Equality And Egalitarianism In Plato's Utopian Society

When approaching the topic of a perfect society the first thing that comes to mind is Plato’s Utopian Society. Plato, a famous ancient Greek Philosopher wrote several dialogues and although little is known about his life due to a lack of surviving records it is unanimously agreed that he was one of the most influential figures in the development of philosophy in the Western tradition. In his book, The Republic Plato writes about the ideal human society where justice prevails and there are equality and egalitarianism among the people. This society is devoid of any crimes, any injustice and is a world where one can enjoy peace and happiness without the worry or fear of oppression of any kind. Plato went on to write how such a society would

A perfect society is one which has everything and is independent. It does not require any outside intervention to function. And yet a famous philosopher named Al-Farabi introduced a certain error in this definition of a perfect society. He claimed that Plato’s utopia is heavily reliant on other people. The masses will depend on the philosopher kings and the philosopher kings will depend on the masses. It will be a society where everybody is dependent on every other person. As long as this dependence exists, a society cannot be considered perfect as it has the limitation of the virtuousness of its people. Apart from this limitation he also mentioned another paradox at work. Any society cannot logically have everything. This is because if it has everything, then it must also have innovation, development and progress. And yet if it has these three processes it would mean that there are still things which the society has not discovered, that there is still room for improvement. This contradicts its original statement that the perfect society has everything. Hence logically speaking the perfect society cannot exist due to the existence of this