Democracy
Oligarchy then degenerates into democracy where freedom is the supreme good but freedom is also slavery. In democracy, the lower class grows bigger and bigger. The poor become the winners. Diversity is supreme. People are free to do what they want and live how they want. People can even break the law if they so chose. This appears to be very similar to anarchy.
Plato uses the "democratic man" to represent democracy. The democratic man is the son of the oligarchic man. Unlike his father, the democratic man is consumed with unnecessary desires. Plato describes necessary desires as desires that we have out of instinct or desires that we have in order to survive. Unnecessary desires are desires we can teach ourselves to resist such as the desire for riches. The democratic man takes great interest in all the things he can buy with his money. He does whatever he wants whenever he wants to do it. His life has no order or priority.
Read more about this topic: Plato's Five Regimes
Famous quotes containing the word democracy:
“No amount of charters, direct primaries, or short ballots will make a democracy out of an illiterate people.”
—Walter Lippmann (1889–1974)
“If the average citizen is guaranteed equal opportunity in the polling place, he must have equal opportunity in the market place.... The flag and the Constitution stand for democracy and not tyranny, for freedom, not subjection.”
—Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945)
“It is not enough to merely defend democracy. To defend it may be to lose it; to extend it is to strengthen it. Democracy is not property; it is an idea.”
—Hubert H. Humphrey (1911–1978)