Neel Burton M.D. in Plato on Democracy, Tyranny, and the Ideal State at Psychology Today:
Having experienced the limits of both tyranny and democracy, Plato sought to devise another and better system of government. In the Republic, which in my view is nothing more than a thought experiment, he conceived of an ideal state ruled by a small number of people selected, after close observation and rigorous testing, from a highly educated elite....
The ideal state is an aristocracy in which rule is exercised by one or more distinguished people. Unfortunately, owing to human nature, the ideal state is unstable and liable to degenerate into timocracy (government by property owners), oligarchy, democracy, and, finally, tyranny. States are not made of oak and rock, but of people, and so come to resemble the people of which they are made. Aristocracies are made of just and good people; timocracies of proud and honour-loving people; oligarchies of misers and money-makers; democracies of people who are overcome by unnecessary desires; and tyrannies of people who are overcome by harmful desires.
Plato provides a detailed account of the degeneration of the state from aristocracy to tyranny via timocracy, oligarchy, and democracy. Democracy in particular arises from the revolt of the disenfranchised in an oligarchy. The state is ‘full of freedom and frankness’ and every citizen is able to live as he pleases.
These and other kindred characteristics are proper to democracy, which is a charming form of government, full of variety and disorder, and dispensing a sort of equality to equals and unequals alike.However, citizens are overcome by so many unnecessary desires that they are ever spending and never producing, and are ‘void of all accomplishments and fair pursuits and true words.’ As a result, the state comes to be ruled by people who are unfit to rule.
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From BBC News Services:
Russian President Vladimir Putin has made headlines with an interview during which he said that liberalism had "become obsolete"... But the president of the European Council, Donald Tusk, was one of those who criticised his comments, saying: "Whoever claims that liberal democracy is obsolete also claims that freedoms are obsolete, that the rule of law is obsolete and that human rights are obsolete."
It seems that Putin is reiterating Plato's observation, and that Donald Tusk is confirming it.
From the remarks of Michael Hudson, in the ASECU Teleconference ‘Systematic Crises Triggered the Current Pandemic & Progressive Way-Outs:
"Aristotle explained a kind of eternal political triangle. He said that many constitutions appeared to be democratic, but they’re, actually, oligarchic. That’s because democracies tend to evolve into an oligarchy. The oligarchy makes itself hereditary into an aristocratic ruling class. Finally, thank heavens, some of the wealthy aristocrats fight among themselves and they try – like Cleisthenes did in Athens as early as 406 BC – to take the masses into their camp, and become democratic and order to mobilize support in the citizens against the other aristocrats. Then you have a democratic revolution, but democracy once again develops into oligarchy. That’s the eternal political triangle that Aristotle described."
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