![plato-the-republic[1].jpg](https://i.imgur.com/kCx4u6P.jpg "plato-the-republic[1].jpg")
>a totalitarian state ruled by philosophers, where the general population is forced to lead good, decent, productive lives, since they cant be relied to do so of their own free will
Yes, no, and why?
>>71926215
Live free or die hard
>>71926215
How the fuck would a group of philosophers ever be able to come to an agreement on what constitutes a good life?
It advocates communal meals and destroying the basic family unit. It has both great and stupid ideas in it.
>>71926677
Why warm 20 houses in winter, when the people can fit in 4?
Would never work
a totalitarian state ruled by engineers, where the general population is forced to lead good, decent, productive lives, since they cant be relied to do so of their own free will
Now we're talking
>>71926784
>a totalitarian state ruled by engineers, where the general population is forced to lead good, decent, productive lives, since they cant be relied to do so of their own free will
Literally what the USSR was trying to do.
>>71926765
Because it would be easier for children to get molested if they shared a home with non relatives.
They say that the best time of rome was the five good emperors.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nerva%E2%80%93Antonine_dynasty#Five_Good_Emperors
> "the Roman Empire was governed by absolute power, under the guidance of wisdom and virtue"
I think it can work leaders have some serious ethics about serving the public good. This is problematic these days. As it appears that many politicians are more interested about everyting else than the citizens of nation.
No, because I wont endorse any philosophy from a faggot
>>71926677
>It advocates communal meals and destroying the basic family unit.
Because that worked so well in China.
Jesus, anyone with even a smattering of knowledge about 20th century history would know why that's a catastrophically bad idea.
>>71926215
Extoling virtue =/= practical application
>>71926215
>forced to lead a productive life
Sounds like slavery.
>>71927178
>Because that worked so well in China.
>implying it didn't
Would appreciate it
But it's too late
Nordics genocided too much Mediterranean people and replaced them with Slavs, Germanics or muslims, they lost their great potential (See Italy or Greece)
Every other Race isn't pretty much capable for such challenge
>>71926333
This, and our leaders are so far removed from Plato that this model of governance isn't worth considering until we already have a society good enough to preclude its use.
>>71926677
>>71926765
>>71927178
The largest governmental unit in the Republic is also a city-state. Athens at the time had a population of 250k with only 30k having citizenship. The Republic could very well work under a decentralized world.
>>71926838
Literally no
>>71926784
>engineers
>having any conception of the good or being able to manage a country
Yeah fucking right.
ITT people without even BA Phil degrees trying to discuss a book they've never read
t. grad student at top 10 school
Hitler had it about right, just with less expansioisim & proper succession plans to ensure good leaders.
>>71927504
>Literally no
Their ideology proposed that the rule of soldiers failed, the rule of merchants failed, so now was time for the rule of engineers, and thats what they attempted.
It sucked.
>>71926215
>philosophers ruling anything beyond their pedantic quarrels birthed by their wild fantasies while piggybacking ideas from a science they don't even understand
Nice power fantasy you got there m8, but i'm taking ketchup with that fries.
And don't ever fall asleep on the job again or i'm telling your manager
>>71927639
When? When did this occur? As far as I can recall the USSR was never run and organized by STEM people. Lenin was a philosopher. Wasn't Stalin going to be a priest? kKruschev? Were any of the chairmen not humanities-esque people?
>>71926434
They did.
He tried to make his "Philosopher King"
It didn't work.
Because the aristocracy knows nothing of hardship.
>>71927422
Decentralized is the exact opposite of having a strong state enforce communalism.
>>71927401
The problem is with authoritarianism in general. You can't plan a society from the top down. A society with a strong philosopher class could work if the philosophers mostly fucked off, let people do their things and focused their attentions on making war/enforcing contracts/ enforcing the penal code/limited collective action projects (road building, etc.)
>>71927246
It didn't.
Jesus christ read a book sometime. People were literally starving to death because of those reforms.
Ignoring and repealing those reforms directly led to the current economic miracle.
>>71927889
Do you think Lenin or Stalin took a few pencils, a role of paper, and came out of the room with the economic plan in hand?
>>71927893
Marcus Aurelius was a philosopher king, and was successful.
>>71927705
Philosophers were extremely influential in helping run governments before the bourgeoise took power and were highly valued in court. This is why some of the greatest leaders like Frederick the Great and Catherine the Great had correspondences with someone like Voltaire. Even now skilled most leaders come from watered-down fields like history and law. No one would doubt the need of engineers and other technical fields to hold high positions for certain jobs, as Plato would note, yet Philisophers would be best at directing all of these positions.
>>71926215
Sounds like /pol/'s dream to me.
Obviously the philosphers would be replaced with Catholic priests and nuns.
>>71927639
Rule of soldiers is arguably the best
It's the only way to make a good civilization that doesn't resort to massive degeneracy within the century.
>>71927971
Well desu Stalin did do a lot of bullshit-esque shit like that. He consulted people who knew the topics, then totally over exaggerated what was to be expected and killed people who couldn't reach his goals, which were thought to be unobtainable. You're viewing this as a government made up of either all philosophers or all STEM. You obviously need both. Yet the Party in the USSR was always dominated by humanities and social science people who firm directed scientists, engineers, and mathematicians.
>>71926215
Catholic monarchy already solved this problem and it worked effectively for about 1,000 years
>>71928135
>bourgeoise
>>71928440
Uh oh, he used accepted terminology/jargon that I don't like on a political board! Better Greentext rather than respond to his points
>>71928706
It doesn't work when you defend yourself in third person fucking faggot, now I'm on the other guy's side.
>>71926215
Plato was a mess
>>71926215
Didn't this guy fuck little boys and make poetry? Yeah we're fine with shitty democracy thanks.
We basically live in Plato's world now. The leftist university professors are basically indoctrinating the next generation of people, which means they have vastly more power than the average politician.
>>71928985
If you're swayed so easily you shouldn't even be given the option of "picking sides." This is why someone like Plato was anti-democratic and didn't want the common people to vote, they relied on their wills and emotions rather than their understanding and ability to reason.
The Italian poster used a shitty strawman argument. Unfortunately for him, philosophers have been historically beneficial at working with government leaders and in their courts before the rise of capitalism. Examples include Voltaire, Locke, Diderot (established the first encyclopedia) just to name a few from around the enlightenment era. Yet with the rise of the capitalist class (he was upset when I used the term bourgeoisie), which cared more for the health of businesses than managing people in an enlightened manner, this system got thrown out the window.
>>71926215
>>71929039
>Didn't this guy fuck little boys
that was standard practice
>>71929484
>this system got thrown out the window.
thank fucking god. fuck the aristocracy, fuck the elites, and fuck the king. fag
>>71926215
No.
Because when you use force to achieve something you normally achieve the opposite of that thing.
People aren't good and decent because you force them to be.
>>71929712
You are aware that Aristotle learned the trade from Plato, in his academy, right?
And that he tried to create the philosopher king from Plato's Republic when he was allowed to tutor Alexander the Great?
Basically your post has the opposite effect of what you intended.
>>71927893
I would agree, except in the case of an aristocracy formed by victors of war.
>>71926215
I read the book and I'm pretty sure I remember him saying the idea was an ideal and basically impossible to implement. He suggested people order their own lives according to the same principles.
>>71930248
In the books, the character of Socrates says its an ideal, but the others push him to try to implement it.
All of it, all of the character's lines are Plato's words. So you can argue Plato says its an idea worth chasing, even if some philosophers are too lazy to do it.
Idealistic utopian drivel. It's like communism in that 'it's the perfect ideal' that is so horribly prone to corruption and misuse, more so than other forms of governance.
I'm a supporter of Aristotle and Cicero's idea of the balanced republic which tries to capture the best of democracy, aristocracy and monarchy. America and the Roman Republic were the most stable and reached their greatest heights when they abided by these models. The best of the empire kind of did the same although it increased the monarchal powers, the aristocracy angle was increased a little in some respects but the democracy aspect plummeted catastrophically.
It will, like every form of governance, eventually decay as it is right now in America. But it takes longer to decay than Monarchy - the republic soured after centuries, the empire was feast or famine every single time the emperor died.
>>71926902
Then he shit the bed and put his retard son in succession thereby breaking the good trend of the five good emperors.
>>71930402
Yeah, but the way I interpreted it was that Socrates was way wiser than them and so his opinions mattered more. I just read it for fun and it was a few years ago so who knows, I could be wrong.
>>71926784
Buddy you just described the USSR.
>>71929858
Now you can be a wage slave!
>>71926215
In order to be able to rcognise and define good, decent productive lives, there must be degenerates.
We live in a dualistic universe, where we have hot and cold, up and down, big and small, happy and sad.
A totalitarian state just doesn't work because of this.
>>71927889
Khrushchev was an engineer.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h3gwyHNo7MI
Also watch that.
>>71926677
only for the leaders.
the normies got family units
