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Plato's __Republic__
The Faults of Plato’s Republic

The concept of a perfect world, or eutopia, has enthralled the minds of intellectuals for thousands of years. Since the days of Greece, philosophers and other great minds have contemplated the ideal world, and the qualities that would endow this world as flawless. One of the greatest scholars to walk this earth, Plato, described his image of a eutopia in his work //Republic//. While Plato touched on the important attributes of an ideal world, many of his points were flawed. Plato’s vision of a eutopia in //Republic// is flawed by insisting on arranged marriages, a common economy, and a non-transparent government.

One of the major components of Plato’s eutopia is the concept that all marriages will be determined by the government. He argues that by controlling the reproductive aspects of society, the government can further advance and control the evolution of the human population. Once a man becomes twenty-five and woman becomes twenty, the government chooses spouses for one another: “The principle has been already laid down that the best of either sex should be united with the best [. . . ] if the flock is to be maintained” (35). While the concept of an arranged marriage seems ideologically sound, it is flawed and not based on practical sense. Plato makes a major mistake by assuming the plausibility of an arranged marriage -- forgetting love. Love is one of the most powerful and influential emotions that humans can experience. By forcing marriages based upon nothing more than desirable traits of each spouse, Plato fails to appeal to the citizens’ most basic emotion--love. Without love, there can be no eutopia.

Along with supporting arranged marriages, Plato also describes his ideal world as having a common economy. A common economy is a system in which all of the inhabitants of a community or nation share resources and property. Plato, similar to Karl Marx in the 19th century, imagined that a world with no dominant wealthy class would be the ideal society. However, history has proven that an equal distribution of wealth is not healthy for society because it fails to provide the incentive for competition and hard work. If all workers receive the same paycheck regardless of the quality of their work, then the citizens will lose all desire to do their best in their field of work. Plato’s ideal government goes even further to redistribute the property of individuals for the “common good.” Its economy further proves that Plato’s Republic is no more a just society than Communist Russia.

The acts and regulations of the government are managed by a non-transparent government tin //Republic// that stealthily controls the population. Plato recognizes that if the population were to know of this, then chaos would ensue: “[T]hese goings on must be a secret which the rulers only know, or there will be a further danger of our herd, as the guardians may be tamed, breaking out into rebellion” (35). He even goes so far as to compare humans to a herd of animals. He says that the government should act like the farmer and ensure that the more desirable animals breed while the weak are left to perish. A government that willingly keeps horrific secrets from its population is in no way a just government, proving once again that the Republic is not a eutopia.

Plato, in attempting to create the perfect society, willingly commits atrocities of marriage and the economy through the non-transparent government in order to preserve peace. In doing so, he forgets to take notice of the concepts of love and work incentives. Plato’s Republic is no more than a lofty idealism that lacks little to no practicality.

posted by Dwight (Henry)