The State According to Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle:-
SOCRATES first asked the important questions involved in the problem. Xenophon, in his Memorabilia, recounts that Socrates never tired of asking of everyone he met, “What is a state? What is a statesman? What is a ruler over men? What is a ruling character?”
Part – I, can be read from here – Click Here
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Although he did not answer these questions, he laid the basis for answering them in his major position that the greatest concern of any citizen should be knowledge. The good citizen was one who constantly searched for true knowledge, who was forever questioning. . When, Socrates argued, a man discovers true knowledge, he will act on it and will conduct himself rightly in all his relations with his fellows
Although Socrates saw defects in the Athenian state and spent a good deal of his time pointing to them and criticizing the rulers for their mistaken ideas about government, he was intensely loyal to Athens. When he had been condemned to death by the Athenian courts, a condemnation which he with many others believed to be wholly unjust, he refused the offer of his friends to bribe the guards and escape.
His argument was that should he do that he would be breaking the laws of the state and thus making it that much weaker. The state, despite its mistakes, was to him a mother who had given him life and had made him what he was. He could no more betray the state than he could betray his mother. His method was not that of rebellion. Nor would he accept exile and turn away from the state. Rather, he counseled his followers to remain loyal to the state, and through this loyalty to help the state correct its faults and mistakes.
The illustrious pupil of Socrates, PLATO, took up the problem where Socrates had left it and endeavored to find a solution. He held that the state was necessary for the highest development of the individual. Goodness, for him, was not goodness in isolation, but was goodness in the group.
The good man was the good citizen. Thus, the state should be so constructed that it would make possible the good life for all He argued that the individual should subordinate himself to the state, but that this was simply a means by which the individual could reach his most perfect development. The good of each man, he believed, was tied up with the good of the group. Laws were necessary only because some people refused to co-operate with the good state. They served to bring these people in line and thus make the whole good.
In the state, he argued, the best minds and the finest souls should rule. They formed a class of philosopher-rulers whose authority should not be questioned by the rest of the group. He believed that since they were philosopher-rulers their rule would be good and just. They could understand the right, and would do it without question. The rest of the members of the state he would place in classes suited to their talents.
Those who had a talent for war should be placed in the warrior class. Those who had a talent for mercantile pursuits would be in the trade and merchant class. The slaves should be placed in the slave class. Plato believed that such an organization would give the best possible state and that in it each individual, doing his assigned Job to the best of his ability, would be happy end would develop to his fullest.
This ideal state is developed in Plato’s famous book, the Republic. In a book written somewhat later, the Laws, he argues that all citizens should have a voice in the government and that all work should be turned over to the slaves. This theory of the state is fundamentally aristocratic.
Plato was wealthy, a son of the most favored class in Athens. Being such, he never was able to be wholly democratic, but aligned himself with the more aristocratic thought of his day. Further, his theory was socialistic in that it provided for complete control by the state of the lives of its members. The wealth of all was to be devoted to the use of all as they needed and deserved it, and the rulers could say in what class each individual should work and live. The state was supreme, but this doctrine was robbed of its sting by his added argument that in such a state each person would be happy and develop to his fullest.
ARISTOTLE, the pupil of Plato, developed a philosophy of the state which resembled that of his teacher very much. He held that man is by nature a social animal and, as such, can realize his truest self only in society and among his kind. Although the earliest forms of social living were the family and later the community, the goal of social evolution was, for Aristotle, the city state such as was known in Greece during his lifetime.
Since Aristotle believed, as we have pointed out before, that the whole is prior to its parts, he held that the state was prior to the individual member of the state. The individual is born into the state which has existed long before he became a member. But, the goal of the state, he maintained, is to produce good citizens.
Therefore, it should be organized and conducted so that it enables each member to become wholly good. To the extent that die state does not enable the individual to live a virtuous and happy life, it is evil. Any constitution, he argued, should be adjusted to the nature and the needs of the members of the particular group. But, in any group there are individuals who are unequal in many ways. Therefore, a good constitution must recognize these natural unequalities and confer rights accordingly.
In so far as all men are equal, the constitution must confer equal rights, but in so far as they are unequal, it must confer unequal rights. Among the unequalities which he would recognize are those of personal abilities, property, birth, and freedom. You treat slaves differently from free men and those born of slaves differently from those born of free men.
Aristotle held that a monarchy, an aristocracy, and a “polity” in which the members are nearly equal, are the best forms of the state. On the other hand he condemned as bad a tyranny, an oligarchy, and a democracy. Aristotle believed that slavery was a just practice in a good state since it was, for him, a natural institution. However, he would admit only foreigners to the slave class. He took this position because he held foreigners of all nations to be inferior to the Greeks and thus not fit to enjoy the same rights as Greeks.
Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle were all unable to solve the problem of the state and the individual. Their theories were interesting on paper, and many thoughtful men of that time studied them and were interested. But the spirit of individualism as championed by the Sophists was sweeping Greece, and each man was concerned primarily with himself and his own success. Slowly but surely the unity of the state was destroyed. Individualism was no pathway to unity against the enemies of Athens and other Greek city states. As a result, these enemies were successful and the Greek city states fell under their yoke one after another. Athens, Corinth, and Sparta, the three great Greek city states, fell, and eventually all Greece came under the domination of Philip of Macedon at the battle of Chaeronea in 338 B.C. Individualism had proved an internal poison which eventually so weakened the Greek city states that they could offer no effective resistance to their enemies and their fall was inevitable.
The Positions of the Later Greek Thinkers:-
Amid the gradual crumbling of the city states of Greece the Epicureans sought to develop a theory of the state which would fit the situation. They taught that all social life is based on the self-interest of the individual. We become members of a social group simply because we find that in such a group we can get more for ourselves, because the group will give us better protection from our enemies. Therefore, there can be no absolute justice or natural rights and laws. That is good which men agree to call good. The laws are simply rules which the group accepts and by which the members are willing to live. If the members of the group decide that a certain law is no longer of value in getting what they want, it can be changed or thrown out altogether.
Injustice is not an evil in itself, they held. We are just, only because it helps us to be so. When obedience to laws does not help us longer, we may break the laws, if we can escape punishment.
The Epicureans did not believe that participation in public life would contribute to the happiness of the individual; therefore, they held that the wise man would shun public office and public responsibility as much as possible. This position, as is evident, is one of pure individualism and selfishness.
The individual associates himself with others only because it is to his advantage to do so, and he breaks away from the group and its requirements as soon as it is to his advantage to do so. Further, the individual helps the group and participates in group responsibility only to the degree that it is to his advantage to do so. This point of view certainly does not build strong group loyalty or solidarity.
It is the complete opposite of the earlier Greek position of loyalty to the state. Indeed, it is a clear expression of the doctrine of “enlightened self-interest.” Each person is told that he is to make his own happiness, and that alone, the goal of all that he does.
The Stoics took a position wholly opposite to that of the Epicureans as regards man’s relationship to the group. They held that man is more than merely an individual interested in his own welfare. He is also an individual with an inborn social impulse which makes necessary group life. Indeed, all men are members of a great cosmic society, the universal state. We all have duties and obligations in this state, and its laws are the natural laws which we must all obey whether we like it or not.
The Stoic state is universal and thus dominates every individual completely. Indeed, each member must be willing at all times to sacrifice himself for the good of the state. Individual interests are always subordinate to the interest of the whole, and the state must be preserved at all cost.
Thus, the Stoics taught that everyone should participate in public affairs and contribute as much as possible to the welfare of the group. However, and this is most important, the Stoics never taught a narrow nationalism in which a small state could be superior to the general* welfare of humanity. The good state was, for them, one whose laws and practices were in harmony with the good of all mankind and with the natural laws of the universe.
The Stoic, then, was to be a universal citizen, a member of the Great Society which includes all men and the laws of which are the universal laws of nature itself. Each man must subordinate himself to the universal ideal and live in such a way as to serve the good of all men wherever they might be.
A world society rooted in nature was their ideal. This was, obviously, wholly different from the position of the Epicureans and the other individualists of the day, and was equally opposed to the position of those who would have man subordinated to a particular state or social group, The Stoic ideal of universal brotherhood was the highest point to which the thought of the Greek period arose, and to which other thinkers in days to come were to strive,
Indeed the Stoics taught much which has become central in modern thought. With the loss of Greek independence they began to look at all men as brothers and to teach universal brotherhood and equal rights for all men. They sensed the doctrine of the solidarity of the human race and the dignity of man regardless of his position in society, his wealth, his birth, or his education. Their position may be summed up in the words, “Virtue despises no one, neither Greek nor barbarian, man nor woman, rich nor poor, freeman nor slave, wise nor ignorant, whole nor sick.” This was certainly dose to our modern view.
To be continued…
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Steve Ovett, the famous British middle-distance athlete, won the 800-metres gold medal at the Moscow Olympics of 1980. Just a few days later, he was about to win a 5,000-metres race at London’s Crystal Palace. Known for his burst of acceleration on the home stretch, he had supreme confidence in his ability to out-sprint rivals. With the final 100 metres remaining,
[wptelegram-join-channel link=”https://t.me/s/upsctree” text=”Join @upsctree on Telegram”]Ovett waved to the crowd and raised a hand in triumph. But he had celebrated a bit too early. At the finishing line, Ireland’s John Treacy edged past Ovett. For those few moments, Ovett had lost his sense of reality and ignored the possibility of a negative event.
This analogy works well for the India story and our policy failures , including during the ongoing covid pandemic. While we have never been as well prepared or had significant successes in terms of growth stability as Ovett did in his illustrious running career, we tend to celebrate too early. Indeed, we have done so many times before.
It is as if we’re convinced that India is destined for greater heights, come what may, and so we never run through the finish line. Do we and our policymakers suffer from a collective optimism bias, which, as the Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman once wrote, “may well be the most significant of the cognitive biases”? The optimism bias arises from mistaken beliefs which form expectations that are better than the reality. It makes us underestimate chances of a negative outcome and ignore warnings repeatedly.
The Indian economy had a dream run for five years from 2003-04 to 2007-08, with an average annual growth rate of around 9%. Many believed that India was on its way to clocking consistent double-digit growth and comparisons with China were rife. It was conveniently overlooked that this output expansion had come mainly came from a few sectors: automobiles, telecom and business services.
Indians were made to believe that we could sprint without high-quality education, healthcare, infrastructure or banking sectors, which form the backbone of any stable economy. The plan was to build them as we went along, but then in the euphoria of short-term success, it got lost.
India’s exports of goods grew from $20 billion in 1990-91 to over $310 billion in 2019-20. Looking at these absolute figures it would seem as if India has arrived on the world stage. However, India’s share of global trade has moved up only marginally. Even now, the country accounts for less than 2% of the world’s goods exports.
More importantly, hidden behind this performance was the role played by one sector that should have never made it to India’s list of exports—refined petroleum. The share of refined petroleum exports in India’s goods exports increased from 1.4% in 1996-97 to over 18% in 2011-12.
An import-intensive sector with low labour intensity, exports of refined petroleum zoomed because of the then policy regime of a retail price ceiling on petroleum products in the domestic market. While we have done well in the export of services, our share is still less than 4% of world exports.
India seemed to emerge from the 2008 global financial crisis relatively unscathed. But, a temporary demand push had played a role in the revival—the incomes of many households, both rural and urban, had shot up. Fiscal stimulus to the rural economy and implementation of the Sixth Pay Commission scales had led to the salaries of around 20% of organized-sector employees jumping up. We celebrated, but once again, neither did we resolve the crisis brewing elsewhere in India’s banking sector, nor did we improve our capacity for healthcare or quality education.
Employment saw little economy-wide growth in our boom years. Manufacturing jobs, if anything, shrank. But we continued to celebrate. Youth flocked to low-productivity service-sector jobs, such as those in hotels and restaurants, security and other services. The dependence on such jobs on one hand and high-skilled services on the other was bound to make Indian society more unequal.
And then, there is agriculture, an elephant in the room. If and when farm-sector reforms get implemented, celebrations would once again be premature. The vast majority of India’s farmers have small plots of land, and though these farms are at least as productive as larger ones, net absolute incomes from small plots can only be meagre.
A further rise in farm productivity and consequent increase in supply, if not matched by a demand rise, especially with access to export markets, would result in downward pressure on market prices for farm produce and a further decline in the net incomes of small farmers.
We should learn from what John Treacy did right. He didn’t give up, and pushed for the finish line like it was his only chance at winning. Treacy had years of long-distance practice. The same goes for our economy. A long grind is required to build up its base before we can win and celebrate. And Ovett did not blame anyone for his loss. We play the blame game. Everyone else, right from China and the US to ‘greedy corporates’, seems to be responsible for our failures.
We have lowered absolute poverty levels and had technology-based successes like Aadhaar and digital access to public services. But there are no short cuts to good quality and adequate healthcare and education services. We must remain optimistic but stay firmly away from the optimism bias.
In the end, it is not about how we start, but how we finish. The disastrous second wave of covid and our inability to manage it is a ghastly reminder of this fact.
On March 31, the World Economic Forum (WEF) released its annual Gender Gap Report 2021. The Global Gender Gap report is an annual report released by the WEF. The gender gap is the difference between women and men as reflected in social, political, intellectual, cultural, or economic attainments or attitudes. The gap between men and women across health, education, politics, and economics widened for the first time since records began in 2006.
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The Global gender gap index aims to measure this gap in four key areas : health, education, economics, and politics. It surveys economies to measure gender disparity by collating and analyzing data that fall under four indices : economic participation and opportunity, educational attainment, health and survival, and political empowerment.
The 2021 Global Gender Gap Index benchmarks 156 countries on their progress towards gender parity. The index aims to serve as a compass to track progress on relative gaps between women and men in health, education, economy, and politics.
Although no country has achieved full gender parity, the top two countries (Iceland and Finland) have closed at least 85% of their gap, and the remaining seven countries (Lithuania, Namibia, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, Rwanda, and Ireland) have closed at least 80% of their gap. Geographically, the global top 10 continues to be dominated by Nordic countries, with —Iceland, Norway, Finland, and Sweden—in the top five.
The top 10 is completed by one country from Asia Pacific (New Zealand 4th), two Sub-Saharan countries (Namibia, 6th and Rwanda, 7th, one country from Eastern Europe (the new entrant to the top 10, Lithuania, 8th), and another two Western European countries (Ireland, 9th, and Switzerland, 10th, another country in the top-10 for the first time).There is a relatively equitable distribution of available income, resources, and opportunities for men and women in these countries. The tremendous gender gaps are identified primarily in the Middle East, Africa, and South Asia.
Here, we can discuss the overall global gender gap scores across the index’s four main components : Economic Participation and Opportunity, Educational Attainment, Health and Survival, and Political Empowerment.
The indicators of the four main components are
(1) Economic Participation and Opportunity:
o Labour force participation rate,
o wage equality for similar work,
o estimated earned income,
o Legislators, senior officials, and managers,
o Professional and technical workers.
(2) Educational Attainment:
o Literacy rate (%)
o Enrollment in primary education (%)
o Enrollment in secondary education (%)
o Enrollment in tertiary education (%).
(3) Health and Survival:
o Sex ratio at birth (%)
o Healthy life expectancy (years).
(4) Political Empowerment:
o Women in Parliament (%)
o Women in Ministerial positions (%)
o Years with a female head of State (last 50 years)
o The share of tenure years.
The objective is to shed light on which factors are driving the overall average decline in the global gender gap score. The analysis results show that this year’s decline is mainly caused by a reversal in performance on the Political Empowerment gap.
Global Trends and Outcomes:
– Globally, this year, i.e., 2021, the average distance completed to gender parity gap is 68% (This means that the remaining gender gap to close stands at 32%) a step back compared to 2020 (-0.6 percentage points). These figures are mainly driven by a decline in the performance of large countries. On its current trajectory, it will now take 135.6 years to close the gender gap worldwide.
– The gender gap in Political Empowerment remains the largest of the four gaps tracked, with only 22% closed to date, having further widened since the 2020 edition of the report by 2.4 percentage points. Across the 156 countries covered by the index, women represent only 26.1% of some 35,500 Parliament seats and 22.6% of over 3,400 Ministers worldwide. In 81 countries, there has never been a woman head of State as of January 15, 2021. At the current rate of progress, the World Economic Forum estimates that it will take 145.5 years to attain gender parity in politics.
– The gender gap in Economic Participation and Opportunity remains the second-largest of the four key gaps tracked by the index. According to this year’s index results, 58% of this gap has been closed so far. The gap has seen marginal improvement since the 2020 edition of the report, and as a result, we estimate that it will take another 267.6 years to close.
– Gender gaps in Educational Attainment and Health and Survival are nearly closed. In Educational Attainment, 95% of this gender gap has been closed globally, with 37 countries already attaining gender parity. However, the ‘last mile’ of progress is proceeding slowly. The index estimates that it will take another 14.2 years to close this gap on its current trajectory completely.
In Health and Survival, 96% of this gender gap has been closed, registering a marginal decline since last year (not due to COVID-19), and the time to close this gap remains undefined. For both education and health, while progress is higher than economy and politics in the global data, there are important future implications of disruptions due to the pandemic and continued variations in quality across income, geography, race, and ethnicity.
India-Specific Findings:
India had slipped 28 spots to rank 140 out of the 156 countries covered. The pandemic causing a disproportionate impact on women jeopardizes rolling back the little progress made in the last decades-forcing more women to drop off the workforce and leaving them vulnerable to domestic violence.
India’s poor performance on the Global Gender Gap report card hints at a serious wake-up call and learning lessons from the Nordic region for the Government and policy makers.
Within the 156 countries covered, women hold only 26 percent of Parliamentary seats and 22 percent of Ministerial positions. India, in some ways, reflects this widening gap, where the number of Ministers declined from 23.1 percent in 2019 to 9.1 percent in 2021. The number of women in Parliament stands low at 14.4 percent. In India, the gender gap has widened to 62.5 %, down from 66.8% the previous year.
It is mainly due to women’s inadequate representation in politics, technical and leadership roles, a decrease in women’s labor force participation rate, poor healthcare, lagging female to male literacy ratio, and income inequality.
The gap is the widest on the political empowerment dimension, with economic participation and opportunity being next in line. However, the gap on educational attainment and health and survival has been practically bridged.
India is the third-worst performer among South Asian countries, with Pakistan and Afghanistan trailing and Bangladesh being at the top. The report states that the country fared the worst in political empowerment, regressing from 23.9% to 9.1%.
Its ranking on the health and survival dimension is among the five worst performers. The economic participation and opportunity gap saw a decline of 3% compared to 2020, while India’s educational attainment front is in the 114th position.
India has deteriorated to 51st place from 18th place in 2020 on political empowerment. Still, it has slipped to 155th position from 150th position in 2020 on health and survival, 151st place in economic participation and opportunity from 149th place, and 114th place for educational attainment from 112th.
In 2020 reports, among the 153 countries studied, India is the only country where the economic gender gap of 64.6% is larger than the political gender gap of 58.9%. In 2021 report, among the 156 countries, the economic gender gap of India is 67.4%, 3.8% gender gap in education, 6.3% gap in health and survival, and 72.4% gender gap in political empowerment. In health and survival, the gender gap of the sex ratio at birth is above 9.1%, and healthy life expectancy is almost the same.
Discrimination against women has also been reflected in Health and Survival subindex statistics. With 93.7% of this gap closed to date, India ranks among the bottom five countries in this subindex. The wide sex ratio at birth gaps is due to the high incidence of gender-based sex-selective practices. Besides, more than one in four women has faced intimate violence in her lifetime.The gender gap in the literacy rate is above 20.1%.
Yet, gender gaps persist in literacy : one-third of women are illiterate (34.2%) than 17.6% of men. In political empowerment, globally, women in Parliament is at 128th position and gender gap of 83.2%, and 90% gap in a Ministerial position. The gap in wages equality for similar work is above 51.8%. On health and survival, four large countries Pakistan, India, Vietnam, and China, fare poorly, with millions of women there not getting the same access to health as men.
The pandemic has only slowed down in its tracks the progress India was making towards achieving gender parity. The country urgently needs to focus on “health and survival,” which points towards a skewed sex ratio because of the high incidence of gender-based sex-selective practices and women’s economic participation. Women’s labour force participation rate and the share of women in technical roles declined in 2020, reducing the estimated earned income of women, one-fifth of men.
Learning from the Nordic region, noteworthy participation of women in politics, institutions, and public life is the catalyst for transformational change. Women need to be equal participants in the labour force to pioneer the societal changes the world needs in this integral period of transition.
Every effort must be directed towards achieving gender parallelism by facilitating women in leadership and decision-making positions. Social protection programmes should be gender-responsive and account for the differential needs of women and girls. Research and scientific literature also provide unequivocal evidence that countries led by women are dealing with the pandemic more effectively than many others.
Gendered inequality, thereby, is a global concern. India should focus on targeted policies and earmarked public and private investments in care and equalized access. Women are not ready to wait for another century for equality. It’s time India accelerates its efforts and fight for an inclusive, equal, global recovery.
India will not fully develop unless both women and men are equally supported to reach their full potential. There are risks, violations, and vulnerabilities women face just because they are women. Most of these risks are directly linked to women’s economic, political, social, and cultural disadvantages in their daily lives. It becomes acute during crises and disasters.
With the prevalence of gender discrimination, and social norms and practices, women become exposed to the possibility of child marriage, teenage pregnancy, child domestic work, poor education and health, sexual abuse, exploitation, and violence. Many of these manifestations will not change unless women are valued more.
[wptelegram-join-channel link=”https://t.me/s/upsctree” text=”Join @upsctree on Telegram”]2021 WEF Global Gender Gap report, which confirmed its 2016 finding of a decline in worldwide progress towards gender parity.
Over 2.8 billion women are legally restricted from having the same choice of jobs as men. As many as 104 countries still have laws preventing women from working in specific jobs, 59 countries have no laws on sexual harassment in the workplace, and it is astonishing that a handful of countries still allow husbands to legally stop their wives from working.
Globally, women’s participation in the labour force is estimated at 63% (as against 94% of men who participate), but India’s is at a dismal 25% or so currently. Most women are in informal and vulnerable employment—domestic help, agriculture, etc—and are always paid less than men.
Recent reports from Assam suggest that women workers in plantations are paid much less than men and never promoted to supervisory roles. The gender wage gap is about 24% globally, and women have lost far more jobs than men during lockdowns.
The problem of gender disparity is compounded by hurdles put up by governments, society and businesses: unequal access to social security schemes, banking services, education, digital services and so on, even as a glass ceiling has kept leadership roles out of women’s reach.
Yes, many governments and businesses had been working on parity before the pandemic struck. But the global gender gap, defined by differences reflected in the social, political, intellectual, cultural and economic attainments or attitudes of men and women, will not narrow in the near future without all major stakeholders working together on a clear agenda—that of economic growth by inclusion.
The WEF report estimates 135 years to close the gap at our current rate of progress based on four pillars: educational attainment, health, economic participation and political empowerment.
India has slipped from rank 112 to 140 in a single year, confirming how hard women were hit by the pandemic. Pakistan and Afghanistan are the only two Asian countries that fared worse.
Here are a few things we must do:
One, frame policies for equal-opportunity employment. Use technology and artificial intelligence to eliminate biases of gender, caste, etc, and select candidates at all levels on merit. Numerous surveys indicate that women in general have a better chance of landing jobs if their gender is not known to recruiters.
Two, foster a culture of gender sensitivity. Take a review of current policies and move from gender-neutral to gender-sensitive. Encourage and insist on diversity and inclusion at all levels, and promote more women internally to leadership roles. Demolish silos to let women grab potential opportunities in hitherto male-dominant roles. Work-from-home has taught us how efficiently women can manage flex-timings and productivity.
Three, deploy corporate social responsibility (CSR) funds for the education and skilling of women and girls at the bottom of the pyramid. CSR allocations to toilet building, the PM-Cares fund and firms’ own trusts could be re-channelled for this.
Four, get more women into research and development (R&D) roles. A study of over 4,000 companies found that more women in R&D jobs resulted in radical innovation. It appears women score far higher than men in championing change. If you seek growth from affordable products and services for low-income groups, women often have the best ideas.
Five, break barriers to allow progress. Cultural and structural issues must be fixed. Unconscious biases and discrimination are rampant even in highly-esteemed organizations. Establish fair and transparent human resource policies.
Six, get involved in local communities to engage them. As Michael Porter said, it is not possible for businesses to sustain long-term shareholder value without ensuring the welfare of the communities they exist in. It is in the best interest of enterprises to engage with local communities to understand and work towards lowering cultural and other barriers in society. It will also help connect with potential customers, employees and special interest groups driving the gender-equity agenda and achieve better diversity.