On Aug 8, 2010, at 6:30 PM, Jim Devine wrote:
If it weren't nailed to the perch, it'd be pushing up daisies.
BTW, this argument that an "honorable" ruling class does not need any
kind of control by the people goes back to Plato. He argued that the
Guardians would rule well because they were trained well, took vows of
poverty, etc...But how does this avoid the fact that power corrupts?
it
doesn't.
Oh c'mon. Plato (you mean the dramatic character Socrates) argued no
such thing. His Guardians take no vow of poverty--they (as per the
"Noble Lie") have learned that true wealth is inner, not in money, and
so live as a communist, sexually egalitarian, family-less collective
(while the "people" make their own rules in regard to the domestic
economy). And Socrates does not in the least ignore that "power
corrupts." On the contrary, he (after playing with some fanciful
mathematics) explains that this "ideal" ruling community would
inevitably degenerate. And the mechanism of that degeneration would
be the guardians getting married and starting families; the next
generation would inherit power; their children would inherit monetary
wealth. Amusingly, this is pretty exactly how Trotsky (in "The
Revolution Betrayed") expected the Stalinist bureaucracy, if permitted
to continue for a historic period, would privatize the Soviet economy!
Shane Mage
"Thunderbolt steers all things." Herakleitos of Ephesos, fr. 64
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