I was reading a book today by Daisaku Ikeda, a Buddhist philosopher whose teachings I follow, and he said the following about democracy. He quotes Plato a lot. (it made me think of things JK has said on the subject)

'Democracy is the creation and product of the great wisdom of the people. But unless the people who actually comprise the democracy know how to control their ego and disclipline themselves, Plato astutely pointed out, democracy can easily lapse into a vicious and self-destructive form of mob rule, creating something that is a far cry from democracy.

Plato said that democracies proudly trumpet liberty as the highest virtue, and he remarked, "You may hear it said that this (liberty) is best managed in a democratic city and for this reason that is the only city in which a free man will care to live" But, he went on to assert, the insatiable all-consuming pursuit of freedom leads to the birth of a greedy populace, and soon corrupting desires "seize the citadel of the young man's soul."

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According to Plato, the chaos created by such unchecked freedom eventually becomes uncontrollable, ad to bring order to the land the people begin to seek a strong leader. When they find such a leader, he inevitably falls victim to the temptations of power and becomes a tyrant.

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Plato argues that it is precisely from this form of government believed to be the most beautiful and perfect, democracy, that tyrannical despotism is born and people are turned into slaves, robbed of all freedom. Plato is highlighting the potential contradiction and pathology of excessive freedom.'

These are just short extracts, and the bigger picture of what Ikeda is saying that democracy is a wonderful idea, but that if the people living in a democracy do not learn to think for themselves and to question what they are told, then they will end up being lead down blind allies and possibly to dictatorship.

Anyway, just thought I'd share, as I found it pretty insightful.

Extremely interesting David - I've always thought communism is a great idea in principle but a disaster in practice.

Communism has never been achieved. What we've witnessed are socialist states, supposedly, 'progressing' towards the goal of communism, and communism can't exist within an international capitalist system. Trotsky pointed that out and got a headache for his efforts. As for democracy, as I've said before, it's a system that can only be founded upon a genuinely successful education system, and that's never been realised because too few people are willing to pay for it.

watched a local panel show Q&A last night with Jon Ronson (very good) , Kate Adie (boring) and a Slovenian Marxist philosopher Slavoj Zizek ( terrific) who basically said the exact same thing.

We are entering into an unknown era and when Warren Buffett and George Soros join forces to express their dismay that capitalism is on the brink of collapse..

Locked Out wrote:
But David...
Plato lived in an age when democracy - at least as we understand the idea today - was unheard of. I don't mean to be pedantic, but Plato's concepts of "democracy" had nothing in common with our own, and I'd assert that he was actually talking about something completely different.

I'm only playing Devil's Advocate, of course, but your choice of philosopher is indulging in a little bit of duplicity in order to further his arguments.

I take your point, LO. As far as I know Plato did not live in a democratic age. He was a disciple of Socrates tho, who had done.

I also take your point that the Ancient Greek idea of democracy is not quite what we would understand by the word. But it was still considerably more democratic than what went before or after.

I am no expert on Ancient Greece. I could of course look it all up on Wikipedia and pretend that I did But I shan't.

I do think that the points that Ikeda makes and the connections he is making are extremely relevant to where we find ourselves today.

'Democracy' as Plato understood it may be rather different to what we think we have today, but for me the point is that- just like its predecessor- it has limits and dangers that are not acknowledged. It believes in itself far too much.

I don't profess to be an expert on any of this, but like to explore ideas

Prunella Minge wrote:
As for democracy, as I've said before, it's a system that can only be founded upon a genuinely successful education system, and that's never been realised because too few people are willing to pay for it.

I couldn't agree more.