KARL POPPER’S THE OPEN SOCIETY AND ITS ENEMIES (1945)

It seeks to defend liberal democracy against fascist and communist ideology by identifying and critiquing
a tradition of totalitarian thought whose first major architect was Plato and whose most influential modern
proponents were Hegel and Marx.

POPPER’S CENTRAL THESES ABOUT PLATO ARE:

 He is an enemy of the open society, his politics are “purely totalitarian,” and his Socrates is “the
embodiment of an unmitigated authoritarianism.”
 Plato was, like Hegel and Marx after him, a “historicist,” one who holds that the future course of events
is not open to us to change, but fixed in its essentials by immutable laws of historical development.
 Plato believed that all social and political change is deterioration, and hence bad. This attitude was
bound up with his Theory of Forms and its hostility to change in general as inherently involving
imperfection. Yet he also longed to return to the lost tribal unity of the Greek past, where people lived
as one in a harmonious and uncritical acceptance of established convention. Despite his historicism, one
of his deepest motivations for philosophizing was to halt political change. His totalitarianism was not
simply a matter of extreme authoritarianism extending to all areas of life, but a complete subordination
of the individual to the good of the state. It should go without saying that these doctrines make Plato a
fierce enemy of the open society.

For one thing, Greek society never had a tribal phase, as historians now agree. More to the point, Plato’s
rationalistic enthusiasm for theoretical central planning in politics — a feature of his thought that Popper
emphasizes in light of similar zeal in 20th century totalitarianism — is hardly consistent with the hope to
return to a primitive tribal past of unreflective unity.

Worse, Popper offers no good evidence that Plato believed in immutable laws of historical development
akin to those of Hegel or Marx, let alone that he regarded all political and social change as bad.

The account of regime change in Republic VIII-IX could be interpreted as positing general laws of
political change (as it was by Aristotle in the Politics), the Statesman presents an argument strongly
opposed to political change in the absence of political expertise, and the Laws offers a cyclical theory of
civilization that has a ring of inevitability to it. But these passages do not, even so interpreted, add up to
anything like an inverted Hegelian historicism or to the thesis that all political change is bad. In fact, the
idea of cyclical development and the possibility of political expertise are incompatible with them.

TAYLOR distinguishes between different varieties of totalitarianism. The most extreme variety embraces
an organic conception of the state according to which the good of individuals, as its parts, is simply a
matter of their contributing to the good of the whole, the state. The most moderate variety instead sees the
function and good of the state simply as a matter of its contributing to the well-being of its individual
citizens. These are both forms of totalitarianism because they invest the state with authority over every
aspect of its citizens’ lives, but the difference between them is hardly trivial. Popper sees Plato as an
extreme totalitarian of the organicist sort, but Taylor argues that Plato’s totalitarianism is best understood
as only the most moderate sort. Taylor’s case has not convinced everyone, but it has convinced many,
Kierstead included.
There is no good reason to think that Plato was a historicist in Popper’s sense, that he despised all change
or wanted to prevent it, or that he dreamed of a return to a primitive tribal past. There is not even
especially good reason to think that Plato was an extreme totalitarian as Popper conceives of it.

To assess Popper’s reading of Plato properly, we need to set it in the context of debates about Plato and
contemporary politics both before and after it.

In the years leading up to the writing of The Open Society and its Enemies, Plato had been attacked (and,
in Germany, sometimes praised) as a forerunner of fascism if not an outright fascist himself.

Bertrand Russell, Richard Crossman, and others saw the similarities as pervasive and the link as direct;
the Nazis were inspired by Plato and their program was largely a faithful implementation of his core
ideas.

H.B. Acton, G.C. Field, and G.R. Morrow responded to charges like these with what most would now
recognize as compelling arguments.

Whatever the Nazis might have thought, the irrationalism and relativism characteristic of fascism were
thoroughly un-Platonic, even anti-Platonic.

Fascism’s glorification of war and love of strong leaders unconstrained by the rule of law clash with
Plato’s critique of militarism and defense of the rule of law in what is perhaps his most authoritarian
work, the Laws.

Plato was a harsh critic of democracy, to be sure, but as Field put it — in a line worth quoting for its
persisting relevance today — “a critic of democracy is not necessarily a Nazi or a Fascist, and the
defenders of democracy would be very ill-advised to dismiss a reasoned criticism of it by a simple
reference to one or other of these contemporary views.”

Field also observed that Plato’s political philosophy has at least as much, if not more, in common with
Marxist communism as with fascism, a fact that might have embarrassed his critics, who came mostly
from the Left.

In this round of the debate, Plato’s defenders effectively refuted the simple-minded identification of
Platonic politics and fascism.

Among the strengths of Popper’s critique, according to Kierstead, are that it moved past that superficial
association of Plato with fascism and that it recognized the significance of the resemblance to
communism.

Popper carefully avoids calling Plato a fascist or a Nazi, and he sees the totalitarian character of his
thought as continuous with that of Marxism as well as fascism.

Popper’s Plato is not the right wing, fascist totalitarian counterpart to Marx the left-wing, communist
totalitarian; they are, as Kierstead has it, “two philosophers who shared ideas that, time and time again,
would be taken up by opponents of the open society.”
What Popper identified was a common core of totalitarian thought that came to have different
manifestations in fascism and communism, and Plato’s significance for modern politics lies in his
championing of that common core, not in his fitting into one or another of the modern totalitarian camps.

Hence Popper could accept the points made by Plato’s earlier round of defenders dissociating him from
fascism, but nonetheless underscore the more fundamental point: Platonic politics is inimical to the open
society.

Kierstead also thinks that Plato’s defenders effectively conceded this point; they acknowledged that
Plato’s thought was highly authoritarian.

Even later critics of Popper, like Taylor, accept that Plato was a totalitarian of sorts, albeit a less extreme
one than Popper supposed.

All totalitarianism, even of the most moderate variety, is deeply at odds with liberal democracy.

Popper’s central contention, then, is vindicated even by his critics.

Though he notes that it is not so clear that Plato would have been as hostile to modern representative
democracy as he was to ancient direct democracy, Kierstead wants to champion the Athenian democracy
against Plato — and against Popper.

Plato’s fundamental objection to democracy is that it puts ultimate authority in the hands of non-experts,
people who conspicuously lack the knowledge necessary for making good political decisions.

The mass of ordinary people will never be able to acquire this knowledge, and so this feature of
democracy is no contingent defect remediable by education.

Rather, political authority must be reserved for an elite specially suited for the relevant education and
provided with the means to dedicate themselves to the task of governing.

This skepticism about genuine popular rule and preference for handing decision-making to an educated
elite does not so obviously conflict with Popper’s ideal of the open society.

The core of that ideal is liberalism, not democracy; democratic elections serve, in Popper’s view, not as
instruments of popular rule, but as a safeguard against tyranny and the abuse of power.

Though his commitment to personal freedom puts him at a great distance from Plato, Popper in effect
shares Plato’s opposition to popular rule.

Yet, as Kierstead puts it, “if democracy has nothing to do with popular participation in politics, but only
requires that people can choose elite leaders, why should those elite leaders not be experts?”

Kierstead’s own answer to that question appeals to two general sorts of consideration, one historical and
one philosophical.

As a historical matter, we can look to the Athenian democracy itself as empirical evidence that direct
democracy unconstrained by a ruling elite can succeed and outcompete its rivals.
On the philosophical level, Kierstead points to arguments inspired by the Platonic Protagoras and
Aristotle.

With Protagoras, he suggests that because political decisions essentially involve moral judgments, politics
is not an area that admits of technical expertise, and that insofar as technical expertise becomes relevant,
popular rule can incorporate it.

With Aristotle, and buttressed by recent empirical studies of collective decision-making, he suggests that
large groups of ordinary people can often produce better solutions to problems than smaller groups of
experts.

It would be unfair to Popper, he thinks, to fault him too strongly for failing to develop these lines of
argument.

Popper missed an opportunity to defend democracy more powerfully against a strand of Plato’s criticisms
that some liberals have shared.

But liberal democratic thinkers can still appreciate the contributions of The Open Society and its Enemies.

What Kierstead offers us, then, is a measured, judicious, nuanced, but ultimately positive assessment of
Popper’s critique of Plato and its intellectual impact.

The most significant flaw he finds in the book is not that it got Plato wrong, but that it did not go far
enough in defending genuine democracy against technocratic elitism.

Modern liberal democratic states are already considerably more authoritarian than much liberal rhetoric
would lead us to expect liberals to find acceptable.

Our laws restrict our freedom in many ways for the sake of the common good, regulating our economic
choices and requiring us to pay taxes to support infrastructure, social services, environmental protection,
and public health.

Progressives and conservatives alike favor policies that would further restrict our choices, whether in the
form of taxation and economic regulation or the promotion or protection of other values, from restricting
pornography or prostitution to severely limiting gun ownership or prohibiting the hiring of qualified
teachers who lack the proper government credentials.

A liberal proponent of these laws might object that they all respect the Harm Principle, restricting our
liberty only when necessary to prevent harm to others and eschewing paternalistic restrictions for people’s
own good.

But even if so, we famously have many laws that evidently violate the Harm Principle: laws requiring us
to wear seatbelts in cars, prohibiting the use of certain drugs or gambling, mandating a certain level of
education.

Of course one might think that the harms these laws are aimed to prevent are not harms solely to the
individuals whose choices they restrict.
It is less plausible, however, to suppose that these laws could be justified exclusively in terms of
preventing harm to others, and pushing too hard on the detrimental effects that one person’s harm has on
others threatens to weaken the distinction central to the Harm Principle.

Citizens disagree widely about these laws and others like them, but few reject all or most of them in
principle; mainstream political opinion in liberal democracies is not deeply anti-authoritarian, and is not
even resolutely anti-paternalistic.

To see what serious anti-authoritarianism looks like, we have to turn to anarchist or minimal state
libertarianism.

Libertarians reject most or all of these laws — the paternalistic ones, the common good ones, and even
the ones that plausibly respect the Harm Principle — precisely on the grounds that they violate people’s
autonomy.

Of course libertarians believe that their views represent the most consistent application of liberal
principles, and they are probably right if liberalism amounts simply to anti-authoritarianism.

But if the characteristic ideologies of liberal democracies count as liberal, then liberalism does not amount
simply to anti-authoritarianism.

To the extent that our own views diverge from libertarianism, we embrace authority in politics.

Especially if we consider the prospect of incentives and disincentives rather than sheer coercion, it is not
so obvious that government should not aim to promote certain moral values and virtues and to discourage
certain vices.

This idea about the legitimate aims of law and government — what many philosophers somewhat
misleadingly call ‘perfectionism’ — is not a peculiarly right-wing or left-wing idea, nor is it inherently
illiberal.

None of us who think of ourselves as liberals could follow Plato’s unlimited extension of the scope of
authority, but recognizing the value of liberty and a wide scope for personal choice does not entail anti-
perfectionism in politics; liberal perfectionism is not an oxymoron.

Even a perfectionist willing to compromise liberalism in principle might, however, insist on liberalism
given the unavailability of wise and reliably virtuous people to make and enforce laws, and given the
inherent unsuitability of modern bureaucratic political institutions to serve as instruments of moral
education.

These points are broadly consistent with a basically Platonic political philosophy, not exempting its
authoritarianism.

After all, the kind of knowledge that justifies the rule of Plato’s philosopher-kings is not simply the
technocratic knowledge of modern political elites, but moral wisdom and virtue.

Plato does not suppose that the institutions of Kallipolis can operate effectively in the absence of wise
rulers, nor that any set of authoritative institutions can do so.
By Kierstead’s own lights, most of what Popper says gets Plato wrong, often wildly so.

One would do better to approach Plato from the perspective of John Stuart Mill, who was no less
committed to liberalism and democracy, but who was keenly sensitive to the problems of knowledge and
ignorance for democratic politics.

Mill’s On Liberty presents one of the liberal tradition’s most powerful cases in favor of personal freedom
and individuality against coercive, paternalistic laws.

The book mentions Plato only in passing, and without criticism.

Yet it offers a far more compelling critique of Platonic authoritarianism.

The incompatibility of Millian democracy with the political regimes of Plato’s Republic or Laws did not
await Popper’s illumination; it was clear as day when Mill’s book went to press.

Yet Mill, despite his thorough rejection of authoritarianism, paternalism, and social uniformity, also
found much to admire in Plato.

He studied Plato carefully throughout his life and regarded the dialogues as “among the most precious of
the intellectual treasures bequeathed to us by antiquity”.

In the political theory thus conceived by Plato…there are two things specially deserving of remark.

First, the vigorous assertion of a truth, of transcendent importance and universal application — that the
work of government is a Skilled Employment; that governing is not a thing which can be done at odd
times, or by the way, in conjunction with a hundred other pursuits, nor to which a person can be
competent without a large and liberal general education, directed to acquiring, not mere practical
dexterity, but a scientific mastery of the subject.

This is the strong side of the Platonic theory.

Its weak side is, that it postulates infallibility, or something near it, in rulers thus prepared; or else
ascribes such a depth of comparative imbecility to the rest of mankind, as to unfit them for any voice
whatever in their own government, or any power of calling their scientific ruler to account.

The error of Plato, like most of the errors of profound thinkers, consisted in seeing only one half of the
truth; and (as is also usual with such thinkers) the half which he asserted, was that which he found
neglected and left in the background by the institutions and customs of his country.

His doctrine was an exaggerated protest against the notion that any man is fit for any duty, a phrase which
is the extreme formula of that indifference to special qualifications, and to the superiority of one mind
over another, to which there is more or less tendency in all popular governments, and doubtless at Athens,
as well as in the United States and in Great Britain, though it would be a mistake to regard it in any of
them as either universal or incurable.

Mill’s interpretations and assessments of Plato are as contestable as his own philosophical views.

We have more to learn about the shortcomings of Platonic politics from Mill than from Popper.
Just as importantly, Mill’s overall engagement with Plato not only illustrates his superiority to Popper as a
philosophical reader of the dialogues.

Its measured, subtle, complex, and generous approach to their philosophical arguments also provides an
excellent model for how one might think of Plato’s positive educational value — even for liberals.