Plato

Word Count: 1653

Plato was a philosopher in the time of the distinguished Greek philosophers. He wrote a book entitled The Republic in which he explains some of his philosophy on subjects ranging from education to government. Plato constructed a model by which he proposed all governments evolve. He called it the Five Stages of Government.
He suggested that there are five forms of government, which evolve out of one another; Timocracy, Oligarchy, Democracy, Tyranny, and Aristocracy. A Timocracy is a government of the military and of honor. An Oligarchy is a government of money and of the rich. Democracy is a government of liberty by and for the people, and it coincidentally happens to be the government which we have right now. A Tyranny is a government of absolute power and dictation. And finally an Aristocracy is a government of philosopher kings. Each form of government arises out of another, and so they go about in a cycle. Timocracy, Oligarchy, Democracy, Tyranny, Aristocracy,
Timocracy, etc. We can compare our government of liberty by and for the people, Democracy, to Plato's model of the five stages of government. However, we must first discuss the reasons for each of the government's
evolution and how Democracy comes about.


Plato submitted that all governments, no matter how good, would out of necessity progress into other forms of government. He said that this decay was due to corruption in the form of government. This corruption resulted in the demise of that form of government and out of its ashes arose the next form of government in the cycle. Plato
proposed that most new governments begin as Timocracys; governments of the military and of honor. There are always exceptions to every proposal, so this was not absolute. Since a Timocracy is a government of honor, one would think that there would not be any corruption. To the contrary, the Timocratic man quests for power
and has a fondness for money. These weaknesses eventually lead to the collapse of Timocracy and the creation of the next form of government, Oligarchy. The Timocratic man's fondness for money carries over into the Oligarchal state; for an Oligarchy is a government of the rich and of money. Man's fondness of money leads
him to seek out profits and to strive to be better than his brothers. Soon one man has majority of power in the Oligarchy and the people cry out. This leads to the Oligarchy's ruin. This outcry for liberty brings about Democracy, the system in which we are involved right now.

When we talk about Democracy, we have to be careful; there are many subsets of Democracy. When Democracy first begins, there is strict representation, like that of Parliament; where a few make the decisions for the many, considering the good of the common people. This then progresses to a more sensitive representation, were the representatives ask their constituents their opinions and make decisions based on
that and the good of everyone. Today we are a more sensitive representative Democracy. Our elected officials obtain the opinions of their constituents but still weigh decisions considering the entire country. After this sensitized representation comes a direct Democracy, where there is no electoral college and public officials
are elected purely by the people. With the help of technology, some advocate the founding of a direct democracy in America. "They bandy about the term teledemocracy as a catchword for the establishment of direct democracy through the use of communications media." (Arterton 14) &quo

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