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Unit 2: Plato’s Communism and Theory of Education

declared that as in Sparta the educational system should be under the direct and strict control of Notes
the state. His system of education was more disciplinary than that of any other Greek educationist.
It applied to both men and women. Education culminated in the realization of the Idea of Good.
Education was calculated to promote justice and to enable a man to fulfil his duty. Plato, therefore,
held that the function of education was to make a man, or a woman for the matter of that socially
and economically useful and fit.
The Platonic course of education was systematic and progressive. In childhood, the important
thing was not so much the imparting of knowledge as the cultivation of a certain type of attitude
towards things and men. In youth, education should be both physical and intellectual. Here came
in music for the soul and gymnastics for the body. In the last, i.e., the adult stage, education was
to be general and vocational. Education must help the individual to discover his or her true
vocation in life.
His communism of wives would be impracticable in a modern nation-state and communism of
property hardly less so. But we must realize that Plato was writing about an ideal city-state and
must not be judged by the standards applicable to modern states. His emphasis on justice and
functional specialization, his feminism and his eugenics are features of everlasting interest in his
political philosophy. Many of them the conceptions of the middle ages are traceable to the Republic.
Sir Thomas Moore’s Utopia makes references to the Republic and advocates communism of property
and emancipation of women.

2.1 Theory of Education

Plato felt that the education system of his time was in need of reform. He wished to reform it
according to the principles laid down in the Republic, so that not only a systems or curriculum
was altered but a man’s (or woman’s) outlook itself.
The ideal State ruled by the philosopher was made possible through an elaborate and rigorous
scheme of education. The state was wholly constructed around the scheme of education, in the
belief that if the state performed its task of conducting and supervising education properly, then
it would succeed. Plato looked to education as an instrument of moral reform, for it would mould
and transform human souls. Education inculcated the right values of selfless duty towards all, and
was therefore positive. It helped in the performance of one’s functions in society and in attaining
fulfillment. Thus, education was the key to the realization of the new social order. The seriousness
with which Plato regarded education could be gauged by the attention and meticulous care he
paid to it. Large portions of Books II, III and X were devoted to it. The community of wives and
property was confined to a few paragraphs at the end of Book III. Community of wives and
property was suggested only to remove the distortions which the education was not able to
prevent.
The one sufficient thing is the guardians’ education: if they are well educated, they
will see to everything. Education was more important than community of wives and
property because it tries to cure the ills at the source while communism tries to prevent
distractions that may corrupt the soul.
Commentators took note of the importance Plato assigned to education in the Ideal State. As
already stated, Rousseau described the Republic as the finest treatise on education to be ever
written. His Emile (1762) was in response to the suggestions made by Plato with regard to education
of men and women. Education offered a cure for all problems, including those that were insoluble.
It usurped the whole subject matter of legislation. It offered a formula for dividing work and
achieving harmonious cooperation.
Plato considered the state as an educational institution, and called it the “one great thing”. The stress
on education was derived from the Socratic belief that “virtue is knowledge”, namely to know good

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