Why Plato, Hobbes, and Marx are great--despite their arguments
Plato's Republic, Hobbes's Leviathan, and Marx's Communist
Manifesto are universally acknowledged classics of Western political
thought. But how strong are the core arguments on which they base their
visions of the good society that they want to bring into being? In this
lively and provocative book, W. G. Runciman shows where and why they
fail, even after due allowance has been made for the different
historical contexts in which they wrote. Plato, Hobbes, and Marx were
all passionately convinced that justice, peace, and order could be
established if only their teachings were implemented and the right
people put into power. But Runciman makes a powerful case to the effect
that all three were irredeemably naive in their assumptions about how
human societies function and evolve and how human behavior could be
changed. Yet despite this, Runciman insists that Republic,
Leviathan, and The Communist Manifesto remain great books. Born of
righteous anger and frustration, they are masterfully eloquent pleas for
better worlds--worlds that Plato, Hobbes, and Marx cannot bring
themselves to admit to be unattainable.