Plato’s Guardianship VS. Robert Dahls Democracy

“Democracy is the worst form of government -- except for all those other forms that have been tried.” ~ Sir Winston Churchill[1]

Plato named the perfect state Kallipolis.[2] It was to be a guardianship ruled by a philosopher-king within a tri-class system: the Guardians, the Producers, and the Auxiliaries.[3]  Plato’s state was not a democracy. He claimed that democracy led men to “unnecessary desires” (anything other than survival), which must be protected against.[4] Inevitably this led to failure and to the state becoming, as Glaucon says, a “city of pigs.”[5]  This argument has some issues that I will review later, but for now this is a general summary of Plato’s opinion on democracy.

Some 2,500 years later, Robert A. Dahl argued against guardianship. As I will discuss later, he laid out the five criteria for the democratic process. Dahl stated that there is no one “science” of political leadership.[6] He also said that since an individual is always the best judge of his or her best interests, that no guardian could possibly claim leadership on the ground of improving people’s life more than each person could.[7] This begs the question; who is correct? Although, as Dahl says, there is no such thing as the correct government[8], Dahl’s democracy is better than Plato’s Kallipolis because Plato’s nation could not exist in the real world; while Dahl’s can’t completely either, it comes closer to being rooted in reality.

Dahl’s Perfectly Democratic State

            The five principles that Dahl states are: Effective Participation; Voting Equality at the Decisive Stage; Enlightened Understanding; Control of the Agenda; and (Modified) Categorical Principal.[9] If all five of these criteria are met, then the government is a perfect democracy. However not all five need to be met to be a democracy. This model runs into several problems.

            The first issue is that of a massive population. If all people have at least some political participation, then as a population expands, so do the actors in politics. This firstly affects Control of the Agenda. If every member of the population were also a member of the demos, it would take a prohibitive amount of time to go over every question, vote, and entertain random inquiries posed by the demos. But, if we accept the Principle of Strong Equality, what right does any member of the demos have to Control of the Agenda over any other? The solution to this issue is representative government. If you hold an election for the members of the demos, you can reduce the members of the demos to a manageable amount regardless of population size. So, the general population votes and then each member that they elect then becomes a member of the demos that would have control of the agenda (for example, the American system of Congress). The Members of Congress are members of the demos, and the American citizens pick who they are.

            The second issue is that representative government does not promote Enlightened Understanding. Normally in a representative government, the people would vote for whoever they believe would have Enlightened Understanding and be able to best enforce their interests. However, sometimes the population makes the worst choice for whatever reason. A good example is the 2016 election. President Trump cannot be credited with Enlightened Understanding simply because he denies facts. For example, Coivd-19. If he denies the factual evidence of infection, then he breaks the principle of Enlightened Understanding because he is not “discovering and validating… the choice on the matter… that would best serve the citizens interest.”[10] If Trump had taken a different tack, our country might have weathered Covid-19 better. Thus he did not do what best served the citizens interests. The benefit of guardianship shines here; in a guardianship, crises would be able to be dealt with better because the leaders are learned and do not have to worry about reelection.

Plato’s Kallipolis

In The Republic, Plato creates the idea of a perfect city modeled by Kallipolis. Kallipolis is a guardianship ruled by the Guardian class whose decisions are enforced by the Auxiliary class. Most of the people (90%) are the Production class, who are every profession other than military or politics. Plato argues that through their superior knowledge of how to enact the people’s interests and their incorruptible nature, the guardianship class will ensure that what is in the people’s best interest is done. He disagrees that every person knows what is best for their own interests (as Dahl argues) and says that instead the Guardians would be better at enacting the will of the people because the Guardians would have knowledge of the “royal science,”[11] which surpasses the ability of the average person.

I believe this argument is false because it assumes that humans are not the most aware and able to act on their own interests. Interests (needs, whatever) are specific to the person and only a person could best define their interests. In short, the person’s interests are up to the person. If we assume the best government is one that enacts the will of the people, then a guardianship could never beat a true democracy because if the Guardians were perfect, they would perform the same role as a democracy.

Another argument often brought up against guardianship is that the Guardians could become corrupt. To prevent their corruption, Plato suggests that the Guardians be forbidden from owning private property. In addition, Plato says that all wives and children are shared among the Guardians. I believe that these two points taken together effectively suppress motivation. Does this mean that the only way to stop corruption is a guardianship is by taking away all the things that motivate a person? According to Plato, the Guardians can somehow derive pleasure from the happiness of the masses. It is far from certain that this could happen, but if it did, the masses will be their happiest when their needs or interests are met. Therefore, the Guardians are at their happiest when they meet the interests and needs of the largest amount of the population possible. So, both Dahl’s democracy and Plato’s Kallipolis accomplish she same goal; meeting the interests and wants of the people.

Conclusion

Although there is no perfect government in the real world, Dahl’s democracy ensures the will of the people is met more accurately than Plato’s guardianship. Dahl’s issue of massive population can be fixed by electing the members of the demos, or representative governance. However, we do know that sometime the people pick wrong, or a massive issue arrives, such as COVID, so a guardianship would be better. In Plato’s model, the best outcome would be that the interests of the people are met. However, this lofty goal does not seem achievable in the real world because the guardians would be so far removed from everyday life and the guardians can’t possibly know the people’s interests better than the people do; for interests are defined by the people.

[1] Opinion | Don’t Quote Them on It - The New York Times (nytimes.com)

[2] Ibid.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Ibid.

[6] Dahl, R. A. (2019). Democracy and its critics. In Democracy and its critics (pp. 66-67). Johanneshov: MTM.

[7] Ibid.

[8] Ibid.

[9] Ibid.

[10] Ibid.

[11] Plato, & Allan, D. J. (1965). Republic. In Republic (p. 19). London: Methuen.