Was Plato Collectivist? J. Roberts

The society depicted in this book is truly a far different thing from that envisioned by lovers of in dividual liberty. Such liberty is sacrificed in the Republic, as in every slave society since, for the sake of an alleged greater com munal welfare. But there is another Plato, less well known. The Republic was a comparatively early work; Plato's growth was hardly arrested at this stage. Perhaps his last completed work is the Seventh Letter, in cer tain ways a much more significant 557 558, THE FREEMAN September document than even the Republic. This epistle was written in 353 352 B.C., when Plato was about 75 years old, to the relatives and comrades of his own friend and former pupil, Dion of Syracuse. The letter, in reply to a request for aid in avenging the assassina tion of Dion, is an extended apologia pro vita sua, a spiritual autobiography in which the old man, now only five or six years from death, surveys in retrospect his long life.

"In my youth," the letter re lates, "I went through the same experiences as many other men. I fancied that if, early in life, I be came my own master, I should at once embark on a political career."I Circumstances Change Plans These aspirations were frus trated, largely by circumstances beyond Plato's control. The golden age of Pericles had passed; Plato grew up during the twin disasters of the Peloponnesian Wars and the collapse of the Athenian Em pire. These dual catastrophes re sulted in bitter power struggles between democrats and oligarchs in Athens, culminating in the year of anarchy, 404-403 B.C. Plato's family, on both paternal 1 I quote throughout from the text in the Great Books edition (Chicago: En cyclopedia Britannica, 1952). and maternal sides, was aristo cratic, and naturally aligned itself with the old Athenian Right Wing. This group, which included Plato's uncle Charmides and his cousin Critias, succeeded in establishing the Tyranny of the Thirty in 404.

"They at once invited me to share in their doings, as some thing to which I had a claim," Plato remembered in the Seventh Letter. "The effect on me was not surprising in the case of a young man. I considered that they would, of course, so ~anage the State as to bring men out of a bad way of life into a good one. So I watched them very closely to see what they would do." Plato was only twenty-four when his education in the ways of the world began. For the oligarchy did not - "of course" .- bring good government to Athens. Among other outrages, it attempted to implicate Socrates in a murder. Plato, who had been a friend if not actually a student of the aged teacher, was shocked and sur prised. The oligarchy was soon after wards overthrown by a democratic counterrevolution, and again Plato felt his personal ambitions rise. "And once more," he recollected, "though with more hesitation, I began to be moved by the desire to take part in public and politi cal affairs."

1973 WAS PLATO A COLLECTIVIST? 559 But he soon discovered that democratic despotism was not sig nificantly different from oligarchic despotism. The new regime itself not only went after Socrates, but convicted him in what has become the world's most infamous trial. Socrates died in 399. "As I followed these incidents and the men engaged in public affairs," Plato remembered, "the laws too and the customs, the more closely I examined them and the farther I advanced in life, the more difficult it seemed to me to handle public affairs aright." Signs of Maturity The young man with all the an swers clearly was maturing into his share of common sense. He was also having second thoughts about the practical chances of a political career at this time. "Though at first I had been full of a strong impulse towards po litical life," the Seventh Letter continues, "my head finally began to swim; and, though I did not stop looking to see if there was any likelihood of improvement in these symptoms and in the gen eral course of public life, I post poned action till a suitable oppor tunity should arise."

With a certain touching naivete, perhaps characteristic of the ex tremes of idealism and cynicism to which youth is prey, Plato now turned against both democracy and aristocracy. He concluded grandly "with regard to all exist ing communities, that they were one and all misgoverned." The only salvation, he deduced, was for power to rest in the hands of a wise dictator: "Therefore, I said, there will be no cessation of evils for the sons of men, till either those who are pursuing a right and true philosophy receive sovereign power in the States, or those in power in the States by some dispensation of providence become true philosophers." While Plato was indulging him self in such speculations, the polit ical temperature in Athens was steadily rising. Not being utterly without discretion, Plato recog nized that the time was ripe for some traveling. He left on an ex tensive grand tour which kept him away from Athens for more than a decade.

At some point in this wander ing, he arrived in Sicily, where he had audience with Dionysius the Elder, tyrant of Syracuse, and dis covered in the dictator's brother in-law, Dion, a ready disciple. Plato as Teacher In 387 B.C. Plato returned to Athens, where he found the polit ical climate still unfavorable. The bane of all professional educators is that jibe, "Those who can, do; 560 THE FREEMAN September those who can't, teach." Plato him self, finding it impossible to enter politics, turned to teaching the subject to others. His suburban school in the grove of Academos heavily emphasized political and juridical theory. Moreover, his students went forth throughout the Mediterranea,n world as advisors to rulers; Plu tarch, among his other consider able labors, compiled an impres sive list of the political advisors trained by Plato - including Aris totle himself, who brought up the man later known as Alexander the Great. Shortly after founding the Academy, Plato also began com mitting to paper his dreams of the philosopher-king he had not yet found in real life. The Republic was finally finished around 375 B.C.

Then, in 367, a curious thing happened. That was Plato's sixti eth year; it was also, incidentally, the year Aristotle came to the Academy as a pupil. In this year, Dion sent word to Plato that Dio nysius the Elder had died and was being succeeded by his son, who could use a philosopher's guidance. The Lure of Politics All the pent-up idealism and lust for personal political involve ment in the sixty-year-old Plato responded to Dion's invitation. In the Seventh Letter, Plato recalled having thought to himself that "if ever anyone was to try to carry out in practice my ideas about laws and constitutions, now was the time for making the attempt; for if only I could fully convince one man, I should have secured thereby the accomplishment of all good things." Unfortunately, Dionysius the Younger proved to be no more at tracted to the virtues of philoso pher-kingship than are most ty rants. In fact, Plato had been his guest at court only some four months when Dion was banished; the young tyrant had Plato him self put under a kind of house ar rest. The aging philosopher even tually manag'ed to return to Athens, but only after consider able personal danger.

And here emerges a thing truly amazing: a few years later, in 361 B.C., Plato made yet another quix otic voyage to Syracuse! Dio nysi us had been importuning the sage to return, and Dion, although in exile, added his pleadings; both men assured Plato that Dionysius had undergone a change of heart and was now truly anxious to learn the life of philosophy. Plato's longing to believe this dubious tale was obviously rooted deeply, for he rationalized away his reservations, forsook his wits, and packed his grip. "I myself had a lurking feeling 1973 WAS PLATO A COLLECTIVIST? 561 that there was nothing surprising in the fact that a young man, quick to learn, hearing talk of the great truths of philosophy, should feel a craving for the higher life," is the rather lame excuse offered in the Seventh Letter. "So blind folding myself with this reflection, I set out, with many fears and with no very favourable anticipa tions, as was natural enough."

The next sentence is revealing and sufficient: "I had the good fortune to return safely .... " N ev er again did Plato attempt any active political role. Realism in the "Laws" To measure the extent of Plato's disillusionment with dictatorship as well as with oligarchy and de mocracy, it is instructive to turn to the Laws. He began work on this major project around 360 B.C., interrupted it to write his Seventh Letter, and was engaged on the final revisiQn when he died in 348 or 347. In the Laws, Plato is no longer concerned with designing an ideal state. He now seeks to frame a constitution applicable to any so ciety of ordinary Greeks in the middle of the fourth century be fore Christ. The philosopher-king of the earlier Republic' is nowhere to be found here'. In the Laws, Plato dis misses government by personal direction of a benevolent despot as simply not practical. The condi tions of actual life rule out the possibility of anyone fallible man combining in himself all the' vir tues requisite to a genuine philos opher-king. Instead, the state's best hope lies in a mixed constitu tion, balancing in a golden mean the opposite but equally necessary principles of popular control and personal authority ("democracy"

and "monarchy," in Plato's termi nology) .2 Economically, the system of the Laws also differs considerably from that of the Republic. Plato now dismisses his earlier commu nism, on the same grounds as he does dictatorship: it simply is not practical. Socialism may be the most desirable of all utopian goals, he says, but it just will not work in the real world. 3 The father of Western thought has here, in his old age, achieved a blend of com mon sense and uncommon wisdom, unfortunately not ubiquitous among subsequent generations. Age and Experience But in another and even more important respect have age and ex perience modified the young man's utopian idealism. Plato's thought began with the desire to reinstate 2 See especially Laws, III, 693-694. 3 Laws, V, 739-740.

562 THE FREEMAN September the totalitarian ethic of the old Greek city-state, and a political career seemed the natural corol lary of such a macrosocietal prem ise. However, he came to recog nize that the philosopher is a man doomed to failure in the practical world. Plato's own bitter experi ence is not unique, of course, and he must often have recalled the fate of his friend Socrates. Even today, we still mock as the arche type of the impractical intellectual the Greek Thales, who tumbled into a well because he was gazing up at the stars. 4 "This is a j est which is equally applicable to all philosophers," Socrates says of Thales. And yet only the philosopher - the lover of wisdom - is truly a free man. 5 Ridiculed and rej ected by the world he would save, the wise man must at last, in that magnificent phrase of Socrates from the end of the Republic, fall back upon "the city which is within him"

(IX, 591). It is a much-vexed issue to what degree Plato used Socrates as a mouthpiece for his own views in the dialogues, but at this point we seem to have the words of the older man. It is clear, at least, that Plato's initial disappointment at 4 The story is reported by Socrates in the Theaetetus, 174. 5 See Socrates' justly famous argu ment in the Theaetetus, 173-176. his own political impotence was not sufficient to prevent his Sicil ian journeys after the Republ'ic was completed. Content to Cultivate His Own Garden But it is equally clear that the observations of Socrates at the end of Book IX of the Republic could just as well have been spoken by the Plato. who returned from the final Sicilian trip. Jesus was later to note that a prophet is not without honor save in his own country; likewise, Socrates cyni cally held that a wise man cannot succeed as a statesman, at least "not in the land of his birth,"

except by the improbability of divine intervention. He will be a statesman only in that heavenly city of Ideas or Forms, Socrates insisted, and whether such a city "exists, or ever will exist in fact, is no matter; for he will live after the manner of that city, having nothing to,. do with any other" (IX, 592). Plato came at last to the con viction of Socrates that the wise man will above all cultivate his own garden, restricting his teach ing efforts to selected individuals around him who will then go out to other individuals, including, hopefully, kings and rulers. This ultima te concern with the indi vidual is not devoid of social im1973 WAS PLATO A COLLECTIVIST? 563 plications, of course, as Plato makes clear in both the Seventh Letter and the Laws. The State must have good laws, both writ ten and unwritten, but the best laws ever devised will not prove effective if the State is not peo pled with an aristocracy of good men. The individual ethos is of supreme importance; the just so ciety is impossible without it.

At the risk of some simplification, we may say that the differ ence between the early Plato of the Republic and the older Plato of the Seventh Letter and the Laws is the difference between the collectivist and the, individual ist. If modern statists isolate and elevate the collectivist biases of the Republic? certainly students of liberty may study with profit and claim with pride the older, wiser Plato. ~ IDEAS ON LIBERTY The Man versus The State BEYOND the regulative apparatus, such as in our own society is re quired for carrying on national defence and maintaining public order and personal safety, there must, under the regime of social .. ism, be a regulative apparatus everywhere controlling all kinds of production and distribution, and everywhere apportioning the share of products of each kind required for each locality, each working establishment, each individual. Under our existing vol untary cooperation, with its free contracts and its competition, production and distribution need no official oversight. Demand and supply, and the desire of each man to gain a living by supply ing the needs of his fellows, spontaneously evolve that wonderful system whereby a great city has its food daily brought round to all doors or stored at adjacent shops; has clothing for its citizens everywhere at hand in multitudinous varieties; has its houses and furniture and fuel ready made or stocked in ,each locality ....

And throughout the kingdom, production as well as distribution is similarly carried on with the smallest amount of superintend ence which proves efficient; while the quantities of the numerous commodities required daily in each locality are adjusted without any other agency than the pursuit of profit. HERBERT SPENCER $ •. ' ECa/flJM/CSandthePRESS BRIAN SUMMERS MOST PEOPLE agree that a free press is a vital component of a humane society. Yet many of these same people assert that the free enterprise system is not only su perfluous to achieving and main taining a humane society, but is, in fact, the one great obstacle to its fruition. That is, they believe that freedom of the press can somehow be preserved while eco nomic freedom is being destroyed. Let us give this matter a little thought. A good place to begin is the question of property . Who is to own the printing presses, build ings that house the presses, and land on which the buildings are situated? If the institution of pri vate property is abolished, then Mr. Summers is a graduate student in mathe matics at the State University of New York at Stony Brook.