How Plato 's View on Democracy Can Help Inform Us on Its Worth Essay

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What is Plato’s view of democracy and democratic culture? How might he help us reflect on the worth and practice of democracy?Democracy, particularly in America is highly regarded for its separation of powers as it means of controlling tyranny. It widely believed that democracy is the good standard in governance due primarily to these checks and balances. It is through these checks and balances that tyranny can be prevented while the will of the people can be properly voiced. In this instance the United States has risen to power based on these principles of proper representation and ability to change laws to conform with changing society standards and norms. For these reasons, democracy as practiced by the Untied States is seen as the ideal form by which to govern a nation while also protecting the rights of its citizenry. Recently, these ideals have been challenged through the rise of China and the communist party. Here, many of the principles espoused by democracy are often neglected entirely for a more centralized and authoritarian government. Here state-controlled entities have much more power and are often not elected by the people at all. Interesting, this form of government has actually been very forceful in attempted to stop the rise of democracy by many fear tactics such as jail and in extreme cases debt. Those who critical the communist party are often put in jail or forced to endure some form of financial harm. We saw that this authority has no regard for wealth, prestige of accomplishments as the government even punished Jack Ma, the richest man in China for his anti-government comments. This form of government much like the democracy mentioned above has also resulting a meteoric rise of China as a global superpower. As the country’s growth continues it will revival and even surpass that of the United States.Both of the above examples illustrate how democracy may not be the “gold standard” that many within the world assume it is. In fact, we have seen with China, that other form of government can be better as it relates to increasing the wealth and financial well-being of their constituents. As it relates to Plato, he too had a healthy disregard for democracy believe it to be unstable. He also believed that democracy is subject to the “tyranny of the majority” that appeals to the desires and prejudices of ordinary people in society.Under Plato’s view, we have seen a tyranny of the majority over the last two presidential election cycles. One such as element has related to wealth inequality and many of the desires and prejudices related to ordinary citizens. Here, the United States has seen a very rapid and robust growth of citizens challenging the status quo as it relates to wealth within the country.

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Simply put, many in the nation believe that too much wealth is concentrated in the hands of two few individuals. In many instances, the statistics point to a very bleak picture of wealth that even a casual observe would find very skewed. Most recently, the citizenry has pointed to the fact that through the pandemic, billionaire wealth has actually increased by $1 trillion dollars in 39% in just one year. This occurred under a backdrop of many millions of people losing their jobs, being furloughed or in extreme cases dying throughout the pandemic. As believed by Plato, the tyranny of the majority…

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…the nations “descent into tyranny”. In fact, as Plato indicated Trump won almost exclusively appealing to prejudices of voters (Hispanics bring drugs into nation, China is bad), wealth (Make America Great Again), and fear (All blue-collar jobs will disappear, again due to China). Once elected however, a series of deregulations, tax cuts, and other policies were aimed exclusively at the wealthy or in Plato’s terms, the Oligopoly.These views are well founded and thoughtful, but when reflecting on the worth and practice of democracy, I believe they are necessary components to discovery. Although Plato is correct about the tyranny of the majority it has not resulting in the full degradation of democracy. The nation still finds a way despite this tyranny to elect virtuous and competent leaders most of the time. The lust for wealth described by Plato although it does lead to greed, economic bubbles, recessions and even depressions, it has allowed the United States to flourish. This lust for wealth has created goods, products, services, and innovations that improve the lives of all Americans. Conveniences such as television, microwaves, cars, and the internet are all a result, to a certain extent of lust for money. This ultimately have helped improve the quality of life of all Americans. Plato criticizes democracy for failing to establish requirements for its rulers when, in fact, democracies today are governed by constitutions that set parameters for who can rule. Democracy is still a viable system, one albeit with many flaws and questions. However, through proper oversight, checks and balances the flaws noted by Plato can be mitigate to ensure that the benefits remain. Over the past 230 years, these benefits have greatly outnumbered the negative attributes described….....

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