Plato, Your Philosopher King Has Been Found! L.E. Read

Plato gave us the philosopher king idea - an omnipotent leader all-wise enough to play a totally dominant role. Plato's final state ment of the idea is found in Laws, #942, where the Athenian says: The greatest principle of all is that nobody, whether male or female, should be without a leader. Nor should the mind of anybody be ha bituated to letting him do anything at all on his own initiative; neither out of zeal, nor even playfully. But in war and in the midst of peace - to his leader he shall direct his eye and follow him faithfully. And even in the smallest matter he should stand un der leadership. For example, he 1 Man the Unknown (New York: Harper &. Brothers, 1935.) Every year we hear of the progress made by eugenists, geneticists, sta"The Remaking of Man" Among these few intellectual giants, we should take note of the distinguished scientist, Dr. Alexis Carrel. In his remarkable book, Man, the Unknown, he entitled the concluding chapter, "The Re making of Man."l Note how he would remake man (italics mine) : PLATO, YOUR PHILOSOPHER KING HAS BEEN FOUND! 531 know-how peculiar to each! Think of the enormous benefit that would redound to all should some one per son - a philosopher-king type - en compass in his own person a to tality of all knowledge. Be done with this helter-skelter and its wastage! What society requires is a "creative combining mind," an intellectual superman who can synthesize all of the discrete skills, know-hows, wisdoms!

Nor is this a notion exclusive with Plato; it pervades and dom inates the minds of millions. The reason that we think of the philos opher-king idea as distinctly Platonic is that he, and now and then another intellectual giant, is strikingly explicit in setting forth the notion. Millions of people go along with the idea but without any ability to express it in explicit terms. should get up, or move, or wash, or take his meals... only if he has been told to do so. In a word, he should teach his soul, by long habit, never to dream of acting independently, and to become utterly incapable of it. A Perfect Planner What really lies at the root of the philosopher-king idea which has persisted since Plato's day? To answer, "the will to power," is to gloss over the explanation. Plato himself had no authoritarian aspirations, and I suspect the same can be said for nearly every think er who dwells on perfecting soci ety. Persons who occupy them selves intellectually in this manner have neither the time nor the in clination to ascend politically.

These thinkers are searching for something more difficult to find than power is to gain. What is the object of their search? These self-appointed doctors of society view the human scene and see people going every which way, each man in pursuit of what in terests or intrigues him most. Un regulated human action is random, they suspect, lacking in economy and needing direction. How can there be any order, any grand pur pose served, when millions of in dividuals act personally, privately, and independently· of each other? Particularly when each one has only a smattering of some unique knowledge, merely a tiny bit of 1967 532 THE FREEMAN September tisticians, behaviorists, physiolo gists, anatomists, biological chemists, physical chemists, psychologists, physicians, hygienists, endocrinolo gists, psychiatrists, immunologists, educators, social workers, clergymen, sociologists, economists, etc. But the practical results of these accomplish ments are surprisingly small. This immense amount of information is disseminated in technical reviews, in treatises, in the brains of men of science. Noone has it in his posses sion. We have now to put together its disparate fragments, and to make this knowledge live within the mind of at least a few individuals. Then, it will become productive. . . .

In about twenty-five years of un interrupted study, one could learn these sciences. At the age of fifty, those who have submitted themselves to this discipline could effectively di rect the construction of the human being and of a civilization based on his true nature .... Democratic rulers. as well as dic tators [what's the difference?] could receive from this source of scientific truth the information that they need in order to develop a civilization real ly suitable to man .... We have to intervene in the funda mental organic and mental processes. These processes are man himself. But m,an ha,s no independent existence. He is bound to his environment. In order to remake him, we have to transform his world .... A group, although very small, is capable of eluding the harmful in fluence of the society of its epoch by imposing upon its members rules of conduct modeled on military or mo nastic discipline ....

Such a minority would be in a po sition to impose, by persuasion or perhaps by force, other ways of life upon the majority .... We must single out the children who are endowed with high poten tialities, and develop them as com pletely as possible. 2••• The sons of very rich men, like those of criminals, should be removed while still infants from their natural surroundings. 3 Power to the Rescue Dr. Carrel no more aspired to political power than did Plato. But these two, along with countless others, less famous, of the philoso pher-king school,4 have erected an ideological framework which has made it possible for the Hitlers and Stalins to achieve political dic tatorship without effective opposi tion. The mere acceptance of the 2 Who are "we"? It's a million-to-one bet that "we" would never have singled out that 12-year-old newsboy in Michi gan-Thomas Alva Edison! 3 Peacefully? Hardly! The removal would have to be at the point of a gun; rich parents love their children, too!

4 The late C. S. Lewis writes of these ideologists and says, "I am not suppos ing them to be bad men. They are, rather, not men (in the old sense) at all. They are, if you like, men who have sacrificed their own share in traditional humanity in order to devote themselves to the task of deciding what 'Human ity' shall henceforth mean."

1967 PLATO, YOUR PHILOSOPHER KING HAS BEEN FOUND! 533 lording-it;.over-man concept paves the way for coercionists or war lords. People - intellectual giants or midgets - who feel the necessity of. a grand synthesist (and never finding such a person, for he does not exist) will and do turn to gov ernment to handle problems they wish to shun; the state becomes their philosopher king. This naive approach leaves the gate wide open for the most persuasive and se ducti ve among the seekers after power. The philosopher king! The grand synthesist! The creative combining mind! How much con trary evidence must we have to rid ourselves of this faulty notion! The two examples of Plato and Carrel should suffice - men with admittedly superior intellects ar riving at such schemes to remake humanity. How can we explain the paradox of growing intellects lead ing to this nonsense? Perhaps the genius - the relatively superior one - is thereby blinded and sees no boundaries for himself. He steps out of bounds, as we say; he goes over and beyond the role intended for man, steps into God's Realm, and falls into an abyss of utter absurdity.

But the grand-synthesist idea can easily be refuted. Any highly specialized scientist or technician will, when carefully questioned, confess his inability to keep a breast of the advances in his own narrow specialization. Is there, then, some one of them who can arise to a know-it-all position, who can encompass infinity in his finite mentality? Preposterous! 5 The Creator's Role Those who have sincerely ap proached the problem of ordering human society have always found disillusionment in their attempts to discover the Combining Mind in any man or in any enforced com bination of men. Plato himself fi nally despaired of finding a philos opher king. In fact, as he grew older, he devoted his best efforts to the erection of barriers to the exercise of power by one human being over another. The combining mind is not to be found in creation but only in the Creator. I have never heard any one contradict Joyce Kilmer's "Only God can make a tree." How can anyone who cannot make a tree logically contend that man 5 An acquaintance who for several decades has been a distinguished phys iologist at one of our great medical schools, and who has specialized in blood, a narrow phase of a narrow spe cialization, admits that he knows very little about this "red river of life."

The deeper he explores, the greater is his sense of not knowing. Only a per son unaware of how little he knows could possibly aspire to become the synthesist of all science, let alone polit ical economy and the other disciplines.

534 THE FREEMAN September can make or remake man? Surely, man is higher in Creation's Scheme than is a tree. Because God is exclusively the Combining Mind, are we then left naked and helpless amidst our thousand-and-one seemingly dis parate specializations? Is there not some combining force at the human level and for human dis posal, a principle which if scrupu lously observed will perform this admittedly essential function? The answer is an unequivocal "Yes I" and the principle is liberty. Plato, your philosopher king has been found, not in a person but in a principle! The Provisioning of Paris Who first discovered and com prehended this principle no one knows. For centuries, some think ers have perceived the vital con nection between man and his Crea tor and between creativity and freedom. One of those thinkers who grasped at least a portion of this vital connection was Fred eric Bastiat. Writing in the 1840's about the economy of Paris, un believably more specialized and complex than the economy of Athens twenty-four centuries ear lier, he observed: On entering Paris, which I had come to visit, I said to myself-Here are a million of human beings who would all die in a short time if provisions of every kind ceased to flow towards this great metropolis. Imag ination is batHed when it tries to ap preciate the vast multiplicity of com modities which must enter tomorrow through the barriers in order to pre serve the inhabitants from falling prey to the convulsions of famine, rebellion, and pillage. And yet all sleep at this moment, and their peace ful slumbers are not disturbed for a single instant by the prospect of such a frightful catastrophe.

On the other hand, eighty provinces have been laboring today, without concert, without any mutual under standing for the provisioning of Paris. How does each succeeding day bring what is wanted, nothing more, nothing less, to so gigantic a market? What, then, is the ingenious and secret power which governs the as tonishing regularity of movements so complicated, a regularity in which everybody has implicit faith, although happiness and life itself are at stake? That power is an absolute prin ciple, the principle of freedom in transact,ions. ... In what situation, I would ask, would the inhabitants of Paris be if a minister [a philosopher king] should take it into his head to sub stitute for this power the combina tions of his own genius, however superior we might suppose them to be -if he thought to subject to his su preme direction this prodigious mech anism [freedom in transactions-the free market], to hold the springs of it in his hands, to decide by whom, or in what manner, or on what con ditions, everything needed should be 1967 PLATO, YOUR PHILOSOPHER KING HAS BEEN FOUND! 535 produced, transported, exchanged, and consumed?

Truly, there may be much suffering within the walls of Paris - poverty, despair, perhaps starvation, causing more tears to flow than ardent char ity is able to dry up; but I affirm that it is probable, nay, that it is certain, that the arbitrary intervention of government [the coercive synthesist] would multiply innnitely those suf ferings, and spread over all our fel low citizens those evils which at pres ent affect only a small number of them. 6 Miracle in the Sky The economy of nineteenth-cen tury Paris was markedly more complex than the economy of Athens in 400 B.C. And the econ omy of the U.S.A. today is incom parably more specialized and com plex than the Paris Bastiat wrote about. This point is stressed to emphasize the incontrovertible fact that the more complex the economy, the less is the possibility of human masterminding and the more must our reliance be on lib erty - freedom in transactions.

Bastiat marveled at the provi sioning of Paris, and well he might. The myriad provisioners, throughout the eighty provinces, went about their business of grow ing and raising without any 6 This extract is from Social Falla cies, Register Publishing Company edi tion, 1944. thought of where their produce was going. They merely kept their eye on prices: high, grow; low, no. And, 10, Parisians slumbered peacefully without fretting about the morrow. Principle rather than some philosopher king or dicta torial synthesist was operating to a marked extent. And, interesting ly, the people of Paris knew no more about the principle than did their provisioners. But Bastiat grasped and explained it and warned, in effect: Ignore it at your peril 17 The provisioning of Paris! A veritable miracle! Yes, a miracle in the sense that hardly anyone had any awareness as to the why of their well-being. They enjoyed these economic blessings with no more appreciation or understand ing than of the sunshine that graced their lives.

The provisioning of Paris mi raculous? Then consider this pro visioning: In 1966 more than 100, 000,000 meals were served in the skies by U.S.A.-owned airlines a lone. Just one of these - United spent more than $30 million last year in provisioning its restau rants in the clouds. I wonder what the brilliant Bastiat would have exclaimed had 1 Even in Russia the principle is not totally ignored. Were any people to disregard freedom in transactions 100 per cent, all would perish.

536 THE FREEMAN September he been my seatmate on a TWA jet leaving Athens - nearly seven miles above the Aegean Sea and winging eastward at about 600 miles an hour! Assuming that the jet itself hadn't left him speech less, what might he have said when the stewardess passed the menus? There were, of course, the appetizers, a choice of soups and salad dressings and desserts and beverages. But reflect on the en trees from which we might have chosen: Roast Sirloin of Beef [Kansas grown] Broiled Filet Mignon [Rare or well done, Sir?] Maine Lobster Thermidor [Maine lobster over the Aegean Sea!] Roast Duckling with Sour Cherries [Long Island and California] Curried Squab Chicken [India and Delaware] Fillet of Sole in Shrimp Sauce [North Channel fish] Individual Lamb Rib Roast [Utah gets into the act] All of this would have been in credible even to the perceptive Bastiat. Good foods from such dis tant places, most of them har vested weeks earlier! Impossible!

Why aren't they spoiled? For Bastiat had never known of any thing frozen except temporarily by Mother Nature. My explanation would have sounded strangely similar to his understanding of the provisioning of Paris, except more "far fetched." For instance, Monsieur Bastiat, some of these vegetables were grown in California. They were then picked, cleaned, pre pared, quick frozen, and placed in an atmosphere, kept at or near zero degrees Fahrenheit; and then the frozen vegetables and the atmos phere were transported and hoisted aboard this jet, both the vegetables and the atmosphere remaining in this state until you and I select our entree for dinner tonight. I realize, Monsieur, that you never heard of an electric oven, this marvel of freedom in trans actions, which cooks our meals to night. But a year from now, if our freedom prevails, this oven will be discarded as outmoded. Instead, a microwa ve oven will cook the fro zen steaks, for example, in four minutes. And this coffee! Isn't it delicious? And far superior to any you ever tasted in Paris. The beans were grown in Brazil, Co lombia, Guatemala, and Java, blended and roasted in New York City, and brewed on this jet in less than five minutes. Pardon me, I almost forgot. These wines and champagnes are mostly from your nati ve France.

Actually, Monsieur Bastiat, what you are experiencing tonight 1967 PLATO, YOUR PHILOSOPHER KING HAS BEEN FOUND! 537 is no more than an extension of the phenomenon you so clearly perceived 120 years ago - the ab solute principle of freedom in transactions. This jet, these delectable foods, the mobile zero atmosphere flying through space, the ovens, and so on, are a fantastic combination of nature's resources originating all over this earth, plus trillions upon trillions of tiny human creativi ties, inventions, discoveries going back to the beginning of thought. What you and I enjoy are natural and automatic coalescences of these infinitesimal intelligences, formations that occur when intel ligence and resources are free to flow. As you so cogently pointed out, no minister could have planned our experience this evening. Had any man or men - Plato's philosopher king, Carrel's synthesist, or any bureaucracy-been substituted for the basic principle· of freedom in transactions, such an evening as ours would be unthinkable. Thanks for having enlightened at least a few of us. Bonne nuit, Monsieur.

Trying to Understand It is one thing to find Plato's philosopher king, not in the form of a person, but in the observance of a principle. It is quite another matter to explain why the princi ple is so difficult to find and understand. Why, we must ask, do so few perceive what appears to be a simple fact? Perhaps .any thing is simple once perceived, complex before hand. Authoritari ans are explicit in setting forth their schemes. Why are we dev otees of liberty so vague and ambiguous when trying to explain freedom in transactions and how it works? If I have no more difficult task than to set forth the little I know and my few beliefs, it is fairly easy to be explicit. There is no trouble at all in imitating Plato's line, '.'... to his leader he shall di rect his eye and follow him faith fully," or Carrel's belief, "The sons of very rich men, like those of criminals, should be removed while. still infants from their na tural isurroundings." The authori tarian's way is founded on per sonal· dictations such as "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need," or a rent control, an embargo, a gov ernment's debt, a tariff, a sub sidy.These can be .·observed. Be ing explicit is easy.

But when freedom in transac tions is allowed, description amounts to explaining the miracu lous. When riding on a jet, for in stance, one is no more conscious of its make-up than the people of Paris were of that city's provi sioning. Who sees in that plane538 THE FREEMAN September as much a part of it as its wings the harnessing of fire, the concept of zero, the discoveries that ac counted for the vulcanization of rubber, or the making of blue prints? That jet rides as much on trillions of tiny ideas as it does on the air through which it speeds. Creativities flowing freely and in complex interchange - freedom in transactions-are in solution, so to speak; they integrate imper ceptibly, become a natural part of the human situation. They're sol uble, as are grains of sugar added to a pail of water: it still appears as a pail of water, although a mite sweeter. But the discrete grains, as the tiny creativities, are lost track of as they become an integral part of the whole.