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Comment by BrandonM | Hacker News Reader

In The Republic, Plato argues that the best form of rule is philosopher-kings; your answer seems to be the same. I tend to agree, but of course the logistics of finding such a ruler are difficult and subject to corruption.

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He also advocates slavery. And proposes a system in which all women are grouped into a pool of common wives, on the basis that when no one knows which child was fathered by whom, every man will have fatherly feelings for every child and every child will respect every man as they would respect their father. And argues that theatrical performances should be illegal. As well as many other things.

Do you believe that discredits his argument for philosopher-kings? Ideas rule, it doesn't matter who had them or what other ideas they had.

Um, the problem with your statement is that.. if you recall from reading The Republic, Plato's Socrates's definition of justice is a defined society with a lot of moving parts. If you discredit some moving parts then you dismantle the entire argument.

I much prefer Zeno's Republic, where everyone is equal but strives to be wise.

Really, I think that there is no such thing as a perfect government, only a perfect citizenry, because the power of a government is always derived from the people within it. A philosopher king would not be able to maintain power unless either A) he was omnipotent or B) the people allowed him to remain in power.

or C) he was tyrannical or D) the army supported him or E) the people didn't care or F) he subdued the people with drugs or G) ...

False dichotomies are the sceptre of the philosopher king‽

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