Plato: selected passages

Plato's political ideals present one stumbling block-their authoritarianism. It is only a single element in them and should not distract attention from the rest: and if we are to have an authoritarian state, Plato's is the best form of it. (A glance at the description of the ruling class in the Platonic state will show how wholly different it is from modern totalitarianisms.) Still there it is the belief that a country should be governed and its thought controlled by an élite. Authoritarianism is a permanent and recurring mode of the human mind-at the moment it dominates five European countries.
An idealist of genius, after a brief contact with politics, withdraws from them in order by long and close study to determine what the ideal state should be and how it can be created and preserved. There are advantages and risks in such a method. The ship of state so conceived will be nobly designed and amply equipped for its voyage. The city of these dreams will have something of a new Jerusalem, 'descending out of heaven from God and having the glory of God'; and certainly in its ends and aspirations the Platonic republic leaves little to be desired. It is wholly free from the disastrous or ignoble ambitions which have disfigured the states of history, and from the hesitation and vagueness of purpose which have frustrated them. It knows its port of destination and the course to it. So far, so good.