The Open Society and Its Enemies

Popper’s next task is to tackle Plato’s descriptive sociology, which includes historic periodization based on the idea of change as well as the ideal social structure. Treating Plato as a sociologist is necessary to fully understand Plato’s political theories. In fact, Popper believes Plato to be not only the first social scientist, but also the most influential in this field. Popper credits Plato with superb observation skills and factual information, albeit mixed with speculation, such as in his Theory of Forms or Ideas (33-35).

Plato uses this theory to explain his understanding of change. Things in the physical world can never be perfect as they are only imitations of Forms or Ideas. However, the closer they mimic the latter, the more perfect and incorruptible they are. In other words, the process of decay is that of moving away from—or losing—the original Form. Akin to the concept of entropy, Plato believes that as time goes on, things become more corrupt in the physical world. As men descended from gods in Greek mythology, they degenerated into women, whereas animals, such as birds, descended from humans (36-37). Popper qualifies Plato’s perception of change as follows: “[C]hange is evil, and that rest is divine” (37).

The Republic, the Statesman, and Laws are relevant in the given context. For instance, the Republic offers a discussion of what Plato perceived to be the original form of a society ruled by godlike men. This type of society came closest to its Idea in the ethereal realm. As society gradually degenerated, it came under the influence of internal strife—a key aspect of social dynamics. This degeneration translated into a class war propelled by economic selfishness. Linking economics and politics in this way is one of Plato’s recurrent themes (38-39).

Throughout his work, Plato delineated up to a half dozen forms of a changing state. This number varies because the changes are part of a continuum. The first form is timocracy, in which the rulers are the nobility, and which resembles the perfect state. In Plato’s view, one historic example of this stage was the Dorian-populated city-state of Sparta (40-42). Popper concedes that Plato “succeeded in giving an astonishingly true, though of course somewhat idealized, reconstruction of an early Greek tribal and collectivist society similar to that of Sparta” (78). This near-perfect form of the state is subjected to instability as a result of the selfish interests of the members of the ruling class. Indeed, economic interest and infighting of the elites are the origins of social change (53). Further degeneration occurs, and this unstable state transforms into an oligarchy. Under these conditions, there is a further threat of unrest and even civil war between the oligarchs and the lower classes. Finally, a civil war leads to democracy. “Democracy is born…when the poor win the day” (40), Plato wrote. The author criticizes Plato’s view of democracy, specifically in Athens, and considers it a propagandistic parody (41-42).

Plato’s historic periodization based on the notion of change left a tremendous impact on subsequent Western thought. The examples range from the Enlightenment-era Swiss-born philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau to the British philosopher John Stuart Mill, and even Karl Marx (40). Popper points out that Plato’s ideal state has often been described as the progressivist utopia of the future. However, the Republic, Timaeus, and Critias all focus on the distant past instead (44). Popper is also critical of whitewashing Plato because his ideal society is not egalitarian but one that is based on “the most rigid class distinctions” (45). The way to maintain this system is by giving the ruling class such a degree of power that it cannot be taken away from them.

It is the unmitigated power of the ruling class that is one of the key reasons for Plato’s detailed theory of change. Even though Plato identified three distinct classes in his ideal state—the guardians, the armed warriors (auxiliaries), and the working people—Plato’s primary interest was in the rulers. In the Statesman, Plato traced the ruling elite to divine origins: “God himself was the shepherd of men, ruling over them exactly as man” (48). The author analyzes Plato’s view of the state’s power in the subsequent section on Plato’s politics.

Popper also describes Plato as a “naturalist who preferred a biological theory of the state” (78), in which the state and society were akin to aging organisms (53). It is, therefore, necessary for him to discuss nature and natural laws. Plato used the term “nature” in different ways, the most common of which is analogous to the essence of things (70). In philosophy, natural laws are those believed to arise directly from nature and to inform not only the physical world but also the way societies are governed. Biological naturalism, argues Popper, is the idea that social norms can be derived from the ever-present laws of nature, even though moral and state laws are generally arbitrary (65). An example of this type of thinking is the Greek writer Antiphon the Sophist. Juridical positivism is another iteration of the belief in natural laws in that it seeks to reduce norms to facts, in which sociological facts are equated with existing norms. Plato’s views include different aspects of these positions (65).

Popper, however, believes that natural laws are strictly those found in nature, such as the movement of the Sun and the planets, which is neutral (59). He differentiates them from normative laws governing and organizing society, such as commandments and prohibitions (55). Popper views the evolution of the conception of laws as follows. First, a closed society features naïve monism, which views rules as natural. Next comes naïve naturalism, in which regularities, whether natural or conventional, are perceived to be beyond the possibility of change. Naïve conventionalism traces natural and normative regularities to gods or demons (57-58). To show that laws are manmade rather than derived from nature, Popper argues that one cannot reduce norms—or decisions—to facts. He calls this phenomenon “a dualism of facts and decisions” (60). The author takes the notion of manmade, normative laws further to emphasize personal responsibility—one of the key aspects of his ideal open society (62).

This type of individualistic society is the opposite of Plato’s collectivist ideal with a strict caste structure. One of the defining aspects of Plato’s society is racialism. Popper argues that Plato was “the first to proffer a biological and racial theory of social dynamics, of political history” (78). As someone who viewed states and societies through the lens of decay, Plato linked moral degeneration with racial degeneration (76). In Popper’s view, “[T]he history of the downfall of the first or perfect state is nothing but the history of the biological degeneration of the race of men” (76). By using the Theory of Forms or Ideas as the source, Plato envisioned the ideal state “as the perfect individual, and the individual citizen, accordingly, as an imperfect copy of the state” (74). Individual imperfection, based on Plato’s eugenic ideas, is the reason for the corruption of the ideal state. Plato believed that a “merely empirical art of breeding cannot be precise, i.e. it cannot keep the race perfectly pure” (77). In addition to individual imperfection, Plato also subscribed to the natural inequality of people (73). Popper explores Plato’s anti-egalitarianism as part of Plato’s political ideas.