Posted by lermontov 1 day ago
No! Of course it was because Plato's authoritarian Republic ideas because they, with the most surface level interpretation, share the concept of class collaboration with fascism.
Popper has many good ideas but I think this was not one of them. The rise of fascism was incredibly historically contingent. It was a black swan event, and one of the defining characteristics of such events is that people always write flimsy narratives to explain them with the benefit of hindsight.
This is a very bold claim, and many (including myself) argue that authoritarianism and many things identified fascist are the inevitable result of liberal democracy. Capitalism cannibalizing itself, etc etc, which again many would argue is also inevitable. Marx outlines the inevitable decline of profit that drives this phenomenon in Volume III of Capital, but it is also a viewpoint shared by Adam Smith himself, John Stuart Mills, etc etc. Schumpeter also relies on it heavily in his analysis of the role of private property in driving market processes.
As profits inevitably decline, either capital will inevitably seize control of the state (dictatorship of capital) or the people do (dictatorship of the proletariat). Their interests are inherently at odds, and market forces ensures that this contradiction must be resolved. Inevitably.
The most dangerous element of this cycle is how casually contemporary politics has embraced the noble lie. It twists a classical philosophical concept into a cynical excuse for leaders to deceive the public for our own supposed good. Often sanitized in intro political science courses as a pragmatic reality of governing, in practice, it functions as a corrosive mechanism for elites to control narratives and dodge accountability.
It has never worked, and it never will.
I remember a philosophy professor telling me we're studying philosophia, not philaletheia, and that really struck me. Truth has not been the primary objective of this equation for over 3,000 years. We desperately need Popper's demand for an open, truth-seeking society to break us out of this historicist trap.
But it's not really that new, it goes to Leo Strauss at least. And the whole American imperialist project was built on it.