–4--
4.Summary of Karl R. Popper’s
The Open Society 1 and its Enemies
(The Spell of Plato)
Popper has examined, in great detail the writings of Plato. He concludes
that Plato, and later thinkers and writers that followed Plato have
wreaked havoc in science politics and philosophy down through the
centuries. Popper presents the following small table
of word definitions. The two columns have opposite definitions .i.e.,
individualism is the opposite of collectivism. Egotism is the opposite of
altruism.
Individualism
Collectivism
Egotism
Altruism
Popper observed that Plato had wrongly placed egotism as opposed to
collecivism
In Popper’s own words:
“Now it is interesting that for Plato, and for most Platonists2,
an altruistic individualism (as for instance that of Dickens)
cannot exist. According to Plato, the only alternative to
collectivism was egotism; he simply identifies all altruism
with collectivism ,and all individualism with egotism. This is
not a matter of of terminology, of mere words, for instead of
four possibilities,
Plato recognized only two: Individualism equaling Egotism, and
Altruism equaling collecivism. [Italic and Bold added by Cap’n
Thinkwright]This has created considerable confusion in
speculation on ethical matters, even down to our own
day.” Socrates was not a participant in Plato’s
machinations.[ [ Socrates supported the Open Society; it was
for this that he was forced to take his own life.”
1
Do not let George Soroz’ “Open Society Foundation confuse you. He is simply hijacking a term (the title of the book,
actually) coined by Karl R. Popper. Popper fostered open societies, Soroz is a collectivist, that is to say he seeks and
believes in closed societies. This is a typical leftist ploy: hijack words or phrases to confuse us.
2
Perhaps the most influential was Aristotle, but Plutarch also fell for the Platonic deception.Petr Beckmann
compares writings of Aristotle to those of Archimedes and refers to Aristole’s work as “Asristotlean Prattle.”
Beckmann contends it was Aristotle who gave force to the idea that the earth was the center of the Universe, a
Typical Aristotlean error.
4.1
–4-Popper says:
“ Plato's identification of individualism with egotism furnishes
him with a powerful weapon for his defense of collectivism.”
The Great Society
Chapter 3 Bye-Bye Sweet Liberty describes events that I witnessed
firsthand as this country flipped from being conservative to liberal. From
a sociological standpoint, these changes can be described as:
A shift from an open society to a top/down structured
society.3(Sometimes called an Organized Society.)
A shift from individualism to collectivism.
The way it was sold to us at the time, was that we were being delivered
from our rustic, outdated, unjust roots and being put into the new and
wonderful Great Society: the latest thing in the way of civilization. The
president at the time was Lyndon Johnson. He announced his vision of
the Great Society in a speech at the University of Michigan in 1964, but
the actual reforms were not put into law until after the 1966 election.
Such a society would result from a series of programs that were to be
funded and directed from Washington. The programs were to be aimed at
education, poverty, cities and the environment. All these programs were
to be established as legal (political) programs, not economic programs.4
Rather than move the United States forward, improving the already good
direction in which the country was headed, this was a move backward,
down a road traveled by previously wrecked civilizations. This was déjà
vu all over again.
In the months that followed Johnson’s announcement, it became evident
that the federal government was taking on duties unheard of in
peacetime. Levels of federal taxation were increased sharply. Some taxes
which had belonged to states were assumed by the federal government
with the promise that the money would be returned in new programs.
The federales said they didn’t want the states frittering away precious tax
3
Also called a closed society.
Political efforts differ sharply from economic efforts. The political approach relies on law. The economic
approach relies on knowledge and effort, extracting something from our brains, or from our surroundings.
(See Chapter 10,Economics versus Politics.)
4
4.2
–4-money on unimportant programs. “We will make sure the money will go
where it is most needed.”
This, of course, was a giant power grab that has never been reversed.
The designers of our country (the Founders) would have been appalled.
They spent many hours debating and years writing letters devising
methods of keeping federal powers in check. They understood perfectly
well that centralization of power is the greatest threat to liberty. They
knew that centralized power is a characteristic of the closed society; i.e., a
dictatorship or a monarchy. They knew that, though a closed society is
more orderly, that freedom is sacrificed for order. They specifically
rejected order for freedom. Benjamin Franklin stated:
“Those who would give up an essential liberty for
temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security.”
They knew that, by putting the bulk of governmental duties on each state,
a competitive situation would exist between states and comparisons
between different approaches of governance could be made. Each state
would be a laboratory of Politics5. The state governments, in turn, would
delegate duties to counties, townships, cities and towns. Power was to be
dispersed not concentrated. The 10th Amendment of the Constitution
says:
The powers not delegated to the United States by the
Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are
reserved to the States, respectively, or to the people.
In other words, the federal government had certain, limited powers, the
states and the individuals had everything else. No wonder the business of
the federal government was conducted from a few small buildings for the
first century of its existence.
Even the ancient Greeks knew that personal freedom can only exist in the
tumult that corresponds to an open society. The designers of the United
States were well instructed in Greek and Roman history.6 Their writings
at the time attest to their knowledge of ancient cultures. Here is how The
Oxford History of the American People (Ref. xxy, p. 355) describes some of
the designers:
5
6
For a definition of politics, see Chapter9, Politics
Too bad Popper wasn’t there to help point to the flaws of Platonists.
4.3
–4-Most of the American state and federal constitutions were
the work of college-educated men who had studied political
theory in Aristotle, Plato, Cicero, Polybius, and other
ancient writers, and had given deep thought to problems of
political reconstruction. Men such as George Mason and
Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, John Adams, and
James Bowdoin knew exactly what they were doing. And
most of these were relatively young men. Jefferson was
thirty-three years old and Madison twenty-seven when they
helped draft the Virginia constitution. John Adams, when
he did the same for Massachusetts, was a mature fortyfour; of the same age was John Dickinson when he drew
up the Articles of Confederation. The New York constitution
was drafted by three graduates of King's College (now
Columbia): Gouverneur Morris, Robert R. Livingston, and
John Jay, aged respectively twenty-four, thirty, and thirtytwo. These men were familiar with what ancient and
modem publicists had written on government; yet they
were no mere doctrinaires. Every one had had political
experience in colonial assemblies, local conventions, or the
Continental Congress. This synthesis of classical discipline
with practical politics accounts for the striking success of
the Americans at constitution making. Their efforts won
the admiration of the Old World, and from them the New
World still benefits today.
The making of The Great Society was an act of great hubris. The power
grab in the form of making a Great Society was a great lurch in the
direction of a closed society.
Lyndon Johnson’s move was a significant extension in a series of smaller
stretches all meant to bring more and more power to Washington. Two
previous events of note were: the enabling of unlimited7 taxation via the
16th Amendment (1913), and expansion of the federal government under
The New Deal (1933).
Karl Popper states that the enemies of the Athenian open society were
disturbed by the chaos, by the unpredictability. They wished to return to
the old, predictable, structured situation such as existed in neighboring
Sparta, where everyone had a specified function, where they stayed
dutifully in their place.
7
The reader is invited to consult a copy of this amendment to confirm there is no stated limit.
4.4
–4-The Greek discomfort brings to mind similar situations that I have
witnessed. One thing is the widespread discomfort with competition. For
those who would deny this, just tell me why competition is wholly absent
wherever the left is in control, in public education, for example. Just why
are competitive views not allowed within departments of sociology on
college campuses?
Another fear seen today, common with that of the Greeks is the fear of
proceeding without authority. (See Chapter 5, A real bad Mess, how the
Spartans loved authority.) One form of this fear is the fear that someone
without the proper stamp of approval will succeed. Of course, the stamp
of approval always must be wielded by an authority. The drumbeat one
constantly hears from the left is that too many unqualified people have too
much power:
“Too many unapproved people are free to set a course
without approval. Henry Ford should never have been
allowed to prosper. His efforts should have been under the
direction of social planners.”
The closed (Great) society crowd both despises and envies Henry Ford. He
did more to change the world in which we live than any of his critics –
even if all their posturing, gibberish, and phony knowledge were useful,
which they sure as hell aren’t. This crowd can’t stand that he didn’t have
their stamp of approval. The most revered person in their ranks, be he (or
she) a politician, an educator, or a philosopher, does not come close to
the effect that a lone individual, Henry Ford, had on this planet. I think
Ford’s influence was highly beneficial, but in the eyes of anyone on the
left:
“Henry Ford should have never been allowed to create all
those automobiles. All he did was cause others to imitate
him, thereby creating more automobiles. And worse yet:
All those nasty steel, rubber, chemical, petroleum
companies sprang up to supply the auto industry and to
supply auto users. Why this whole business of the
automobile and related industries should have been
properly planned.
4.5
–4-“Who would the planners8 be?” you ask. “Why those of us
who are politically correct, of course. By careful planning,
auto development would have relied more on public
transportation. We would have used solar power instead of
gasoline. We might have even used hydrogen to power the
cars. People sensitive to the needs of our only planet,
earth, would have been included in the planning, and the
chaos and uncertainty that exists today would have been
avoided.”
The degeneration from open to closed society is unusually well
documented in the decline of Athenian Greece9. The open society lasted
perhaps only two hundred years before it was thwarted in what seems to
be the usual course of events in human history. One of that open
society’s great proponents was Socrates. His forced suicide was one of
the steps from the open to the closed society. One of his students, Plato,
professed to be a believer in this democracy, but was in fact an enemy of
it. Plato’s descriptions of politics in his book The Republic have little to
do with any republic. His descriptions correspond more closely to a
society having a rigidly defined structure that depends heavily on each
person performing his duty under the direction of someone above him. At
the top of this structure is an all-powerful leader: i.e., a dictator. Karl
Popper takes Plato directly to task and shows convincingly that Plato has
largely been misinterpreted as a supporter of the open society. Popper
wrote in TheSpell of Plato , p. 103:
Like other totalitarian militarists and admirers of Sparta,
Plato urges that the all-important requirements of military
discipline must be paramount, even in peace, and that
they must determine the whole life of all citizens; for not
only the full citizens (who are all soldiers) and the children,
but also the very beasts must spend their whole life in a
state of permanent and total mobilization. “The greatest
principle of all,” he writes, “is that nobody, whether male or
female, should ever be without a leader. Nor should the
mind of anybody be habituated to letting him do anything
at all on his own initiative, neither out of zeal, nor even
playfully. But in war and in the midst of peace, to his
leader he shall direct his eye, and follow him faithfully. And
even in the smallest matters he should stand under
leadership. For example, he should get up, or move, or
8
The French Revolution overflowed with “planners.” The whole concept is bogus. If any of us could
predict the future, that person would be kept alive to the age of 150, with his (or her) every whim satisfied.
A modern experiment in planning is detailed in the description of a 60s/70s commune published as: A
Walden Two Experiment. (Also broadcast as a PBS documentary.)
9
Approximately from the 6 th to the 4 th century BC
4.6
–4-wash, or take his meals . . . only if he has been told to do
so . . . In a word, he should teach his soul, by long habit,
never to dream of acting independently, and to become
utterly incapable of it. In this way the life of all will be
spent in total community. There is no law, nor will there
ever be one, which is superior to this, or better and more
effective in ensuring salvation and victory in war. And in
times of peace, and from the earliest childhood on should it
be fostered: this habit of ruling others and of being ruled
by others. And every trace of anarchy should be utterly
eradicated from all the life of all the men, and even of the
wild beasts which are subject to men.”
This certainly sounds like modern-day Cuba to me.
Many countries have tried to establish republics, but failed to do so. If
they were using Plato’s description of a Republic, their efforts were
doomed from the start.
Here are some myths about our freedom:
-We have a free economy. In reality our economy is directed from
Washington. Starting with The Great Society, bank loans were shifted
from manufacturing to housing and areas such as the dot-com (.com)
bubble of the 1990s. It is bank loans that lead most capital development.
By controlling bank loans and debt bundling (Fannie Mae and Freddy
Mac)10 through government insurance programs, easy capital for
manufacturing disappeared in the 1960s.
-We have freedom of speech. Political campaign laws have made a joke of
the words: Congress shall make no law . . . Free political speech on
college campuses is non-existent.
-We enjoy limited government. The government is everything. The 10th
Amendment has been totally, in your face, violated.
-We are a Republic. Congress represents us. Our representatives are
citizens like us. In reality, They are our masters.
-Our representatives uphold the Constitution.11 For many, this is last on
their list of Things to do today. “Have a root canal” is higher up the list.
10
The comments on Fannie and Freddy were first penned in 1994. Your Cap’n is way ahead ofthe curve.
11
Some do: maybe 40-50 per cent. The number declines year by year, as the ever-increasing crop of
dumbed-down “good citizens” reaches maturity.
4.7
–4--
4.8