Well, not sure if I've truly begun it or not, but stumbled across this in Characters Fine (Used) Books on Granville in Vancouver, and have begun flipping through the pages. To be honest, I've not heard of Thucydides — or if I have, I have long since forgotten the context, and only picked this book up because it was where I was looking and it caught my eye — not sure why. (A quick Wiki perusal indicates that Thucydides is interesting.)Thucydides. On Justice, Power, and Human Nature: The Essence of Thucydides' History of the Peloponnesian War. Hackett Publishing Company, Indianopolis/Cambridge. Tr by Paul Woodruff. ISBN 0-87220-168-6.
Anyway, I've been reading bits and pieces from here and there, and the language and ideas I'm finding well presented in this translation. Well, today's flipping resulted in an amusing little fushigi. In chapter 8 'Aftermath of the Sicilian Expedition [Summary]', I was surprised to see the sub-header Oligarchy in Athens, p.156, and then on page 158 Collapse of the Oligarchy. This caught my eye immediately because I have argued here and there for more than ten years that as a Canadian I am living under an oligarchy, not a democracy, as these terms are properly defined by Aristotle in his Politics.
Thucydides summarizes the natural failure of oligarchies succinctly and elegantly:
Well, the fushigi is that later tonight I was desultorily flipping through the TV stations and stumbled across Michael Moore's latest movie, "Capitalism: A Love Story." I'd missed the first 30-35 minutes or so of the movie, and came in just before the leaked memo from Citibank, which proudly describes the importance of the rich to look after their own interests. They describe the reality that in America the top 1% of the wealthiest Americans control 95% of America's total wealth. And Citibank describes, with some pride, this system as a 'plutonomy.' Of course that is a rather bemusing Orwellian doublespeak for the old and well established oligarchy, or, simply, government by the rich. Of course the American banking collapse is proof of its oligarchical nature — the people who bankrupted the banks through greed motivated corruption are penalized by receiving buckets of money instead of prison.Most of the Four Hundred [self appointed oligarchs who were to save Athens from their democratic failures] fell into the private ambition that is fatal to an oligarchy grown out of democracy. For at once each of them claimed not merely to be equal to the others, but to be the top man by far. In a democracy, on the other hand, if a man is defeated in an election he bears it better, because he does not think he has been beaten by his equals (158).
Anyway, I was amused to see that the rest of the film confirms that personal ambition, a.k.a. greed, is more stupefying than sex, and that it is leading to the down fall of America as a viable society. And lest you think I'm casting stones from my perch in Canada, I am not, because Canada is following the same path.
Anyway, back to Thucydides. I was completely blown away by how on point his description of the development of the oligarchy in Athens was with what is happening today. And here I feel compelled to slag the MBAs and the virulent expansion of MBA-itis into all aspects of society, and not just business. It is after reading Thucydides or Aristotle or Epictetus that the level of ignorance extant in these so-called educated leaders is made most evident because, when even a smidgeon of history is examined, it is clear that the human social animal does not truly create new social systems but always variations on themes that have been extant for as long as man has created social structures. Flow charts and quarterly results have no long term vision because they do not understand history.
Thucydides — what an interesting find.
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