The ideal republic that Plato
envisions in the Republic is a
monarchy (a non-hereditary, philosopher-king), a timocracy, and a socialist
state. One of the assumptions in Plato’s Republic is that the just society is a
society that will require significant social control. The republic needs to repudiate tyranny,
self-interested oligarchy, and democracy.
As a socialist state, like all forms of socialism, requires the ‘just’
republic to (1) enforce its (2) ideal understanding of values and virtues on
the population, (3) while maintaining that this action will produce happy
citizens. What Socrates describes as a
utopia for justice turns out to be a dystopia of oppression, degraded values
and vices, on an inevitably unhappy populace.
Socrates begins by describing how
the state needs to enforce certain values regarding property. He says that guardians must have only the
most necessary property. This would, for
example, mean that they should not desire or possess gold. The attack on possessions is also an attack
on individualism. So, Adeimantus,
Socrates’ interlocutor, asks whether guardians would be happy in such a state. Socrates answers that different people find
different kinds of happiness, but if we say that happiness is defined in terms
of possessions, leisure, and the like, then we would actually corrupt the hard
working farmer, potter, and so forth in their work (4.421). Poverty and wealth must be avoided
(4.421e-422a). What comes to mind when
reading this are the famous, Soviet posters of smiling peasants on collective
farms, when, in fact, the communist government murdered or deported tens of
thousands of persons owning 8 acres or more of land (kulaks) between 1929 and 1934, confiscated private farms, and
caused massive starvation.
Communal unity is another value
that requires state control in Socrates’ ideal republic. This relates to the growth and size of
cities, which need to be neither too small nor too large but just the right
size to maintain unity (4.423b-c). Socrates
did not envision a classless society, as Communism claims but never
achieves. One can press for equal
opportunity, but the natural differences between people inevitably means
unequal outcomes, and the enforcement of equal outcomes progresses in a
socialist state through much suffering, injustice, and death. In Socrates’ timocracy, however, where the
contribution of people to society is understood in terms of the contribution
each can make according to his or her merits, differences remain. Socrates, for example, does not envision the
state without slaves. Citizens need to
be sent up or down according to the class that best fits their ‘natures.’ Such control by the state is needed so that
everyone’s work might contribute to the city’s ‘unity’ (4.423c-d). Communalism should further govern marriages,
since wives and the procreation of children should be ‘the proverbial goods of
friends that are common’ (4.423e-424a).
The state values of collectivism and communalism oppose marriage and
family.
Individualism is also a contrary value to the
state. People need to devote themselves
to the collective values determined by the state. Socrates says, ‘[462c] … “That city, then, is best ordered in which the greatest
number use the expression ‘mine’ and ‘not mine’ of the same things in the same
way.” … [464a] … and by virtue of this communion they will have their pleasures
and pains in common.’ The statement is
awkward in translation, but it simply says that possessions, pleasures, and
pains are all to be collectivised.
Individualism is opposed, except in the reward of heroism in battle, but
even here, the reward goes to the one who abandons self-preservation in
fighting for the state. (On this point,
more in a further essay.)
Addressing
the happiness of a population ruled by socialist forces and ideals, Socrates
claims that the elimination of private property will contribute to a far less
litigious society:
[464b] … these helpers must not possess houses of their own or
[464c] land or any other property, but that they should receive from the other
citizens for their support the wage of their guardianship and all spend it in
common. … [464d] … “Then will not law-suits and accusations against one
another vanish, one may say, from among them, because they have
nothing in private possession but their bodies, but all else in common?
We
might call Socrates’ republic a ‘nanny state.’
He avers that it will remove so many cares and indignities of life and
leave everyone happy:
[465c] … the pettiest troubles of which they would be rid,
the flatterings of the rich, the embarrassments and pains of the poor in
the bringing-up of their children and the procuring of money for the
necessities of life for their households, the borrowings, the repudiations, all
the devices with which they acquire what they deposit with wives and servitors
to husband, and all the indignities that they endure in such matters ...
[465d] … “From all these, then, they will be finally free, and they will live a
happier life than that men count most happy, the life of the victors at Olympia
… [Any happiness of the individual indicated here is not personal but derived
from the state, and they] [465e, d] … receive honor from the city while they
live and when they die a worthy burial.
Socrates
believed that the monarch and the tyrant were most alike. The difference lay in the former’s desire to
produce a just state for the citizens, while the latter desires to use the
state for his own gain. Both exercise
power over others; they differ only in their goals for the people. The philosopher-king is someone who would
receive extensive training (merit) to exercise power for the good of the
people. He would not want to rule or
gain wealth, unlike the tyrant, but have to be forced to take on the burden of
care for the population.
Some
Reflections
The evil of socialism lies in large part in its claim
to power in order to do good. Much
injustice and wickedness is done once the state gains such power. Sometimes, some good is done, despite the
ineptitude of bureaucracy and incompetence of rulers. Yet some of socialism’s values are themselves
evil, the exact opposite of the good and of justice. Such, for example, is Socrates’ opposition marriage
and the family. As noted in an earlier
essay, he also requires eugenics in the choice breeding of top citizens to
produce an improved citizenship and in the death of children that will
contribute to the state’s perceived well-being.
His state is, frankly, loveless in his notion of happiness through
collective values and of social honour.
In socialist societies, people are more or less slaves of the state, and
they are expected to be happy for having no property or parental
responsibilities. Their happiness lies
in having all their basic needs met by a state that takes care of them. Socrates claims that individuals without
rights will be happy because they will not have lawsuits over property or bear
burdensome responsibilities or have financial difficulties.
As a matter of historical fact, however,
socialism proves itself to be a failure time after time. Idealists, including socialists, are not
realists, even if they attempt to solve real social problems. They are always terrible students of history,
since historical facts get in the way of ideals. In fact, to the extent that they address
history, to typically try to rewrite it to favour the outcomes they desire for
society in the present.
Socialist economies do not function well. The state proves to be ever more oppressive. Its showcase values appear altruistic, but
its communal values undercut the individual, the family, property, freedom,
mobility, and so forth. Socrates must
not have been naïve about his socialist vision for the state, since its
collectivism and values were to some degree practiced by the Spartans, at war
with democratic Athens for much of his lifetime. As Athens weakened before the armies of
Spartan-led forces, Athens’ democracy gave way to tyranny. Socrates lays the problem of tyranny at the
feet of a failed democracy, but he fails to see that his ideal state is very
much like the Spartan state that defeated democracy.
History has shown just how unjust the state
becomes the more that power is removed from the citizens as individuals and
given to the socialist state that values and enforces communalism and
collectivism. We have Communist Russia,
China, Cambodia, and Venezuela as recent examples to offer. What we need to remember is that the evil
society not only excuses the evil it does on the grounds that the communal
needs are greater than the individual (claiming to render the greatest good to
the greatest number of people), it also sets itself up as the ultimate
authority—one under no God but only pursuing a certain vision of virtue, like
social justice.
The genius of Paul in Romans 13.1-7 is not to endorse
the state’s authority without qualification—though he does appreciate the state
when it acts justly—but in insisting that the state must be under God. He says, ‘there is no authority except from
God’ (v. 1). He is not saying, as some
sometimes maintain, that because God endorses the state, we must accept it as
God-given in itself. Rather, government is under God and therefore has authority
insofar as it does what God’s Law upholds.
This view does not endorse one form of government or another, but it
does rule out ultimate authority in a state that disregards God and follows its
own ideals.
Socrates, for his part, often pays lip service
to Greek religion (the Republic begins
this way), but his discussion of socialism proceeds from a very human
conception of human values, not divine Law.
Even the slight awareness that Socrates shows of religion disappears in
socialism. In communist socialism,
religion is regarded as an enemy of the state.
In softer versions of European socialism, the state tolerates a private
spirituality, even if the product of a state Church. Religion is compartmentalized, having no
bearing on society, unless it also supports the values and activities of the
state.
This, incidentally, is where the UK is today, in
the government’s (including the so-called ‘Conservative’ government’s) fairly
successful attempt to remove the Church from any social relevance. This is also where the Church of England is,
happily submitting to a secular society’s values and to the rule of the state
as it has, over several decades, rejected orthodox Christian doctrine and
ethics. This is seen in various social
issues: sex education in schools, state opposition to pastoral care that entails
transformation of sinners with regard to the conversion of sinful passions,
interest in some quarters for the state to require the Church of England
churches to hold same-sex ‘marriages,’ silencing public evangelism, arresting
persons silently praying near abortion chambers, removing Christians from jobs,
and so forth.
‘Progressive Evangelicals’ have proven to be a
particularly insidious foe to orthodoxy and Reformational Evangelicalism. Like Socrates, they come with their secularised
agenda of ‘social justice’ that only uses Scripture to proof-text their already
formed values and activism. They place
activism over theological understanding, and theological values over Biblical
interpretation. The academic disciplines
of Biblical scholarship (languages, literature, history) are treated as a
colonial power to be rejected so that others might have equal legitimacy in the
use of Scripture. Progressive
Evangelicals grab ahold of Biblical values like ‘justice’ and then fill in
their meaning from whatever secular society understands—particularly, in our
postmodern era, the newly minted values of diversity, equity, and inclusion.
In addition to the identification and definition
of ideals, Progressive Evangelicals so identify with secular society that they
think of themselves as a majority, not minority voice. They are, therefore, much in favour of
socialism. The Church is understood not
as a prophetic, righteous community over against the state but as a support for
all the good that the state does. They
are, therefore, quite supportive of socialism.
They close their eyes to social issues like abortion. They advocate for the equal place of persons
advocating sexualities opposed to their own historic faith. They underplay Christian identity that
highlights holiness and righteousness.
They like to give more power to the state to make bad people become
better and better people to do good things.
Though a minority group that is increasingly attacked by the
post-Christian majority, these Progressive Evangelicals somehow imagine that
giving more power to a socialist state will advance Christian values. Claiming to be an intellectual elite, they
show an amazing ignorance. The book of
Revelation identified the problems with a powerful state and its persecution of
Christians. Christians need to be
suspicious and critical of all government, since it is not the Kingdom of God
even when governments do some good.
Socialism, however, is shown to be an insidious ‘beast’ as it grasps
power and forces its all too human values on society.
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