Page 31 - DPOL201_WESTERN_POLITICAL_THOUGHT_ENGLISH

Unit 2: Plato’s Communism and Theory of Education

moral and social principle which would govern the Ideal State. He ruled out wealth, gender Notes
and birth as criteria for distributing privileges and favours. Theoretically, children born in
one class could reach the top but that was more an exception than the rule. Plato’s classification
was similar to the rigid caste distinctions practised in ancient India. However, his classes
were not castes, for membership in them was not hereditary (Sabine ibid: 63). Society was
sustained by a rigorous educational system and the science of eugenics. A glaring shortcoming
is the silence on the institution of slavery in the Republic. This does not mean that Plato
abolished the institution. Slavery was the basis of Greek economies. It is interesting that until
Campanella, all Utopias presupposed slavery.
• Education would craft out every individual according to his potential, thus emphasizing the
importance of nurture and training. The science of eugenics, conducted with utmost secrecy
and careful selection of the mates, would ensure that genetic endowments were carefully
transmitted to the children, thereby underlining that nature and nurture together shaped
and formed an individual. Heredity was important to the extent that it supplied the raw
material, but it was training and discipline that made possible the complete development of
an individual. It conveyed the optimism of human excellence and perfection, though it
expressed very little faith in the qualities of the average person. While education in arts was
more a reform of the Athenian curriculum, the scheme of higher education was the most
innovative. Plato overlooked the positive side of Athenian education, namely its creativity,
all round excellence and human versatility. The fact that Plato recommended state-controlled
compulsory education implied that he rejected its privatization and commercialization. Plato
was convinced that good education would result in the overall improvement of society and
that “if education is neglected, it matters little what else the state does”.
• Interestingly, since Plato, this idea has remained a cornerstone of Western societies. Even the
guru of laissez faire and the minimal state, Smith, insisted that education, along with defence,
and law and order, should be under the control of the state. The success of East Asia is
largely due to a widespread, compulsory, state-controlled education system. Eugenics was
prescribed with a view to preserving purity and quality, emphasizing that few were better
than the many, thus suggesting racial overtones (Popper 1945: Vol. I). Society was strictly
controlled with the help of censorship in art and literature and diet restrictions.
• Plato was the first to allow women to become rulers and legislators. His scheme of collective
households, temporary marriages and common childcare were accepted as necessary
conditions for the emancipation of women by the socialists of the eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries. But he was not a feminist in the modern sense in which the term has been used,
namely giving women an equal and independent status with rights.
• He understood individuality within a social context, and equality within a social stratum. He
advocated sexual equality with the purpose of utilizing women’s resources for the benefit
and development of the community as a whole. However, it was to his credit that he was the
first to point out that any sexual discrimination had to be justified.
• The whole bent of Plato’s thought was the welfare and development of the community.
Adeimantus, provoked by the startling proposals relating to family and property for the
guardian class, stated that the guardians would not be happy by these strict ascetic measures
but Plato pointed out that the happiness of the whole community and not of a particular
class was the aim. Furthermore, Plato pointed out that the happiness of the guardians were
not being sacrificed for the happiness of the society. Despite being an anti-individualist, he
made a strong defence for the individual— “his justice, his security and his freedom from
want, uncertainty and ignorance”. One could discern a devotion to the individual as well as
a devotion to the state in his political writings. The state was not repressive, but the source

LOVELY PROFESSIONAL UNIVERSITY 25