Blessed are the people who have no taste for reading or writing. When such blessed friends, g confront me with
the question – what I do whole day sitting in my study, or if I have read all the books kept in the shelf. I don’t have any proper answers. But fact remains that with e-books and e-magazines situation is confounding. The bookworm sort has to face troubles like that of storage space, or finding time. Despite maintaining restraint for any more, these go on piling up due to irresistible buying habit or due to some friends courtesy. Here the author is also beleaguered with this problem.
One day he had certain books fall on his shoulders and it provides him with an opportunity - to go through Plato’s The Republic and Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations. He describes about these two thinkers. He talks of Will Durant “ who spent more than 50 years writing his acclaimed 11-volume The Story of Civilization, wanted to list the books that would do most to educate a man or woman. He confesses “aside from a couple of Shakespeare, a Dostoevsky and half a Thomas Carlyle, I'd somehow managed to survive for 40 odd years reading all the wrong books.”
Durant on Plato's Republic explains, "Read Republic: Here you shall find metaphysics, theology, ethics, psychology, theory of education, theory of statesmanship, theory of art; feminism and birth-control, communism and socialism with their virtues and difficulties, eugenics and libertarian education, aristocracy and democracy, vitalism and psycho-analysis -- what shall you not find here? The book takes the form of an imaginary conversation, held around 430 BC, between Socrates, Plato's mentor, and a supporting cast of interlocutors.’
Plato's prescription for the ideal society sounds like it would be a nasty place to live. While reading The Republic, I felt more protective of our parliamentary system.
Plato was no great fan of democracy. He saw it leading to too many unqualified people running the country. He also disparaged oligarchy, the rule by a few elite Athenians. . Worst of all, he thought, was tyranny -- rule by one man, who would appropriate all wealth and power.
Plato argued democracy was intrinsically unstable and would lead inevitably to tyranny. In this circumstance, the people would rob the rich, they in turn will go toward oligarchy. They would end up putting forward a single popular leader, "who they would nurse to greatness."
The rich would, in turn, plot to banish or kill him, leading the tyrant to create a personal bodyguard. In the early days, he has a smile and a kind word for everyone; he says he's no tyrant, makes promises, public and private, frees debtors, distributes land to the people and his followers and puts on a general mild and kindly air. But he will continue to stir up war in order that the people may continue to need a leader."
Plato believed that most people are too irrational to govern effectively and that rulers should be chosen from philosophers. He came up with the idea that "philosopher kings" should rule, aided by a class of "guardians."
The Republic was one of those seminal texts that provoked revolutionary thinking in political thought down the ages and some of its analytical passages still provoke pause. Plato's contention that most people prefer bread is as valid in today's climate of declining voter turnout as it was in his day.
It may be unfair to Plato to judge his vision by the failure of those who followed it. But I was brought back to Winston Churchill's famous quote about democracy being the worst form of government, except all the others that have been tried.
Adam Smith: Now he turns to Adam Smith.
“ I headed down to the By Ward Market, where the forces of wealth creation and dispersal were hard at work. It's hard to know which forces were in the ascendancy -- competition or the tendency of people of the same trade to conspire against the public by fixing prices. The author feels Smith will be astounded in the new era where people don’t mind paying extra for luxurious items like blueberry and such items are sold by the produce stalls.
Smith's observations on the working of the modern economy are our received wisdom today. His teachings are considered common sense. Concepts such as the means of production, the division of labour and exchangeable value are as familiar as an old hat.
There were some surprises -- Smith was not the defender of unfettered free enterprise. He was explicit in his fears that large corporations could use their influence with government to unfairly reduce competition and suppress wages. "No society can surely be flourishing and happy of which the greater part of the members are poor and miserable," he wrote