ABSTRACT
Plato’s theory of social change will not be discussed in the traditional terms of his Utopian idealism and reactionary totalitarianism. Plato’s ideal state is neither an Utopia nor the violent perpetuation of the existing city state. Rather he elaborates that form of social order which can best guarantee the development of human potentialities under the prevailing conditions. Plato definitely links social change with the psychological structure of man, and the latter with the economic structure. The order of private property ruins the psyche of man to such an extent that he becomes incapable of discovering unaided the correct form of social and political relations. Thus the individual can no longer himself decide upon the order of state and society. Its construction becomes the task of the philosopher who, by virtue of his knowledge, possesses the truth according to which the order of life must be established. The radical change of the traditional city state into the Platonic state of estates implies a reconstruction of the economy in such a manner that the economy no longer determines the faculties and powers of man, but is rather determined by them. The diversity of work and the division of labor is arranged to conform with the
society are primarily a work of psychological reconstruction. Since the latter, however, depends upon a total change of the existing material order of society, the true state is first the product of political reconstruction. The subordination of political to psychological theory is bound up with a complete change of the meaning of psychology. With Plato, psychology becomes a kind of universal science and as such identical with philosophy. Not only the social, but also the natural objective order is exclusively considered in its import to the truth and righteousness of the human psyche.
