/siberia/ - Off-topic

grace grace

grace grace grace grace grace grace

Is corporatist sentiment unfounded with monarchy?
I don't believe it is. Even the Church itself is called
>The Body of Christ
Which is a corporatist mantra – indeed, the Church is supposed to act like one body, does it not?
It is strange, then, the Medievalists (like the Tocquevillists & De Jouvenel) would detest corporatist thinking most of all – and strike boldly to say that a kingdom should not act like one unitary body or one personhood.
De Jouvenel - The Republic of Old:
>"It thus appears that the rulers do not form, as in our modern society, a coherent body which, from the minister of state down to the policeman, moves as one piece."
Now granted this to Medievalists or Tocquevillists – just because by accident of history that Medieval states didn't operate as State Corporatism or as One Body, that still doesn't disqualify the compatibility of Monarchies with Corporatist sentiment or if it is better that way.
A big difference I see between absolutist & mixed constitutionalist sentiment is here:
While the former believes in solidifying & keep integral the unity & sovereignty of the State to keep its stability, the other stresses division and mediocrity for to stress stability.
Back to Plato's Republic & Aristotle's Politics:
For Plato, common feeling & unity was the anchor of States; for Aristotle, mediocrity, pluralism, & a strong middle class was the anchor of States.
The former is maintained in Fascism/Absolutism, the latter for Distributism.
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This video is a good highlight of this opposition in views:
>Liberal democracies are defined by the fact they are organized in exactly the manner that Hobbes claimed was the source of disaster. We have divided Sovereignty between several institutions of the State.
>The essential idea is that a State must conduct itself according to a Constitution, as judged by an independent judiciary, and that the laws are made by a Legislature elected by the people.
>But who is Sovereign? The people, the government that holds power in the legislature, or the judges who administer the law of the land?
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Hobbes on mixed constitutionalism
>Sometimes also in the merely civil government there be more than one soul… For although few perceive that such government is not government, but division of the Commonwealth into three factions, and call it mixed monarchy; yet the truth is that it is not one independent Commonwealth, but three independent factions; nor one representative person, but three. In the Kingdom of God there may be three persons independent, without breach of unity in God that reigneth; but where men reign, that be subject to diversity of opinions, it cannot be so.

I doubt the right libertarian De Jouvenel would agree with that video: modern day states are (from what I can tell) organized like that and are corporatist landscapes, not democracies but monocracies or something, but you know what I mean, audience.
Whereas Fascists look at modern states and say they are not corporatist enough:
>"It was not a State, but a system of badly organized prefectures, in which the prefect had but one preoccupation: that of being an efficient electoral errand boy," said ᴉuᴉlossnW.

Speaking for myself, I am usually cast between modern sensibilities and traditionalist / classical & antiquated sensibilities.
I find myself nodding in agreement with Hobbes for areas he finds classical sensibilities unprofitable (whether it be the Greeks or Romans like Aristotle, Plato, Xenophon, Cicero, etc). –So I sometimes lean towards the modern.
The main reason why I cite Plato in my threads is when talking to Rightwingers – rightwingers usually want a history or precedent before anything is valid, on account of how old a given thing is (which for my main audience usually means medieval or older). So for monarchists who doubt the history of hereditary monarchy (& think it is an innovation), I'll cite Xenophon's Cyropaedia where Cyrus says he'll take the older son.
My agreement with the need of an arbiter or maybe the utility of fear – that is a very modern sensibility, but like I said I can see why fear might be a unifying factor (even if that opinion is unorthodox).
I'm sort of a cherrypicker between these traditionalist / classical & antiquated versus modern sensibilities. For the record, there are times where I don't like and disagree with Plato's teachings or even Bodin's. & I'm somewhat guilty of using their authority, if need be But it isn't always an endorsement when I quote names, just a cherry I plucked.
I don't consider myself married to a particular school of thought (even if I prefer some over others), but I definitely have priorities with the political persuasion / bias. That will probably annoy some people.

I definitely diverge with the conservative/traditionalist sentiment with the classics: where once some legislators institute a law, it is to be considered unchangeable and the law of God, permanently and static. And the sentiment that not even legislators create a law (when even if they are discovering them or not, some people are clearly instituting them and I can't pretend that is not what is happening – even if they measure it with some knowledge, science, or discovery).
That is re-affirmed with Plato (who championed this) – although this is also acknowledged with the laws of nature, but not human laws (which Bodin says can be changed by a sovereign power).
I've seen the appeal to the former sentiment (esp. in succession laws), but I also cannot help but see Hobbes' sentiment as well.
>And therefore this is another Errour of Aristotles Politiques, that in a wel ordered Common-wealth, not Men should govern, but the Laws. What man, that has his naturall Senses, though he can neither write nor read, does not find himself governed by them he fears, and beleeves can kill or hurt him when he obeyeth not? or that believes the Law can hurt him; that is, Words, and Paper, without the Hands, and Swords of men?
(For Aristotle's part is also what Plato says, ultimately with an appeal to theocracy and the rule of God, not man, through laws – for the most part is said for the laws of God and Nature in absolutist rhetoric, but human laws are subject to change and legislation of a sovereign power).

There are some sentiments for the Classics I nitpick about & feel are abused.
1.
>Plato's maxim that the best rulers are those who are least interested.
(People have grabbed this teaching and really ran away with it – probably in ways Plato himself would not be happy with. For instance, constitutional monarchists and Tolkieneque types have run away with this idea to say the best King is only really interested in race horses and collecting stamps (Plato would probably view this as decadence that comes with wealth) and leaving to the Prime Minister the affairs of State – (Which Plato was also against, his opinion was that his rulers should be compelled to rule, not just leisure).
Tbh, I have a gripe with this maxim, because anyone who has any ambition or takes the mantle is considered a tyrant and now grill bros and Bill from King of the Hill are considered your ideal rulers. Would this maxim make any sense for any other job (that the best people for you to employ are those least interested in doing it?) What if someone wants to do it because they truly have the expertise – while the person who doesn't want to do it doesn't because they wouldn't know any better. There's a lot of reasons why people might not want to be rulers, but that doesn't make them qualified for their disinterest – maybe if they knew the full extent of the responsibility and didn't want the burden, that would be a sign of wise rulers.
2.
>Plato's description of tyrants being drawn out and overly dramatic and melancholic
It might be my own privy sensibilities concerning monarchy (so I definitely agree with Hobbes there in not liking the classics). Even if it is a nominalist criteria, I feel great sympathy for Hobbes there in his complaint with the ancients (& for him, Aristotle).
Some descriptions I'd gripe about, it might be the translator, like
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>He will rob the citizens of their slaves; he will then set them free and enroll them in his body-guard.
Eh, using the manpower of slaves might be convenient policy if the citizens themselves don't want to go to war.

>The time has arrived when he will be compelled to flatter divers of his slaves, and make many promises to them of freedom and other things, much against his will–he will have to cajole his own servants.
Sadly, seems like the state of any ruler, always having to flatter the caprice of some of his subjects, be it a slave or a rich nobleman and make promises to the detriment of their state.

>His soul is dainty and greedy, and yet alone, of all men in the city, he is never allowed to go on a journey, or to see the things which other freemen desire to see, but he lives in his hole like a woman hidden in the house, and is jealous of any other citizen who goes into foreign parts and sees anything of interest.
Seems like a burden of most responsible rulers (not being to go anywhere they want).

>>710058
Ngl, audience, I HATE that maxim of Plato whenever I see it abused. It is so seedy and seems to have no relevance whatsoever.
The worst part about this whole pretense that the best rulers are disinterested is that the rulers they would consider tyrants themselves know about Plato's teaching and will pretend to humblebrag and show a false humility when they are finally compelled by pleading in a show to take the mantle of government.

>>710058
Plato would have died of a heart attack after seeing modern China.
>The higher up in the party you are the more your movements are restricted
>Your passport is permanently seized so you can't travel anywhere without permission
>Hundreds of staff tasked with monitoring you for corruption who will get rewarded if they catch you screwing up so they are literallly incentivized to paint all your actions in the worst possible light
>Citizens can file all sorts of official complaints that have to be followed up on and if any of them are true you are immediately terminated
>The bureaucracy itself hosts regular struggle sessions where you have to admit to things you messed up on and if you refuse to admit to anything you are seen as a liar and placed under heavy suspicion
The communists have perfected tyranny. But tyranny is good and thomas jefferson and john locke and burke and all the other libtards were wrong.

>>710217
His description in general of a tyrant cloistered up by his servants and held in his home is not too far from describing the state of Chinese Emperors being in the Forbidden City with eunuchs, I'd figure.
Tbh, I'm glad to have some modern sensibilities from Bodin or Hobbes (who will criticize an Aristotle or Plato occasionally) – other monarchists will chastise this and say NO that people have to do only a pure antique study (honestly the same for other historians – I see Dovahatty complaining about Mary Beard and how she doesn't think any of the Roman Emperors would be ideal and that they're all autocrats – well, classical education would probably say the same for the vast majority as well, i.e. that they were tyrants, like Hobbes laments that all monarchs they considered tyrants).
But back to the teaching that the best rulers are those who are disinterested – I really find the way this teaching is received to be incredibly corny and cliché like this video with the porn actress abusing this virgin old man, and like I said the people they consider the worst people they don't want near the seat of power are self-aware of it and know how to play that game.
I myself will humblebrag and say,
>No, I don't really care to get involved in X activity or join your group, I'm just a humble autist.
Knowing that makes me look better in the eyes of people (because of Plato's teaching). So even I'm guilty of humblebragging.

Take, for example, these rulers.
A lot of what Tolkien says here is sheer Plato mixed with Right Libertarian / pastoralist sentimentality (that I think Aristotle would approve of).
A lot of people in the e-monarchist community praise Tolkien for these corny sentiments, but I sort of cringe at a few of these passages.
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/j-r-r-tolkien-from-a-letter-to-christopher-tolkien
>My political opinions lean more and more to Anarchy (philosophically understood, meaning abolition of control not whiskered men with bombs) – or to 'unconstitutional' Monarchy.
>If people were in the habit of referring to 'King George's council, Winston and his gang', it would go a long way to clearing thought, and reducing the frightful landslide into Theyocracy.
>Anyway the proper study of Man is anything but Man; and the most improper job of any man, even saints (who at any rate were at least unwilling to take it on), is bossing other men. Not one in a million is fit for it, and least of all those who seek the opportunity.
>The mediævals were only too right in taking nolo efiscopari as the best reasona man could give to others for making him a bishop.
When Tolkien says that he is an anarchist – he's mirroring Plato's sentiments that God rather than men should rule and a longing for Theocracy… which… is the kind of conservative sentimentality I would cringe at, lauding anarchy (no man should really rule) on pretense that God should rule – I understand it is a rebuke of humanist tendencies, and Plato has bit of storytelling retelling a time when a Deity ruled mankind like men rule over cattle – and that in this benevolence placed demigods over mankind, and for men themselves the rule of law (theocracy)… but c'mon, that doesn't end up with anarchy, Tolkien, this makes a high church advocate like him sound like a low church prot who thinks all he needs is his Bible to mediate between the affairs of men, but whatever the case Plato acknowledges that men could have a likeliness of god and also an impurity (so I figure that is how rulers are justified).
Emperor Gaius Caligula himself was probably aware of this fable Plato spoke of about a golden age where men were ruled by demigods in his Laws and so said quote-related.
Plus Plato was for a concept of Statehood where there was a kind of corporatist unity or men acting as one man (that Tolkien condemns, probably for his Right Libertarian sentiment which is more derivative of Aristotle's teaching, I think).
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Then Tolkien proudly proclaims,
>Give me a king whose chief interest in life is stamps, railways, or race-horses!
At this, I just can't relate to: there's a reason why most of /pol/ falls behind a man like Hitler who had really grand ambitions for Germany or /leftypol/ behind Marx or Lenin or Stalin – or to be frank any other leader figure who has visions or grand schemes (to be frank, much like Plato himself envisions a scheme of a Kallipolis).
But what Tolkien proclaims right there is the epitome of grill bro sentimentality that only the right libertarians find appealing.
Tolkien is referring to K. George V with that proclamation…
And Tolkien continues,
>And who has the power to sack his Vizier (or whatever you care to call him) if he does not like the cut of his trousers.
Of course, the prime minister… who while the king does the stamp-collecting, the PM will do that – which really is self-defeating about Plato's whole scheme of compelling these enlightened disinterested rulers to do the task of ruling, so now we're back to square number one, where these ambitious men we don't want to have power, like the prime minister or whoever, who actually seek the office, get it, what was the point of all this?
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I think of another king who was also into hobbies like that (that monarchists seem to laud) was Victor Emmanuel III, who also was really into collecting coins and stamps.
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The only advice that his father Umberto ever gave his heir was
>Remember: to be a king, all you need to know is how to sign your name, read a newspaper, and mount a horse.
This is seriously praised among e-monarchists these days because of Plato's maxim, which leads to rulers they these same normalfags would hate because they seem
>weak, ineffectual, disinterested in the matters of state, incompetent, not really caring in this or that
And the epitome of that is Nicholas II – wouldn't Nicholas II be Plato's ideal philosopher king for all the criticism that these same e-moarcists will praise in George V or other kings, but when it comes to Nicholas II the opinion seems to be unanimous that, no, actually, that he only cared to scribble in a diary or read novels, but wasn't that committed to the affairs of State – at least, according to their criticisms – and I wish people would finally decide whether they see this grill bro disinterest as praiseworthy or not.
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Personally, that is why I don't really pay heed to that teaching of Plato altogether.

Plato sort of disregards the classical forms of state for a moment (monarchy, oligarchy, democracy) to restate Theocracy – seems to conclude that an appeal to the maintenance of these forms is an appeal to 'might is right' and not virtue.
There I think I disagree with Plato and agree with Hobbes, whose sentiments in Leviathan say that the fundamental law of nature once Commonwealth is instituted is to keep and maintain whatsoever form that State be as fundamental to their peace and security.
Then I'd have to even echo Aristotle, who says that the forms of government have their own virtues, despite disagreeing with his opinion that political & economical differ – so it isn't just might is right but the maintenance of the virtue of their respective forms as fundamental, I think monarchy certainly has virtues to consider with its formal qualities and it isn't just a question of might is right when I talk about keeping the form of government as a fundamental law.
I've mentioned before, that where Aristotle talks about a pre-eminent ruler in Politics, there's a precedent to that in Plato's Laws as well (& I think elsewhere):
>There is a tradition of the happy life of mankind in days when all things were spontaneous and abundant. And of this the reason is said to have been as follows: –Cronos knew what we ourselves were declaring, that no human nature invested with supreme power is able to order human affairs and not overflow with insolence and wrong. Which reflection led him to appoint not men but demigods, who are of a higher and more divine race, to be the kings and rulers of our cities; he did as we do with flocks of sheep and other tame animals. For we do not appoint even oxen to be the lords of oxen, or goats of goats; but we ourselves are a superior race, and rule over them. In like manner God, in His love of mankind, placed over us the demons, who are a superior race, and they with great ease and pleasure to themselves, and no less to us, taking care of us and giving us peace and reverence and order and justice never failing, made the tribes of men happy and united. And this tradition, which is true, declares that cities of which some mortal man and not God is the ruler, have no escape from evils and toils. Still we must do all that we can to imitate the life which is said to have existed in the days of Cronos, and, as far as the principle of immortality dwells in us, to that we must hearken, both in private and public life, and regulate our cities and houses according to law, meaning by the very term 'law,' the distribution of mind. But if either a single person or an oligarchy or a democracy has a soul eager after pleasures and desires–wanting to be filled with them, yet retaining none of them, and perpetually afflicted with an endless and insatiable disorder; and this evil spirit, having first trampled the laws under foot, becomes the master either of a state or of an individual,–then, as I was saying, salvation is hopeless. And now, Cleinias, we have to consider whether you will or will not accept this tale of mine.
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Besides Aristotle's description of a pre-eminent king who must be a god among men (& likewise Plato) – whom both sort of deny it, albeit leaving some ambiguity enough with this bar set so high for other philosophers and monarchs to try and make firm that standard. –Where they will say that a monarch is a distribution of higher mind and to the state a mastermind.
This is the sentiment Gaius Caligula echoes,
>As a shepherd has a higher nature than his flock does, so also the shepherds of men, i.e. their rulers, have a higher nature than do the peoples under them.
Which I'm under the impression Gaius Caligula is referencing.
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With conservatives, I'd agree that some laws are fundamental – Bodin likewise agrees that while there is a sovereign power above human laws (& a capacity of sovereign power to change laws) – this is notwithstanding the fundamental laws, the laws of God and Nature – and Hobbes likewise writes down a list of his own laws of nature (in a more modern tradition and what he considers the fundamental laws of sovereignty) – the fundamental laws of sovereignty and the succession law is upheld, but not every ordinance and policy of states is fundamental.
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I think conservatives favor custom and a more conventional understanding of law – not even because they are against the rule of men and appeal to the rule of law as the rule of God – but because in legislation, again, they're married to Aristotle's opinion in Politics, that a composite brain has a better capacity to govern than the rule of a wise man… so they favor rule by custom and precedents as conventionally understood between numerous heads and assemblies, by numerous courts, so that the laws are their convention like with Aristotle's appeal to a partnership of clans rather than unitary thinking.
Some conservatives will pretend that these laws fall from heaven and no men are instituting them – but when some commentators say that there are no legislators or law-makers, just the discovery of laws – there is still the question of who institutes those laws upon divination and discovery, and who has the authority, and that is the divination and discovery of sovereignty… so sometimes this is just useless semantics about whether someone is 'instituting' or 'discovering' laws.
I'd just echo K. James VI & I, who says,
>Not that I deny the old definition of a King, and of a law: which makes the King to be a speaking law, and the Law a dumb king.
And people will hate me for expressing that, maybe Plato would also, but I have to agree with King James VI & I's sentiments there (yes, I don't deny Bracton would say that the law makes a king (that is, the law fundamental, so the king should uphold the law – but certainly there's the case to be made that considering the fundamentals of sovereignty, that the king is a speaking law, and the ship of state and policy are under the king – which Bodin would agree, that when he says that the king is absolute, he doesn't mean the fundamental laws, law of God or nature, but for policy, and that Plato in maintaining this must mean for the magistrate).
If anyone reading this thread or my audience would question that, I'd also think it's worth repeating that Plato in Republic also speaks along these lines (if not a fault of the translation).
>But, said I, one is enough; let there be one man who has a city obedient to his will, and he might bring into existence the ideal polity about which the world is so incredulous.
>Yes, one is enough.
>The ruler may impose the laws and institutions which we have been describing, and the citizens may possibly be willing to obey them?
>Certainly.
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Now Plato brings up a decent point that there's no measure without measure, how should a ruler do that without the laws, but like King James VI & I says the rulers themselves are a speaking law and some distribution of mind – I don't think a ruler should keep a policy the same – especially if it is not fundamental – for instance, Hobbes talks about not dieting the Commonwealth (which conservatives who talk about this neverchanging policy want to maintain at times):
>In the Distribution of land, the Commonwealth itself, may be conceived to have a portion, and possess, and improve the same by their Representative; and that such portion may be made sufficient, to sustain the whole expence to the common Peace, and defence necessarily required: Which were very true, if there could be any Representative conceived free from humane passions, and infirmities. But the nature of men being as it is, the setting forth of Public Land, or of any certain Revenue for the Commonwealth, is in vain; and tends to the dissolution of Government, and to the condition of mere Nature, and War, as soon as ever the Sovereign Power falls into the hands of a Monarch, or of an Assembly, that are either too negligent of money, or too hazardous in engaging the public stock, into a long, or costly war. Commonwealths can endure no Diet: For seeing their expence is not limited by their own appetite, but by externall Accidents, and the appetites of their neighbours, the Public Riches cannot be limited by other limits, than those which the emergent occasions shall require. And whereas in England, there were by the Conquerour, diverse Lands reserved to his own use, (besides Forests, and Chases, either for his recreation, or for preservation of Woods,) and diverse services reserved on the Land he gave his Subjects; yet it seems they were not reserved for his Maintenance in his Public, but in his Natural capacity: For he, and his Successors did for all that, lay Arbitrary Taxes on all Subjects land, when they judged it necessary. Or if those public Lands, and Services, were ordained as a sufficient maintenance of the Commonwealth, it was contrary to the scope of the Institution; being (as it appeared by those ensuing Taxes) insufficient, and (as it appears by the late Revenue of the Crown) Subject to Alienation, and Diminution. It is therefore in vain, to assign a portion to the Commonwealth; which may sell, or give it away; and does sell, and give it away when tis done by their Representative.
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What Hobbes means here is that it is insufficient to set apart some crown lands and permanently rely upon them: at times, new taxes are to be levied because sometimes the what is sufficient to maintain the public in the past is not what it is sufficient in the future, and regardless the whole commonwealth should carry the burden (since the strength of the entire commonwealth is there) and not a some royal estates for the king's natural person. So it isn't best to diet (like a food diet) when in some circumstances it will need more strength, but conservatives thinking in light of the rule of law want to also keep that stagnant at all times. –I could never see myself agreeing with that mentality, –I think even in light of succession law, that the sovereign still nevertheless has the capacity of pick his heir if he really thinks that his heir is incompetent (in the maxim, that the father of a family has power of life and death over his children and can make and unmake his sons), if the succession calls for it (which some monarchists will disagree with me about).
Archibald Kennedy
>There is, in every Family, a Sort of Government without any fixed Rules; and indeed it is impossible, even in a little Family, to form Rules for every Circumstance; and therefore it is better conceived than expressed; but perfectly understood by every Individual belonging to the Family. The Study of the Father or Master, is for the Good of the Whole; all Appeals are to him; he has a Power, from the Reason and Nature of Things, to check the Insolent, or Indolent, and to encourage the Industrious: In short, the whole Affairs of the Family are immediately under the Care or Direction of the Father or Master; and this is a natural Prerogative, known and acknowledged by every Man living, who has ever had a Family, or been any Ways concerned in a Family, in all Ages and in all Places. His Majesty, as he is our political Father, his political Prerogative, from the like Circumstances and Reasons, is equally necessary. And this political Authority has been allowed the supreme Director, in all States, in all Ages, and in all Places; and without it, there would be a Failure of Justice.
This sentiment here to absolute monarchists – this is the natural law, that Kennedy says is a natural prerogative – albeit flexible for circumstances that come to chance, this is what is seen as fundamental and consistent with sovereignty, that while there are fundamental laws, there is also flexibility when it is needed and that it is impossible form rules for every circumstance (*without needing to later redress things that happen by accident).

Jean Bodin - Quotes on absolutism
>If this is true [what Plato and Aristotle say], it seems to apply, not to princes, or to those who have the highest power in the state, but to the magistrates. For those who decree law ought to be above it, that they may repeal it, take from it, invalidate it, or add to it, or even if circumstances demand, allow it to become obsolete. These things cannot be done if the man who makes legislation if held by it.

>Indeed, it is a fine sentiment that the man who decrees law ought to be above the laws, for the reasons we have given; but once the measure has been passed and approved by the common assent of everyone, why should not the prince be held by the law which he has made?

>If it is just that a man shall be held by whatever he decrees for another, how much more just is it that the prince or the people shall be held by their own laws?

>Nay, not even the Roman pontiffs were willing to be held by any laws, and to use their own words, they were never tied their own hands.

>Now let us prosecute the other part of our propounded definition, and show what these words, Absolute power, signify. For we said that unto Majesty, or Sovereignty, belongs an absolute power, not subject to any law.

>It behoves him that is sovereign not to be in any sort subject to the command of another: whose office it is to give laws unto his subjects, to abrogate laws unprofitable, & in their stead to establish others: which he cannot do that is himself subject to laws or others.

>The attributes of sovereignty are therefore peculiar to the sovereign prince, for if communicable to the subject, they cannot be called attributes of sovereignty… Just as Almighty God cannot create another God equal with Himself, since He is infinite and two infinites cannot co-exist, so the sovereign prince, who is the image of God, cannot make a subject equal with himself without self-destruction.

>It behoves him that is sovereign not to be in any sort subject to the command of another: whose office it is to give laws unto his subjects, to abrogate laws unprofitable, & in their stead to establish others: which he cannot do that is himself subject to laws or others.

>The attributes of sovereignty are therefore peculiar to the sovereign prince, for if communicable to the subject, they cannot be called attributes of sovereignty… Just as Almighty God cannot create another God equal with Himself, since He is infinite and two infinites cannot co-exist, so the sovereign prince, who is the image of God, cannot make a subject equal with himself without self-destruction.

>Majesty or Sovereignty is the most high, absolute, and perpetual power over the citizens and subjects in a Commonwealth: Which the Latins call Majestatem, the Italians Segnoria, that is to say, The greatest power to command. For Majesty (As Fetus says) is so called of mightiness.

>And to manifest this point, we must presuppose that this word Law, without any other addition, signifies The right command of him or them, which have sovereign power above others, without exception of person: be it that such commandment concern the subjects in general, or in particular: except him or them which have given the law. Howbeit to speak more properly, A law is the command of a Sovereign concerning all his subjects in general: or else concerning general things, as says Festus Pompelus.

>And as the Pope can never bind his own hands (as the Canonists say;) so neither can a sovereign prince bind his own hands, albeit that he would. We see also in the end of all edits and laws, these words, -Quia sic nobis placuit, Because it has so pleased us; - to give us to understand, that the laws of the sovereign prince, although they be grounded upon good and lively reason, depend nevertheless upon nothing but his mere and frank good will. But as for the laws of God and nature, all princes and people of the world are unto them subject: neither is it in their power to impugne them, if will not be guilty of high treason to the divine majesty, making war against God; under the greatness of whom all monarchs of the world ought to bear the yoke, and to bow their heads in fear and reverence. Wherefore in that we say the sovereign power in a Commonwealth be free from all laws, concerns nothing the laws of God and nature.

>For right certain it is, the first Commonwealths were by sovereign power governed without law, the prince's work, beck, and will, serving instead of all laws, who both in time of peace and war, by commissions gave out charge to whom they pleased; and again at their pleasure revoked the same, all depending of their full and absolute power, being themselves not bound to any laws or customs at all. And that is it for which Pomponius writes, the Roman commonwealth to have been at the first governed by regal power, without use of any law. And Josephus the histriographer, in his second against Appian, desirous to show the most honorable antiquity of the Hebrews, and of their laws, says, That Moses of all others was the first that ever write laws. And that in five hundred years after, the word Law was never heard of. Alleging in proof thereof, That Homer in so many books as were by him written never used this word.

>But it behoveth him that is a sovereign not to be in any sort subject to the command of another: which thing Tiberius wisely meaning in these words, reasoned in the Senate concerning the right of sovereignty, saying that – "The reason of his doings were no otherwise to be manifested, than in that it was to be given to none" -; whose office it is to give laws unto his subjects, to abrogate laws unprofitable, and in their stead to establish others: which he cannot do that is himself subject unto laws, or to others which have command over him. And that is it for which the laws says, That the prince is acquitted from the power of the laws; and this word the Law, in Latin imports the commandment of him which has the sovereignty. We also see that unto all edicts and decrees there is annexed this clause, "-Notwithstanding all edicts and ordinances whereunto we have derogated, and do derogate by these presents:" -a clause which has always been joined unto the ancient laws, were the law published by the present prince, or by his predecessors."

Jean Bodin elaborates on this point.
>Of the first kind are the kings who once upon a time without any laws governed empires most justly by prerogative. Such the kings of ancient Greeks are said to have been before Lycurgus and Draco, that is, before any laws had been made binding. Such, also, the ancients remember the rule of the kings in Italy. At that time no laws were promulgated by kings or by private citizens, but the whole state and the rights of citizens depended upon the will of the prince. The Latins were governed by the royal power, as Pomponius wrote, without any definite system of laws. Josephus inferred that Moses was the most ancient legislator, because Homer, in his long work, never used the word "law." Although afterwards statutes were introduced, yet they were bought forward by private citizens, not by kings; until somewhat late the princes were not willing to be bound by these regulations. Indeed, not even when the kings were driven from the city did the consuls allow their own authority and power to be limited legally.

>For right certain it is, the first Commonwealths were by sovereign power governed without law, the prince's work, beck, and will, serving instead of all laws, who both in time of peace and war, by commissions gave out charge to whom they pleased; and again at their pleasure revoked the same, all depending of their full and absolute power, being themselves not bound to any laws or customs at all. And that is it for which Pomponius writes, the Roman commonwealth to have been at the first governed by regal power, without use of any law. And Josephus the histriographer, in his second against Appian, desirous to show the most honorable antiquity of the Hebrews, and of their laws, says, That Moses of all others was the first that ever write laws. And that in five hundred years after, the word Law was never heard of. Alleging in proof thereof, That Homer in so many books as were by him written never used this word.

>So Ulysses, whose kingdom was contained within the rock of Ithaca, is of Homer as well called a King, as Agamemnon: for a great kingdom (as says Cassidorus) is no other thing than a great Commonwealth or Republic or State, under the government of one chief sovereign: wherefore if of three families, one of the chief of the families has sovereign power over the other two, or two of them together over the third, or all three jointly and at once exercise power and authority over the people of the three families; it shall as well be called a Commonwealth or Republic or State, as if it in itself comprehended an infinite multitude of citizens.

Jean Bodin on fundamental law
>But touching the laws which concern the state of the realm, and the establishing thereof; foreasmuch as they are annexed and united to the crown, the prince cannot derogate from them, such as is the law Salic: & albeit that he so do, the successor may always disanull that which has been one unto the prejudice of the laws royal; upon which the sovereign majesty is stayed & grounded.

Hobbes A Fundamentall Law What
>For a Fundamentall Law in every Common-wealth is that, which being taken away, the Common-wealth faileth, and is utterly dissolved; as a building whose Foundation is destroyed. And therefore a Fundamentall Law is that, by which Subjects are bound to uphold whatsoever power is given to the Soveraign, whether a Monarch, or a Soveraign Assembly, without which the Common-wealth cannot stand, such as is the power of War and Peace, of Judicature, of Election of Officers, and of doing whatsoever he shall think necessary for the Publique good. Not Fundamentall is that the abrogating whereof, draweth not with it the dissolution of the Common-Wealth; such as are the Lawes Concerning Controversies between subject and subject. Thus much of the Division of Lawes.

This is important to note: what absolute monarchs consider a fundamental law is sovereignty and its attributes, the form of state is fundamental, and the succession – those are considered the fundamental laws – (even if Plato think maintaining the form of state is kind of maintaining the 'might is right' policy of a party and not the whole constitution, this is the opinion of others and I agree with them).

Bertrand de Jouvenel, who is a critic of modern states and absolutism, notes while there are some things are appropriated from Plato (like the idea of a unitary / corporatist polity), there are corollaries we'd rather forget as well:

De Jouvenel:
>The idea was won all hearts by reason of the twofold movement which it brings to light, though, to be sure, the two paths join in the end. Hegel turned it to good account: recalling that Plato in his Republic had rigorously stressed the importance of the citizens remaining undifferentiated and had seen in that the essential condition of social unity, Hegel asserted that the characteristic of the modern state was, contrarywise, to allow a process of differentiation, by which an ever growing diversity could be ranged within an ever richer unity.

>But there would be grave dangers in so avowedly normative an approach as this. It would in the first place build an ivory tower which was so remote from reality that advice issuing from it would be unable to influence the citizens of the real world: so it was with Plato's Republic, which was built on just these foundations. Worse still, the attraction exercised by pretty pictures of this kind lures men into importing them into reality and leads them on to tyrannical actions to achieve their ideals: there is a tyranny in the womb of every Utopia.

>So we joined with the ruling preoccupation of Plato and Rousseau: moral harmony within the the City. And with that we come up against the corollaries so displeasing to their modern admirers that they generally contrive to forget them. These corollaries, which are four in number, all stem from a single principle: so great a blessing is moral harmony that whatever tends to weaken it must be dangerous and bad.

>The first corollary is smallness: the City must not become too large, for otherwise, when the number of citizens is too great for intimacy between them to be possible, the harmony will be less intense.
This first corollary I've considered when 8chan.moe was filled with 4chan refugees and had too many people in one board, but eh – the absolutists discarded this idea and said that a Commonwealth could be whatever size, not so limited to 5040 as an ideal city… I don't have the exact quotes where that is discarded, but I'll try to find it later.
This is an issue right libertarians will call out for sure, because cities are extremely populous and have way more than 5040, but they appeal to smaller communities nonetheless.

>The next is homogeneity: the introduction as citizens into the City of foreign elements (metics), whose upbringing has given them a different outlook from that of the original inhabitants, would spell disaster to that psychological harmony of the whole.
>The same anxiety is the reason for the third corollary: it is dangerous to allow the entry into the city of beliefs and customs from the outside, for these create a motley variety of reactions and practices.
These corollaries I'm okay with remembering, but other people would rather forget (*cough, cough* like people around /leftypol/ and other circles).

>The fourth corollary is that of immutability, and condemns as a source of disc0rd the spirit of innovation in all its forms, as introducing disharmonies.
This I have a love-hate relationship with: again, I'd ideally keep the fundamental laws, but then again not every law is fundamental and circumstances call for innovations at times. I can see why that conservative sentiment would appeal to others, like De Jouvenel, and he'd chide us for not wanting to remember this corollary, but it really is stupidly stagnant and too static, so I have to disagree with the traditionalists on that front.

>So dangerous indeed is the logic immanent in this system of thought that the dream-state which Plato conceived in his reaction against Athens, condemner of Socrates, could have endured the presence of Socrates even less than Athens could! At Athens the condemnation of Socrates might not have happened; in the Platonic republic it was bound to occur.

>(Footnotes): For a denunciation of the oppressive character of the institutions conceived by Plato, see my Power, Book III, ch. VII. Almost simultaneously there appeared in London a work of vast erudition and great intellectual vigour by Professor Karl Popper, The Open Society and its Enemies. The ideas developed in the present chapter often join hands with those of Professor Popper's fine book.

I think for myself I'd rather forget parts of corollary #1 and some of the pretenses with #4 that is like an intestinal blockage. I am ngl I have a love-hate relationship with these antique teachings and see the usefulness of modern practices that aren't entirely in line with them.

>>710248
These quotes from King James VI & I, Archibald Kennedy, Gaius Caligula, and Jean Bodin – they reflect the attitude of Plato's Statesmen, which is a bit more lenient to the expertise of a ruler than Plato's Laws.
It gives a bit of leeway for the art and expertise of a ruler (albeit it generally sides with the rule of law over an expert, Plato's Statesmen does concede that the rule of an expert, when it truly happens, is very desirable)… but it is ambivalent and sets the state for criteria that absolute monarchists would hate being refurbished in Aristotle's work (who carries where Plato left off in doubting the rule of a wise man even further with democratic input).
But quotes like
King James VI & I
>Not that I deny the old definition of a King, and of a law: which makes the King to be a speaking law, and the Law a dumb king.
Is followed by in Plato's Statemen:
>But the law is always striving to make one;—like an obstinate and ignorant tyrant, who will not allow anything to be done contrary to his appointment, or any question to be asked—not even in sudden changes of circumstances, when something happens to be better than what he commanded for some one.
Which is probably the only instance of a Greekoid (and particularly Plato) re-considering it.
James VI & I must have been keen on this work, because in his Counter-blast to Tobacco, James VI & I describes himself as a royal physician for the body-politic in a way not too unlike the description there.
The aim here I gesture is what the traditionalists generally stress more (where I just stress the virtues of monarchy) is the virtue of aristocracy and good government itself, the true science and art to govern – whether by rule of a skilled pilot or imitation of that skillful pilot in policy/law. The absolutist tendency is to straightly uphold the distinction of monarchy, oligarchy, democracy plain and simply in conjunction with sovereignty.
…
There are three things I suppose I could for sure count on in making a foil between Plato and Aristotle to bolster Monarchy (on Plato's part):
1. On account of Aristotle putting monarchy with the unity of a household, saying too much unity is bad for the political state – on the other, Plato's affirmation of it.
2. Plato affirms the rule of a wise man while Aristotle has his food argument.
3. Plato believes a household / state have the same science, Aristotle does not (& Aristotle thinks monarchy is proper to household, freemen / equals to state).
…
That is about it.
I'd like to think of other obstacles for bolstering Monarchy from antiquity:
- Where is State Corporatism / Unitary Politics aligned with Monarchy? (It really shouldn't need explanation, but that I haven't found in antiquity but in absolutist writers).
- Anything to juxtapose to Aristotle's heroic kings? (I think this is a big deal on account of hereditary monarchy, how to show that monarchy started out from the unity of a monarch rather than a partnership of clans electing him… on a baseline level, I think Bodin's insistence on Lordly Monarchy being the origin of states and other monarchies is show monarchies weren't instituted by a partnership of clans – the partnership of clans, food argument (so the importance of election to choose the best king), political/economical are different all might converge behind the heroic kings for Bodin and that's why he insists on the first king ruling by force, so there could be unity at the origin of states so the unity of a monarch is justified in summoning the estates… rule by force in Bodin's view is justified to consolidate order in the very beginning (like a prelude to Hobbes) where people at their natural liberty lack any firmer order / unity and the inadequacy of this friendship of hosts to do it).
…
I don't think there is anything in classical tradition like this view of Bodin's where force is justified in the beginning to consolidate unity and contrive the beginning of policy… I'd guess that is innovation on his part (that Hobbes would follow through with fear being a unifying force & the distinction of sovereignty by institution / sovereignty by acquisition in light of Lordly Monarchy)… I don't think traditionalists or other monarchist peers would be satisfied with this like I am, they want more precedent for this idea in political science (I guess Bodin's citation of numerous antique historians and the Bible might do it, but the idea of Lordly Monarchy being justified might be an innovation).
Bodin testifies,
>And that more is, the rule that wills that the law of arms should take no place where there be superiours to do justice… that where there is no superiour to command, their force is reputed just.
The problem with the first kin
…
I personally have seen the appeal for something like fear to be a unifying force and bring an arbiter into the picture… anything that calls for an arbiter over a partnership of hosts is of interest, but that is also an innovation to be considered with sovereignty. (That won't appeal to other monarchists, esp. if it isn't backed up with the precedent / some antique names).
…
This is what I have been contemplating in a scheme to justify monarchy and form a counter-narrative to the other meta-narrative in the monarchist community against monarchical absolutism… Unfortunately, there is no clear-cut lineage in political thought from antiquity to modernity for it – it is a cobbled mess to build a meta narrative that way… I sympathize with Hobbes' sentiments on the unreliability of the classical tradition for this agenda – maybe a few appeals would work, but the other half needs innovation, that is my opinion.

Plato Republic Book 5:
>This, then, Glaucon, is the manner of the community of wives and children among the guardians. That it is consistent with the rest of our polity and by far the best way is the next point that we must get confirmed by the argument. Is not that so?” “It is, indeed,” he said. “Is not the logical first step towards such an agreement to ask ourselves what we could name as the greatest good for the constitution of a state and the proper aim of a lawgiver in his legislation, and what would be the greatest evil, and then to consider whether the proposals we have just set forth fit into the footprints of the good and do not suit those of the evil?” “By all means,” he said.

>“Do we know of any greater evil for a state than the thing that divides it and makes it many instead of one, or a greater good than that which binds it together and makes it one?”

>“We do not.”

>“Is not, then, the community of pleasure and pain the tie that binds, when, so far as may be, all the citizens rejoice and grieve alike at the same births and deaths?”

>“But the individualization of these feelings is a dissolvent, when some grieve exceedingly and others rejoice at the same happenings to the city and its inhabitants?” “Of course.” “And the chief cause of this is when the citizens do not utter in unison such words as ‘mine’ and ‘not mine,’ and similarly with regard to the word ‘alien’?

>“Precisely so.”

>“That city, then, is best ordered in which the greatest number use the expression ‘mine’ and ‘not mine’ of the same things in the same way.”

Plato State Corporatism / Unitary Policy:
State like an individual man (from Republic).
>And the city whose state is most like that of an individual man.

>For example, if the finger of one of us is wounded, the entire community of bodily connections stretching to the soul for ‘integration’

>with the dominant part is made aware, and all of it feels the pain as a whole, though it is a part that suffers, and that is how we come to say that the man has a pain in his finger. And for any other member of the man the same statement holds, alike for a part that labors in pain or is eased by pleasure.”

>“The same,” he said, “and, to return to your question, the best governed state most nearly resembles such an organism.”

>That is the kind of a state, [462e] then, I presume, that, when anyone of the citizens suffers aught of good or evil, will be most likely to speak of the part that suffers as its own and will share the pleasure or the pain as a whole.” “Inevitably,” he said, “if it is well governed.”

>But we further agreed that this unity is the greatest blessing for a state, and we compared a well governed state to the human body in its relation to the pleasure and pain of its parts.”
…
>Then will not law-suits and accusations against one another vanish, one may say, from among them, because they have nothing in private possession but their bodies, but all else in common.

>So that we can count on their being free from the dissensions that arise among men from the possession of property, children, and kin.
…
Plato Laws:
>For there are three forms of government, a first, a second, and a third best, out of which Cleinias has now to choose… The first and highest form of the state and of the government and of the law is that in which there prevails most widely the ancient saying, that 'Friends have all things in common.'. Whether there is anywhere now, or will ever be, this communion of women and children and of property, in which the private and individual is altogether banished from life, and things which are by nature private, such as eyes and ears and hands, have become common, and in some way see and hear and act in common, and all men express praise and blame and feel joy and sorrow on the same occasions, and whatever laws there are unite the city to the utmost —whether all this is possible or not, I say that no man, acting upon any other principle, will ever constitute a state which will be truer or better or more exalted in virtue. Whether such a state is governed by Gods or sons of Gods, one, or more than one, happy are the men who, living after this manner, dwell there; and therefore to this we are to look for the pattern of the state, and to cling to this, and to seek with all our might for one which is like this. The state which we have now in hand, when created, will be nearest to immortality and the only one which takes the second place; and after that, by the grace of God, we will complete the third one. And we will begin by speaking of the nature and origin of the second.
…
>Inasmuch as our citizens are not fitted either by nature or education to receive the saying, Friends have all things in common, let them retain their houses and private property, but use them in the service of their country, who is their God and parent, and of the Gods and demigods of the land.

>Their first care should be to preserve the number of their lots. This may be secured in the following manner: when the possessor of a lot dies, he shall leave his lot to his best-beloved child, who will become the heir of all duties and interests, and will minister to the Gods and to the family, to the living and to the dead.

>Of the remaining children, the females must be given in marriage according to the law to be hereafter enacted; the males may be assigned to citizens who have no children of their own.

>How to equalize families and allotments will be one of the chief cares of the guardians of the laws.
…
>Wherefore we will thus address our citizens:—Good friends, honour order and equality, and above all the number 5040.

>Secondly, respect the original division of the lots, which must not be infringed by buying and selling, for the law says that the land which a man has is sacred and is given to him by God. A

>>711147
Why?

>>711179
?

While MLP's song Our Town shows a bleak picture from Plato's Community of Pleasures & Pains, MLP Equestria Girls Cafeteria song (I think) shows a better depiction seen in Plato's Statesmen of a royal weaver (Twilight Sparkle is that royal weaver here).
Plato Statesmen:
>The whole process of royal weaving is comprised—never to allow temperate natures to be separated from the brave, but to weave them together, like the warp and the woof, by common sentiments and honours and reputation, and by the giving of pledges to one another; and out of them forming one smooth and even web, to entrust to them the offices of State.

>This then we declare to be the completion of the web of political action, which is created by a direct intertexture of the brave and temperate natures, whenever the royal science has drawn the two minds into communion with one another by unanimity and friendship, and having perfected the noblest and best of all the webs which political life admits, and enfolding therein all other inhabitants of cities, whether slaves or freemen, binds them in one fabric and governs and presides over them,
and, in so far as to be happy is vouchsafed to a city, in no particular fails to secure their happiness.

There are similar themes in Hobbes' political works & Plato I direct my attention to.
…
To list:
#1. In the preface to Hobbes' Leviathan, Thomas Hobbes talks about navigating between Authority and Liberty.
Hobbes writes,
>For in a way beset with those that contend on one side for too great Liberty, and on the other side for too much Authority, ’tis hard to passe between the points of both unwounded.
Now Plato touches on this theme in his work Laws, contrasting Athenian Liberty and Persian Despotism.
>With a view to this we selected two kinds of government, the one the most despotic, and the other the most free; and now we are considering which of them is the right form: we took a mean in both cases, of despotism in the one, and of liberty in the other.
A theme like this also appears in Hobbes work De Cive on the cover: Imperium and Liberty.

#2:
2. Unitary / State Corporatism: All men as one man.
>The error concerning mixed government [constitutionalism] has proceeded from want of understanding of what is meant by this word body politic, and how it signifies not the concord, but the union of many men.

And also from Hobbes:
>And in him consisteth the Essence of the Common-wealth; which (to define it,) is "One Person, of whose Acts a great Multitude, by mutuall Covenants one with another, have made themselves every one the Author, to the end he may use the strength and means of them all, as he shall think expedient, for their Peace and Common Defence.”

Now compare with Plato Republic:
>And the city whose state is most like that of an individual man.
&
>“The same,” he said, “and, to return to your question, the best governed state most nearly resembles such an organism.”
&
>But we further agreed that this unity is the greatest blessing for a state, and we compared a well governed state to the human body in its relation to the pleasure and pain of its parts.”
&
>That the other citizens too must be sent to the task for which their natures were fitted, one man to one work, in order that each of them fulfilling his own function may be not many men, but one, and so the entire city may come to be not a multiplicity but a unity.
&
Plato Laws:
>That all men are, so far as possible, unanimous in the praise and blame they bestow, rejoicing and grieving at the same things, and that they honor with all their heart those laws which render the State as unified as possible

#3
Hobbes stresses the Sovereignty as the Soul of Commonwealth and a consisting with the generation of a people.

Thomas Hobbes
>For the Sovereign, is the public Soul, giving Life and Motion to the Commonwealth [State].
>[The Sovereign] relation to the City is not that of the head, but of the soul to the body. For it is the soul by which a man has a will, that is, can either will, or nill.

Just as unity comes first, sovereignty is the soul and unity of a people, breathes life into them.
…
Which is what Plato maintains in Laws – the priority of the soul – and Sovereignty is understood to be the soul of commonwealth.

#4
Political & Economical no different.
I believe this is also maintained.
…
<Hobbes / That a Family is a little City
>"Propriety receiv'd its beginning, What's objected by some, That the propriety of goods, even before the constitution of Cities, was found in the Fathers of Families, that objection is vain, because I have already declar'd, That a Family is a little City. For the Sons of a Family have propriety of their goods granted them by their Father, distinguisht indeed from the rest of the Sons of the same Family, but not from the propriety of the Father himself; but the Fathers of diverse Families, who are subject neither to any common Father, nor Lord, have a common Right in all things."

Thomas Hobbes
>And though in the charters of subordinate corporations, a corporation be declared to be one person in law, yet the same has not been taken notice of in the body of a commonwealth [state] or city, nor have any of those innumerable writers of politics observed any such union
&
>A great Family if it be not part of some Commonwealth, is of it self, as to the Rights of Sovereignty, a little Monarchy; whether that Family consist of a man and his children; or of a man and his servants; or of a man, and his children, and servants together: wherein the Father or Master is the Sovereign.
&
>And as small Familyes did then; so now do Cities and Kingdomes which are but greater Families

<Plato / There won't be any difference, so far as ruling is concerned, between the character of a great household & the bulk of a small city
>Visitor: Well then, surely there won't be any difference, so far as ruling is concerned, between the character of a great household, on the one hand, and the bulk of a small city on the other? – Young Socrates: None. – It's clear that there is one sort of expert knowledge concerned with all these things; whether someone gives this the name of kingship, or statesmanship, or household management, let's not pick any quarrel with him.

Aristotle writes in Politics,
>Now there is an erroneous opinion that a statesman, king, householder, and a master are the same, and that they differ, not in kind, but only in the number of their subjects. For example, the ruler over a few is called a master; over more, the manager of a household; over a still larger number, a statesman or king, as if there were no difference between a great household and a small state.

Aristotle:
>For some are of opinion that the rule of a master is a science, and that the management of a household, and the mastership of slaves, and the political and royal rule, as I was saying at the outset, are all the same

Aristotle:
>The rule of a household is a monarchy, for every house is under one head:
>whereas constitutional rule is a government of freemen and equals.

#5:
In Hobbes Leviathan, there is a Sword and Crosier in one body, and the sovereign is also a pastor.
King James VI & I:
>As your office is likewise mixed, betwixt the Ecclesiastical and Civil estate: for a King is not mere laicus, as both the Papists and Anabaptists would have him, to the which error also the Puritans incline over far.
In Plato's Laws, religious and civil offices are aligned for cultivate civic virtue.

In Plato Statesmen:
>…In Egypt, the King himself is not allowed to reign, unless he have priestly powers, and if he should be of another class and has thrust himself in, he must get enrolled in the priesthood. In many parts of Hellas, the duty of offering the most solemn propitiatory sacrifices is assigned to the highest magistrates, and here, at Athens, the most solemn and national of the ancient sacrifices are supposed to be celebrated by him who has been chosen by lot to be the King Archon.

#6:
Jean Bodin testifies Plato having a composition of a Tyrannical & Popular estate (which he later goes on to deny any mixed constitutionalism whatsoever and say it was purely popular).
>Plato having presupposed the best form of a Commonwealth, to be that which was composed of a Tyrannical and Popular estate: in framing the same, is contrary unto himself, having established a Commonwealth not only Popular, but altogether also Popularly governed;
…
Looking at Leviathan, it's exactly that: Hobbes isn't a mixed constitutionalist, but Leviathan is a composition of Monarchy and the People:
>The People is somewhat that is one, having one will, and to whom one action may be attributed; none of these can properly be said of a Multitude. The People rules in all Governments, for even in Monarchies the People Commands; for the People wills by the will of one man; but the Multitude are citizens, that is to say, Subjects…
>And in a Monarchy, the Subjects are the Multitude, and (however it seem a Paradox) the King is the People.

#7:
Beginning with the constitution of individuals and some families at odds – & later deference to an arbiter to hash out their differences and establish peace.
<Hobbes: The Sixteenth, Of Submission To Arbitrement; [OR, the NECESSITY of an arbitrary power]
>And because, though men be never so willing to observe these Laws, there may nevertheless arise questions concerning a mans action; First, whether it were done, or not done; Secondly (if done) whether against the Law, or not against the Law; the former whereof, is called a question Of Fact; the later a question Of Right; therefore unless the parties to the question, Covenant mutually to stand to the sentence of another, they are as far from Peace as ever. This other, to whose Sentence they submit, is called an ARBITRATOR. And therefore it is of the Law of Nature, "That they that are at controversy, submit their Right to the judgement of an Arbitrator."
…
This is a theme in Hobbes, and in Plato there is also a turn of deference of some Arbiter because of conflicting laws / customs of private families: these are in conflict, Plato establishes, but the unity of some Arbiter(s) takes what laws the private families have and decides which are best to keep from the families altogether… Which aligns with the absolutist agenda for deference to some arbiter to bring unity… in Hobbes case it is by virtue of fear (and I believe compulsion, but also a bit of persuasion through education), but for the Classics it is generally love of justice and laws and virtue… and persuasion over compulsion (which I can imagine with some very powerful music or eloquence to bring people together?)
…
Anyways, what I would point to is in Plato's Laws:
Plato Laws
>Athenian: And every man surely likes his own laws best, and the laws of others not so well.
–This right here is really the basis of what Hobbes gets at with a war of all against all – but more importantly, at this point, there is a failure to have a concord of hosts / partnership of clans, it is futile… every man will have the extent of his laws and boundaries in another man's boundaries, interceding and conflicting…. there must be deference to an Arbiter.
>Athenian: The next step will be that these persons who have met together, will select some arbiters, who will review the laws of all of them, and will publicly present such as they approve to the chiefs who lead the tribes, and who are in a manner their kings, allowing them to choose those which they think best. These persons will themselves be called legislators, and will appoint the magistrates, framing some sort of aristocracy, or perhaps monarchy, out of the dynasties or lordships, and in this altered state of the government they will live.
…
IN the same way, King James VI & I talks about this process above and being an arbiter:
King James VI & I
>This I must say for Scotland, and I may truly vaunt it; Here I sit and govern it with my Pen, I write and it is done, and by a Clerk of the Councell I govern Scotland now.

>Of this I can best resolve you: for I am the eldest Parliament man in Scotland, and have sit in more Parliaments than any of my Predecessors. I can assure you, that the form of Parliament there, is nothing inclined to popularity.

>About a twenty days or such a time before the Parliament, Proclamation is made throughout the Kingdom, to deliver in to the King's Clerk of Register (whom you here call the Master of the Rolles) all Bills to be exhibited that Session before a certain day. Then they are brought unto the King, and perused and considered by him, and only such as I allow of are put into the Chancellor's hands to be propounded to the Parliament, and none others: And if any man in Parliament speak of any other matter then is in this form first allowed by me, The Chancellor tells him there is no such Bill allowed by the King.

>Besides, when they have passed them for laws, they are presented unto me, and I with my Scepter put into my hand by the Chancellor, must say, I ratify and approve all things done in this present Parliament. And if there be any thing that I dislike, they raze it out before. If this may be called a negative voice, then I have one I am sure in that Parliament.

#8:
Persuasion.
While fear and compulsion are predominate factors for Hobbes, he did take note of persuasion too.
People are entitled to their private conscience and opinion even, but publicly show obedience and worship and conformity.
Plato advocates persuasion numerous times over compulsion: like a freeman's doctor or a slave's doctor (the freeman's doctor persuades his patient before acting, but a slave's doctor just does it anyways). And recommended a preamble for the laws (persuading people).

Hobbes: Public instruction
>I conclude therefore, that in the instruction of the people in the Essentiall Rights (which are the Naturall, and Fundamentall Lawes) of Sovereignty, there is no difficulty, (whilest a Sovereign has his Power entire,) but what proceeds from his own fault, or the fault of those whom he trusteth in the administration of the Common-wealth; and consequently, it is his Duty, to cause them so to be instructed; and not onely his Duty, but his Benefit also, and Security, against the danger that may arrive to himself in his naturall Person, from Rebellion.

#9:
Community of pleasures and pains through a Cult of Personality.
If there is one innovation here every monarchist should consider, it is the advent of the Cult of Personality, or work of One Person on the multitude.

Plato Republic
>And the chief cause of this is when the citizens do not utter in unison such words as ‘mine’ and ‘not mine,’

Plato Republic - Community of Pleasures & Pains
>And there is unity where there is community of pleasures and pains–where all the citizens are glad or grieved on the same occasions of joy and sorrow?

>No doubt.

>Yes; and where there is no common but only private feeling a State is disorganized

This is a controversial point, but Hobbes first talks about appetites (pleasures) and aversions (pains) of the private persons, then consolidates all the persons into One Personhood.
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Not only does this come to a State where by a plurality of voices, as if they all said YES but also that condition from Plato:
>And the chief cause of this is when the citizens do not utter in unison such words as ‘mine’ and ‘not mine,’

<Thomas Hobbes The Generation Of A Common-wealth
>The only way to erect such a Common Power, as may be able to defend them from the invasion of Foreigners, and the injuries of one another, and thereby to secure them in such sort, as that by their own industry, and by the fruits of the Earth, they may nourish themselves and live contentedly; is, to confer all their power and strength upon one Man, or upon one Assembly of men, that may reduce all their Wills, by plurality of voices, unto one Will:
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>This is more than Consent, or Concord; it is a reall Unitie of them all, in one and the same Person, made by Covenant of every man with every man, in such manner, as if every man should say to every man, “I Authorise and give up my Right of Governing my selfe, to this Man, or to this Assembly of men, on this condition, that thou give up thy Right to him, and Authorise all his Actions in like manner.”
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>This done, the Multitude so united in one Person, is called a COMMON-WEALTH, in latine CIVITAS. This is the Generation of that great LEVIATHAN, or rather (to speake more reverently) of that Mortall God, to which wee owe under the Immortall God, our peace and defence.
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This (in)famous picture of ᴉuᴉlossnW with a plurality of Si, si, si, si, si, si behind his personage represents this unity of the representer and a cult of personality described here: >>662137 & >>662136
Imagine every Si behind ᴉuᴉlossnW as "Mine" and "Thine" like Plato says – it seems like the condition is met where all citizens utter in a unanimous voice "mine" and "thine" – without abolishing private property, but I'll talk about that soon.
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Consider the Community of Pleasures and Pains, this is cultivated in Hobbes' Leviathan and private appetites and private aversions are not allowed to override the Leviathan:
>But in a Common-wealth this measure is false: Not the Appetite of Private men, but the Law, which is the Will and Appetite of the State is the measure.
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Now, considering private property: Hobbes allows the distribution of private property, but it is limited by the popular consent, the distribution from the Sovereign is also in accord with unanimous "mine" and "thine" in a way.
<Hobbes: Propriety Of A Subject Excludes Not The Dominion Of The Sovereign, But Only Of Another Subject
>From whence we may collect, that the Propriety which a subject hath in his lands, consists in a right to exclude all other subjects from the use of them; and not to exclude their Sovereign, be it an Assembly, or a Monarch. For seeing the Sovereign, that is to say, the Common-wealth (whose Person he represents,) is understood to do nothing but in order to the common Peace and Security, this Distribution of lands, is to be understood as done in order to the same: And consequently, whatsoever Distribution he shall make in prejudice thereof, is contrary to the will of every subject, that committed his Peace, and safety to his discretion, and conscience; and therefore by the will of every one of them, is to be reputed voyd.
So particular subjects are limited in their estate, all property is limited by an absolute power – as well as subordinate corporations – by a sovereign, who has in his cult of personality "thine" and "mine" of every subject in a plurality of voices brought unto one voice.

Those are similarities I've taken note of (despite their differences in philosophy).

Robert Filmer:
>Also before him [Aristotle] the Divine Plato concludes a Commonweal to be nothing else but a large Family.
&
>This it seems he learnt of his master Plato, who in his third book of Laws affirms, that the true and first reason of authority is that the father and mother, and simply those that begat and ingender, do command and rule over all their children.

Napoleon III

Plato in Laws (Book 2) talks about educating a populace with holidays and seasonal festivities: By continually shaping a people with these seasonal festivities year round, over and over, they'll have the habit and loyalty divested.
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I agree that a regime not only aims to take the education of the youth in whatever institution of schooling / education, but also makes holidays with festivities, songs, clothing, nice sweets – to associate all those happy memories with the regime itself. This will keep the loyalty and mood of the public in a trance with the regime.
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Today there are "secular holidays" or public holidays like in North Korea Day of the Sun or Day of the Shining Star – In the US, the 4th of July (and more contemporary, Pride Month) and other numerous examples. This is pretty critical in educating a populace: to have a cult of personalty, to have control of public education, to form holidays and seasonal festivities.
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Plato notes to take advantage of the pleasures and pains people feel at a young age: bring those happy sensations in line with the regime. & have a cult of personality that makes the identity of people in league with the festivities they celebrate and the clothes they wear, popular customs that will distinguish a people from the rest, so they feel independent and more attached to these customs because they'll be trademarks to their identity… Plato links this cycle of holidays / festivities to the stability of States, by inducing habits by a long trial of festivities and celebrations, people will be less inclined to abandon that State.
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A good example is Christianity today: Christmas wins the hearts of youth early on, gives them gifts and candy, builds happy memories with their parents, and keeps Christianity alive even if people say that Christmas being heavily commercialized has subverted the themes and teachings of Christianity, I'd say to the contrary it is probably helping keep Christianity strong and relevant, even mostly secular people love Christmas.
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Seasonal change and natural imagery is also important to take into consideration and the mood people, what they see.

K. James VI & I