American Thinker
By Ed Kaitz
It might be worth everyone's while in these troubled times to set aside an evening in order to carefully read Book VIII of Plato's Republic. The dialogue is nothing less than chilling in its illustration of what happens in a popular government when corrupt politicians inflame the vices of undisciplined citizens in order to destroy the business class and establish a tyranny.
Here's a link to Book VIII. Plato's objective is to show how highly self-disciplined regimes gradually devolve into more inferior and immoderate governments. Socrates begins the discussion showing how Aristocracies (rule of the wisest) devolve into Timocracies (rule of the military) which then descend into Oligarchies (rule of the wealthy). Oligarchies descend into Democracies (rule of the people) which in turn become Tyrannies.
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