Book Two, Letter Nine

Part 2 of 6

To Thucydides, on men, women, and democracy.

I'm finally going to talk about democratically elected dictators, and I'm going to start with what Plato said on the topic. I'll try to summarise in my own words:

The struggle between rich and poor, between the working, intellectual and ruling classes, has been going on for all human history it seems,

Plato, in The Republic (Book VIII) outlines the path from oligarchy, through democracy, to tyranny.

(Oligarchy: the ruling of the many, by a select class of wealthy families or corporate bodies.)

As a society ruled by an oligarchy becomes more powerful, more influential, and grows as a nation, its governing bodies, being vulnerable to many of the same corruptions as a democracy (financial, political, military etc.), gradually grows greedy for greater and greater control, thus squeezing the people tighter. The people who, across all levels of society, demand more freedoms, more wealth, more liberty, then more land, more empire, and finally voting rights...and thus through this struggle, a democracy is born.

Democracies are vulnerable to many of the same corruptions as an oligarchy, and so, as individual freedoms increase, so too does the impunity with which the ruling classes behave. A large proportion of the population are now involved in the management of the democratic government, servant drones, as Plato calls them, I guess we'd call them bureaucrats. These drones serve the powerful people in the government, and are subject to the will of the ruling class. The drones grow fearful and obedient, and do not allow anyone to speak out against the government they serve.

This manifests as the perpetual class struggle between rich and poor, and gives rise to the people's hero, (a demagogue), a politician who cries for justice, who stands for the people's rights, for economic reform, for land reform.

The ruling class then have one of two choices, either assassinate this popular leader, or become subject to him. They usually exile or imprison him, but he always comes back, stronger than ever.

The people's hero, in order to inflame the passions of the mob, will gather a bodyguard around them to protect themselves from the violence of the ruling class. The people will demand that their leader be allowed to have this guard, “Let not the people's friend be lost to them”, they will say. This bodyguard will incite violence against their enemies, killing or exiling all who oppose them.

Then the people and their demagogue will finally overthrow the established ruling class, and install their tyrant hero, who, in defence of the freedoms of the people, will actually strip away all the people's rights and establish himself as dictator, taxing the people harshly so that they have no strength to oppose him. He will start facile wars in order that the people should require a leader, he will murder his enemies, and when he can get no more support from the people, he will hire fake mobs to protest for his cause. All who serve him, do so compelled by fear of death.

Thus tyranny is born from democracy, democracy from oligarchy.

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So...reading Plato reminded me a lot of the rise of the Nationalist Socialist Party (the Nazi's) in Germany during the nineteen thirties, and of the people's hero gathering his private police force, which became an army, which marched over Europe, east and west, spreading chaos and destruction.

When I read The Order of the Death's Head: a history of Hitler's SS, by Heinz Höhne, I had in mind that the patterns of tyranny might have repeating echoes, and that by studying the details of past examples, I might understanding something of the other kinds of despotism in the modern world. I worry about my own country, Thucydides. A looming Australian tyranny seems to be rising from the cesspit of Parliament House, and it is as ugly as the nineteen thirties, motivated by similar fears and prejudices, though it is not yet as bloody.

Plato is just the context though, a way to understand the broader meaning of the Peloponnesian War. I really want to talk about some of these speeches included in your book Thucydides. They are really my favourite parts of your book. Sure the battle descriptions have their charm, but the speeches - the intellectual concepts, and the clever, cunning, manipulative use of wartime propaganda language is fascinating.

And, just like Plato, it all feels very familiar.

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PS....
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