Having lived through different regimes of governance, Plato had a strong opinion on what the best structure of government is. He was of the view that the best leader or king was one who was blessed with a lot of wisdom and understanding accompanied with strong military skills. This way he would be able to rule the kingdom wisely and in a just manner while efficiently defending the kingdom from its enemies when the need arose. Plato was a renowned political philosopher with profound ideas about governance. He believed that even the best government eventually transformed from one form to another. Plato stated there existed five regimes of governance namely; aristocracy, timocracy, oligarchy, democracy and finally tyranny. He insisted that the governments transformed into each other moving from the best to the worst. He considered aristocracy to be the best mode of authority among the five regimes while tyranny was the devil of them all.
An aristocracy is a form of governance where a philosopher leader rules the state or Kingdom. He felt that such a kingdom or state is composed of three classes; the first class was made up of the leaders, the second by the military personnel while the third comprises the majority of the people. This structure led to a prominent kingdom that was peaceful and justly governed. As time passes leadership moves from aristocracy down to tyranny where a single man seizes power and oppresses the people taking away their much-earned freedom to do as they please. This form of government is chaotic and oppressive, but the inhabitants of the region lack the power and mean to change the mode of authority (Stephen, 2002).
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These regimes have been in existence since Plato’s era and continue to govern even in the contemporary world. For instance, there have been various cases of tyrant leaders in the world with the citizens of those states pleading with others to help them remove a tyrant from power. One of the greatest tyrant leaders today is Robert Mugabe, president of the Zimbabwe, Africa. He is rumored to have rigged his way to power and has contributed in the diminishing of the welfare of the inhabitants of Zimbabwe. He is known to have caused approximately 3 million citizens to lose their homes with the excuse of Land Reform programs. Instead of improving the general welfare of the states, he has succeeded in infringing the rights if the citizens and contributing to the low productivity levels of the state. It goes to show how states when given too much power end up with an oppressive government.
Most of the contemporary states are lead through democracy. In this case, each person has the right to do as they please. There are freedom rights drafted in the constitution that assist in the governance of such a state. The United States is an example of a country lead through democracy with the majority of the citizens being those of the third class. These shows that Plato’s concepts of governance are still valid today. History has shown that tyrant leaders have risen from democratic states to overpower such democratic leaders and to take control. According to Plato, this is as a result of giving the third class people too much freedom of expression that makes it easy for a tyrant to gather the necessary resources that would enable them to power (Bramman, 2007).
It is evident that Plato’s concept of government continues to be active to date. The world changes with time but some things remain unchanged over the years. Modes of governance are passed down from one generation to the other but as they do so, various changes in the modes of governance result in the transformation of one regime to another. He, however, states that the best mode of governance is aristocracy since the leaders are wise and just. They rule justly and efficiently improving the welfare of the people. It is the most efficient way to leadership.
References
Bramann, J. K. (2007). Educating Rita and Other Philosophical Movies. Frostburg: Frostburg State University
Cahn, S .M. (2002). Classics of Political and Moral Philosophy . New York: Oxford University Press
