81] The interlocutor may come up with a different definition.
Gorgias admits under Socrates' cross-examination that while rhetoricians give people the power of words, they are not instructors of morality. Gorgias does not deny that his students might use their skills for immoral purposes (such as persuading the assembly to make an unwise decision, or to let a guilty man go free), but he says the teacher ...
Democracy contrasts with forms of government where power is not vested in the general population of a state, such as authoritarian systems. Historically a rare and vulnerable form of government, [10] democratic systems of government have become more prevalent since the 19th century, in particular with various waves of democratization. [11]