Collated by Tusar Nath Mohapatra
Plato handed the ruling class a blueprint for total control in The Republic, and we call it philosophy.
The Republic, written around 380 BC, describes a city where philosopher-kings govern by virtue of superior wisdom, where private property disappears for the guardian class, where poets get expelled for corrupting the young, and where eugenicists manage reproduction. Plato presents all of this with genuine sincerity. That sincerity is exactly what makes it dangerous.
You are reading the West's first systematic argument for central planning. Every collectivist project since, from Robespierre's Committee of Public Safety to the Soviet Gosplan, borrowed the same core logic: some men possess sufficient knowledge and virtue to direct the lives of others. Plato gave that assumption philosophical respectability.
Free market thinkers from Ludwig von Mises to F.A. Hayek spent considerable effort dismantling this premise. The knowledge problem alone destroys Plato's city before the first brick gets laid. No central authority, however wise, accesses the dispersed, subjective, constantly shifting information that millions of individuals generate through voluntary exchange. The price system does this automatically. Philosopher-kings cannot.
Plato understood human nature well enough to describe corruption vividly, yet designed a system that concentrates power in the hands of a self-selected elite. He worried about tyrants emerging from democracy, which is a legitimate concern, and then prescribed as the cure an arrangement that produces tyrants structurally. The guardian class owns nothing, supposedly, but controls everything. Feudalism, but with better prose.
Property rights exist because people think, plan, and act as individuals. Strip property, and you strip the institutional foundation of peaceful cooperation.
https://x.com/i/status/2086751301895921812
Fantastic piece by @desaisantosh: "Arguing, as was recently done, that abuse is 'against culture' is almost precisely wrong. Abuse arises only from culture. No young person has learnt these words from Instagram. They have picked them up from their parents' generation, from walking around in the street, from overhearing older people talk. Abuse always originates from within and is, ironically, a map of what a culture holds to be most precious. The source of the cultural shock was not so much the abuse, which is familiar. It was whose mouth it came out of, which is not."
https://x.com/i/status/2086638140870340837
Two things happened in a hurry in India circa 1947. One was the ugly, bloody Partition and the other was the mainstreaming of #socialjustice as a constitutional goal. We stopped thinking after that. Everything became more and more politically partisan. We need to ethically revisit both ideas . I am hoping #GenZ will do that. I find a new energy and disarming objectivity in a generation that is less entitled in social terms though more in lifestyle expectations. This country needs their free thinking that often happens when the body is comfortable and the soul is restless.
https://x.com/i/status/2086712647899369820
America's global influence is complex and often misunderstood. Discover a deeper perspective on U.S. power, history, and the future of Indo–U.S. relations with @MakrandParanspe youtu.be/w2oBRFxtOmk?si… @PariksithSingh @AmazingVedas
https://x.com/i/status/2086796957880885413
My op-ed in #IndianExpress today makes a simple argument:
How the BJP has reduced a spiritual civilisation to a political identity. Sanatana Dharma does not depend on the BJP. The BJP must rise to Sanatana Dharma. We should not support a party simply because it claims our civilisational inheritance. We should ask whether its politics reflects its values: Satya, Nyaya, fearlessness, pluralism and human unity. Sanatana Dharma is far greater than any party. Perhaps the task is not to politicise Dharma, but to dharmicise politics.
https://x.com/i/status/2086806686422212737
HOT OFF THE PRESS!
What if ancient wisdom could speak the language of Gen Z? Veda for Gen Z brings timeless Vedic insights into the modern world—helping a new generation pause, question, discover, and transform. Ancient Wisdom. Eternal Relevance. Your Story. Veda for Gen Z by Parikshit Singh- Ancient truths for modern chaos. Pre-order now on Amazon! #VedaForGenZ #HotOffThePress #AncientWisdom #VedicWisdom #GenZ #Bookstagram #BluOneInk @PariksithSingh @VedaforGenZ
https://x.com/i/status/2086703598017433672
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