I don’t know why anyone would support a Republic, that is rule by the elite. But I have to disagree about democracy because I think they like to slap the word onto monstrous systems. Like decentralization onto a shitcoin.
Democracy as individual participation in power is powerful and why they cheapen the name with straw man tactics that we fall for. Anarchism and democracy are much closer than they want us to realize.
I think all these labels are just ideas , the idea of a true republic came from the Greeks anyways , that’s the idea I support , not the sham republic label on the current America (though it’s been this way since before I was born). Democracy has literally become what the Greeks called it, rule by the masses , and the masses are easily controlled by fear and fear has been a tactical weapon used to direct the so called “will” of the people , though I have seen more folks becoming less afraid lately , while at the same time seeing some folks that keep falling for the same games .
I think we will always have people who end up having more money than others , what causes this can be a multitude of things, I don’t think somethings wrong with someone who has a great idea and ends up producing an exceedingly amount of wealth ? I think lifting people out of poverty takes education and it’s not like we have been doing that to our nation the last decade or so.. if we were then I wouldn’t think we would have all our kids on prescription drugs, or the parents either. I agree with the idea of Agorism as well , though there will always be groups of individuals who will conspire together to keep others down in order to be and stay on top, which kind of seems like where we are at, at this point .
They aren’t just ideas. That drifts into understanding them as pure, which leads to ideology, which was invented by Plato.
I have nothing against ideas creating value and wealth as long as the wealth isn’t captured by bureaucrats pretending to be capitalists. A system of individuals participating in power, necessitates power structures and systems that will have a hard time being captured and concentrated.
Yes, the Greek elites were famously against democracy. Especially Plato:
“By simply reading The Republic (from Book II on, that is), we find the original model of the corporatist utopia that is being pressed upon us today. In the Middle Ages we find Plato’s philosopher-king being mixed into Christianity to produce the absolute monarch. We find that same philosopher-king elitism in the thinkers of the current neo-conservative movement. As Vlastos points out, the Socratic “say what you believe” turns into the Platonic “purely instrumentalist conception of justice.” We can understand through the Platonic past the uncomfortable silence of our elites today and their Hobbesian taste for law, not as justice, but as contract and fear. We can see and know that the Platonists are in power.”
-Sheldon Wolin
