Written by Lydia Collier-Wood
16/11/25
Plato’s Republic presents an ambitious vision of justice and governance for the ideal state. It imagines a meticulously structured society (kallipolis) designed to eliminate corruption and excess for the collective good. It is an outline for a utopian-like state; whilst the theories are real and aim to make the world better, the new social order is an ideal. Nonetheless, Marxist theory offers us a lens through which we might examine the influence of Plato’s work as well as uncover its nuances. Similar to Plato, Marx envisions a society liberated from the inequalities of private ownership and class division, yet his solution—the abolition of capitalism and the rise of the proletariat—rests on a fundamentally different conception of justice and historical necessity. Whilst Plato’s rigid hierarchy appears fundamentally opposed to Marxist revolution, there are echoes of Plato’s ideas within Marx. Moreover, the liberties Marx proposes contain more nuance than some of Plato’s more controversial readings, such as a state with authoritarian control. Consequently, Plato’s Republic, like much of Marx’s work, can be regarded as a political treatise, albeit one that is, like many other treatises, more idealistic than realistic.
Plato’s Republic is not a set stage for politics but an inquiry into moral character. Its tripartite structures, whether of the soul or of society, frame political order as an extension of inner harmony. Yet one of Plato’s most radical political proposals lies in his treatment of property and family. In the kallipolis, the Guardians “possess nothing in private, except perhaps necessities” (416d-417b), preventing corruption by severing the link between power and wealth. They live simply, sharing food and shelter, so that leadership remains a civic duty rather than a source of privilege. Plato even advocates for the communal rearing of children (449a–457b) to dissolve private loyalties in favour of devotion to the polis. To modern readers, this appears austere, even dystopian, yet his justification is moral rather than punitive: unity and justice depend on curbing personal ambition for the collective good. Marx echoes this when he identifies private ownership as the root of social division, arguing for collective control of production to restore equality and purpose to labour.
Despite these parallels, Plato’s model is not true communism. As Garnsey notes, the artisan class retains private property, contradicting economic collectivism. The Guardians and Auxiliaries share goods, and producers are permitted ownership (427d–434c), a concession that exposes Plato’s belief in natural hierarchy. The city’s stability depends on each class fulfilling its nature: reason for rulers, spirit for auxiliaries, and appetite for producers. Justice, in this view, is achieved when each performs its proper role, sustained by the “noble lie,” which teaches that individuals are born with different metals in their souls (414b–415d). Although this myth allows for mobility, such as that children of bronze might prove golden, it ultimately preserves inequality by grounding status in innate character rather than material conditions. This structure, while internally coherent, exposes the tension between Plato’s moral idealism and the realities of political organisation. Marx, by contrast, sees class not as a matter of nature but of history. It is a product of economic structure, not personal virtue. Plato’s kallipolis abolishes class struggle not through equality but through ideological conditioning. His citizens are taught to accept their position as natural and just, mistaking necessity for virtue. For Marx, this is the essence of ideology: a “false consciousness” that persuades the ruled to see inequality as inevitable. Where Plato perfects illusion to secure harmony, Marx exposes it to provoke revolution. Both envision order as justice, but their visions diverge on whether that order liberates or confines.
In this regard, Plato’s ideal state has often been accused of harbouring totalitarian tendencies. He celebrates civic unity and subordinates private life to public purpose, a vision that can echo later authoritarian models. Mussolini, for instance, described the state as “an ethical reality,” embodying the destiny of its people; a phrase not far from Plato’s conviction that the polis should reflect the rational order of the soul. In The Republic, power is concentrated in the philosopher-kings, whose claim to rule rests on intellectual enlightenment (514a–520a): “the wise must govern” (473c–480a). Yet this moral authority risks becoming a spiritualised form of absolutism, a rule justified not by birth or wealth but by knowledge. Although Marx advocates rule by the masses rather than an intellectual elite, the structural parallel soon becomes apparent. His “dictatorship of the proletariat” also demands strict governance to prevent counter-revolution, as Lenin later admitted. Both visions suppress dissent in the name of order: Plato through philosophical certainty, Marx through historical necessity. Each seeks liberation, yet both reveal how easily utopia can harden into control.
Furthermore, Marxist definitions of oppression are rooted in the exploitation of labour for surplus value, a dynamic absent in Plato’s ideal city. However, this does not mean that Plato’s system is entirely devoid of restrictive or coercive mechanisms. While the absence of material exploitation differentiates kallipolis from capitalist class structures, its ideological control over thought, education, and perception of reality (376c–403c) presents a form of oppression that transcends economic reductionism. The citizens may not consciously experience their subjugation as unjust, yet this lack of recognition does not negate its existence. Plato’s city, then, challenges conventional understandings of oppression, shifting the discussion from material conditions to the shaping of epistemic and ideological frameworks.
A similar logic underpins Plato’s attitude toward art and education. In The Republic, poetry and music are tightly censored to preserve social harmony (386a–403c). He argues that only stories and rhythms that promote virtue should be allowed, for “the beginning of education is the most important,” shaping the soul before reason can resist it. This control over imagination represents the deepest form of power: the ability to define what is thinkable. The kallipolis maintains order not through violence but by regulating the boundaries of perception itself through deciding what citizens may believe or dream. In this way, Plato prefigures later regimes that seek not only political obedience but epistemic submission. His city is stable because its citizens cannot imagine it otherwise.
Nonetheless, it is important to note that even Plato admits the kallipolis is not immune to decay. In the later books of The Republic (546a–569c), he traces how the ideal city, born from reason and harmony, gradually deteriorates through successive regimes: from aristocracy to timocracy, oligarchy, democracy, and finally tyranny. Each stage marks the triumph of appetite over virtue, revealing how easily the pursuit of order can sow the seeds of its own undoing.
Consequently, this cyclical collapse underscores the paradox at the heart of The Republic and the enduring dilemma of utopian political thought: the pursuit of justice through structures that risk negating the very freedom they promise. Just as Marxist theory imagines the dissolution of class hierarchy yet often manifests as a new form of centralised authority, Plato’s ideal state secures order through mechanisms that verge on coercion. Both envision liberation through discipline. Their shared failure and their philosophical brilliance lie in recognising that the perfect polity demands an impossible reconciliation between virtue and power. The Republic thus endures not as a literal blueprint for governance but as a meditation on the limits of political idealism, a reminder that the quest for absolute order inevitably reveals the instability of human nature itself.
Bibliography
Bloom, A. (1968), tr., Plato: The Republic of Plato, New York.
Levinson, R.B. (1953), In Defence of Plato, Cambridge.
Marx, K. (1978), The Marx-Engels reader / edited by Robert C. Tucker. 2d ed, New York.
Mussolini, B. (1932), The Doctrine of Fascism, Florence
Andrew, E. (1989), ‘EQUALITY OF OPPORTUNITY AS THE NOBLE LIE’, History of Political Thought, 10(4), 577–595.
Garnsey, P. (2007), Plato’s ‘communism’, Aristotle’s critique and Proclus’ response: In Thinking about Property: From Antiquity to the Age of Revolution Cambridge.
McKeown, J. E. (1955), ‘Sociological Misinterpretations of Plato’s “Republic”’, The American Catholic Sociological Review, 16(3), 183–197.
Featured Image Credit: https://midwestsocialist.com/2021/11/10/revolutionary-habits-marxism-as-a-moral-philosophy/.
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