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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 January 2021
Although the architectonic of Plato’s best city is dazzling, some critics find its detailed prescriptions inimical to human freedom and well-being. Most notably, Karl Popper in The Open Society and its Enemies sees it as a proto-totalitarian recipe, choking all initiative and variety out of the citizenry. This essay does not directly respond to Popper’s critique but instead spotlights a strand in the dialogue that positions Plato as an advocate of regulatory relaxation and economic liberty to an extent otherwise unknown in the ancient world and by no means unopposed in ours. His contribution to liberal political economy thereby merits greater attention and respect.
Earlier versions of this essay were presented to the 2018 PPE Conference in New Orleans and then in December 2018 in Tucson. Particularly at the latter venue I received numerous helpful suggestions, as I did from an anonymous referee for this journal. James Cargile, Linda Gosnell, Ian McCready-Flora and David Schmidtz helped me avert various errors. The essay began as an extended conversation with Jeff Carroll concerning the central passage investigated above. It would not have been written without this stimulus.
1 Of course the wave motif is not the only high-profile aspect of Republic. From the death-match between Socrates and Thrasymachus in the opening book through the vivid analogies in the middle books to the myth of Er near its end, there is no shortage of peak moments. Other de-emphasized episodes include Clitophon’s provocative suggestion in Book I 340a7-b9 which is then conspicuously ignored by all parties.
2 Plato, Republic, trans. with introduction by C. D. C. Reeve (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing, 2004).
3 George Stigler is prominent in developing this theory. His and subsequent contributions are usefully presented in Dal Bó, Ernesto, “Regulatory Capture: A Review,” Oxford Journal of Economic Policy 22 (2006): 203–225CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
4 The primary source for these lives is Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War. Herodotus offers supplementary discussion in his Histories and Plutarch provides later reflections. Historians are divided concerning the reliability of these accounts, but that debate is not relevant to this essay’s claim that the theme of corruption by wealth is very much “in the air.” during the periods of Republic’s staging and composition.
5 Socrates to Adeimantus: “You are happily innocent if you think that any city besides the one we are constructing deserves to be called a city.” 425e3.
6 See for example the repeated queries from Adeimantus and Glaucon as to whether this best of cities is really possible and Socrates’ feints in response.
7 That seems to be the view of Annas, Julia, An Introduction to Plato’s Republic (New York: Oxford University Press, 1981), 78Google Scholar.
8 Except that Morrison, Donald B. does deny it. See “The Utopian Character of Plato’s Ideal City,” in The Cambridge Companion to Plato’s Republic ed. Ferrari, G. R. F. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 232–55CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
9 Stability is not everything, especially for young men with aspirations of renown such as Glaucon. The “city of pigs” epithet can be understood as an objection to doing without the delicacies of civilized living. It can also be an expression of dissatisfaction with the absence of an authoritative ruling class, that is, of the elite for which he himself is an aspiring member (and with which he is comfortable identifying in the Kallipolis. If so, this constitutes a backhand acknowledgment of the existence of OT.
10 Reeve, C. D. C., Philosopher-Kings (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1988), 171Google Scholar.
11 “The actions of each of us have a reference to those of the other, and are perform’d upon the supposition that something is to be perform’d on the other part. Two men, who pull the oars of a boat, do it by an agreement or convention, tho’ they have never given promises to each other.” In similar fashion the formation of languages, monetary systems and, crucially, precepts of justice are attributed to bottom-up evolutionary processes. Hume, David, Treatise of Human Nature, ed. Selby-Bigge, L. A., rev. P. H. Nidditch (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978 [1739-1740]), III.ii, p. 490Google Scholar.
12 Although the term “invisible hand” appears only once in Wealth of Nations, and also once in Theory of Moral Sentiments, the concept of unplanned, self-generating orders is ubiquitous in both works. For the particular occurrences, see Smith, Adam, Wealth of Nations, Glasgow edition (Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, 1981 [1776]), IV.v, p. 540Google Scholar; and Theory of Moral Sentiments, Glasgow edition (Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, 1982 [1759]) IV.i, 184.
13 An early and seminal examination of spontaneous order is Hayek, F. A., “The Use of Knowledge in Society,” American Economic Review 35 (1945): 519–30Google Scholar. Over most of the half-century that follows, Hayek builds on this conception
14 Order-generating mechanisms are not observed only within the realm of political economy. They are also, for example, crucial to understanding the development of the common law. Most powerful of all, they underpin Darwinian evolution. All of these theories deal in what Robert Nozick, another great propounder of utopian political theory, calls invisible hand explanation. See Nozick, , Anarchy, State, and Utopia (New York: Basic Books, 1974), 18–22Google Scholar.
15 Smith, Wealth of Nations I.viii, 89–91. Although Smith’s knowledge of the history of growth and regression in China and India can be questioned, the importance he attributes to growth of a society’s product is undeniable.
16 See 421d-422c in which Socrates argues that conspicuous wealth engenders corruption in the society while its absence actually renders the city a less inviting target to potential foreign aggressors.
17 Malcom Schofield observes of Plato’s construction of the economic base of society: “They constitute the invention of something like the concept of an economy: a sort of transcendental deduction of the market. But that has been little noticed by the commentators. And in a way they are right not to notice it. Nothing in Republic or any other dialogue suggests that Plato thought understanding the economy was a project to be undertaken for its own sake, as something of independent importance” (“Approaching the Republic,” in The Cambridge History of Greek and Roman Political Thought, ed. Christopher Rowe and Malcolm Schofield [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000], 210). This essay concurs with both observations, but disagrees with the suggestion that commentators do well to pass by what is not for Plato of independent importance.
18 To his credit, Aristotle in Politics I provides a (relatively) extended discussion of economic activity as a kind of proto-politics. To something other than credit, this discussion may well be a major factor in having held back for centuries the development of credible economic theory.
19 That Plato rejects Adeimantus’s interpretation is given further support by the glib way in which the dialogue has him declaring that the rulers will “easily” solve the various problems of economic regulation. That one adverb eloquently testifies to Adeimantus’s obtuseness.
20 Compare “original intent” as a principle of legal interpretation.
21 The literature addressing evolving Platonic themes is vast. Two useful works that focus on developments within the political theory are Bobonich, Christopher, Plato’s Utopia Recast: His Later Ethics and Politics (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2002)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Klosko, George, The Development of Plato’s Political Theory, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006)Google Scholar.
22 Popper, Karl, The Open Society and Its Enemies (London: Routledge, 1945)Google Scholar. Originally published in two volumes, the first of which is subtitled The Spell of Plato. The second volume indicts Hegel and Marx as coconspirators.
23 Of course the actual Lenin does resort to a market-tolerant New Economic Policy.
24 Book VIII’s critique of oligarchy is also germane. I believe it shows Plato to be not an opponent of wealth creation but rather opposed to that practice being mixed with the function of governance. It is not profit-seeking that is decried but rather rent-seeking.