What Is Democracy? Democracy Explained Simply

Democracy is the most common form of government in the western world. In this video we will look at Plato’s definition of democracy in the Republic and why he detested it, and contrast that with our modern understanding of it. I highly recommend you watch my other videos on Aristocracy, Timocracy and Oligarchy before watching this video, the links are in the description. Also, subscribe for the final episode on Tyranny. Let’s get to it.

Plato's Five Regimes series-    • Plato's Five Regimes  

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The word for word definition of Democracy is rule by the people, Plato’s represents democracy as very similar to anarchy, and the first form of rule by many. In Plato’s conception of the government system degenerating from Aristocracy all the way to Tyranny, Democracy is the 4th system in this cycle. After Oligarchy has led to a society rife with inequality, the lower classes revolt and institute rule by the many in which freedom and equality are the law. People are driven by self interest, they do whatever they want to do.

It’s easy to see why Plato disliked this kind of system, because an ideology of mob rule, led to the death of his mentor Socrates. As well as this Plato believed that complete equality naturally bred paranoia leading to people instituting tyrants which we’ll find out about in the next episode. However it is important to caveat that democracies are not all bad, contrary to Plato’s opinions. Modern liberal democracies succeed in maintaining hierarchy and avoiding mob rule by combining free and fair elections with constitutions that protect the minority as well as securing certain rights that majoritarian decisions can’t do away with, e.g. freedom of speech etc.

To conclude, Plato’s highly pessimistic definition of democracy raises some legitimate concerns about rule by the majority, his main one being that it risks leading to Tyranny, our subject for next week. Modern societies have found a way to prevent this from happening by utilising checks and balances. Thanks for watching, please like share and subscribe.

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