CHECKS & BALANCES: NOTES ON PLATO'S LAWS.III (2)

AM | @agumack

"... power can be checked only by preventing its concentration" — Kurt von Fritz

In the first post of these series devoted to Laws.III I did not mention Kurt von Fritz's well-known study The Theory of the Mixed Constitution in Antiquity. A Critical Analysis of Polybius's Political Ideas (Columbia University Press, 1954). My mistake. Although largely devoted to Polybius, the book starts with a stirring tribute to the author of Laws, whom von Fritz says "is to be admired" as the first one to propose a theory of the mixed constitution:

This theory is for the first time found in Plato's Laws. It appears for the first time in the story told in the third book of that work [...] Plato is concerned with the danger inherent in absolute political power, and he is of the opinion that there must be a check to all political power, and this must be done by distributing power over several government agencies which counterbalance one another [...] he includes the notions of a mixed political order and of a system of checks and balances, though these two terms are not used explicitely.

Because Kurt von Fritz is mostly interested in Polybius, he does not deal in detail with Laws.III. Rather, he directs his attention to the Republic.VIII and to Plato's description of the suboptimal political regimes—an undeniable source for Polybius' later theory of the ἀνακύκλωσις: "That Polybius was acquainted with Plato's Republic can be proved beyond doubt" (p. 68). (Polybius, adds von Fritz, did not read Aristotle). Pages 68-73 of The Theory of the Mixed Constitution are full of valuable remarks about Republic—and von Fritz doesn't conceal his admiration for Plato, whom he deems much more "profound" —from the social, economic, psychological, and even political and historical point of view— than the historian of the rise of Rome [1].

* * * 

But Laws.III makes a comeback in the chapter devoted to the mixed constitution. Von Fritz's analysis is a bit perplexing. He describes two examples of the mixed constitution in Book III: the legend of the settlement of the Peloponnesus by the Dorians who founded the poleis of Argos, Messene and Sparta (684a) [2], and the core passage of 691a-693a about the Spartan constitution. While he makes some interesting comments related to "the scheme of a federation or a federate state" (p. 79), he devotes only one paragraph to Plato's treatment of the constitution of Sparta. To be sure, there are some real gems in here. On the one hand, Sparta's political regime "obviously" represents a "system of checks and balances".

On the other hand, von Fritz drily notes that oaths, such as the one taken by the rulers of Argos, Messene and Sparta "proved an insufficient check against the lust for power" (p. 80). Institutions trump oaths and mutual promises! Finally, the author completely ignores Plato's brilliant counterpoint between Athens —the home of ἐλευθερία— and Persia, with its tendency towards an overbearing monarchy (693a-699a). As we shall see in these notes, modern commentators of Laws.III have different interpretations of this fascinating passage. All in all, one is left with the impression that Kurt von Fritz could have written some great pages about Laws.III, had Polybius not played such a dominant role in his analysis [3].

[1] "Many of Plato's observations have an almost uncanny reality for the present day", he writes on page 69. There are oblique allusions to the McCarthyism of the 1950s, which affected many a German émigré, and to the "cruel system of oppression" of the nazi regime as it engaged in "foreign aggression in order to keep the people occupied". In 1933 Kurt von Fritz was suspended from his profesorship in Rostock on his refusal to sign the loyalty oath to Hitler.

[2] See the sharp criticism by Wilfried Nippel, who deems it an excessively lax interpretation of the mixed constitution: "Eine wieder anders nuancierte Auffassung muss vorliegen, wenn die Darstellung des politischen Systems der drei frühen dorischen Staaten auf der Peloponnes, Plat., Leg. 683 df ff. als Mischverfassungstheorie gedeutet wird (79 — ganz abgesehen davon, dass in Text überhaupt nicht auf die Verfassungskategorien Bezug genommen wird)". Wilfried Nippel. Mischverfassungstheorie und Verfassungsrealität in Antike und früher Neuzeit (Bochum: Klett-Cotta, 1980), p. 20.

[3] I have not read other books by Kurt von Fritz which may contain a more detailed analysis of Laws.III, in particular Platon in Sizilien und das Problem der Philosophenherrschaft (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter & Co.,1968) and Schriften zur griechischen und römischen Verfassungsgeschichte und Verfassungstheorie (Berlin, 1976). See "Fritz, Karl Albert Kurt von", Database of Classical Scholars, Rutgers University.

__________________