The death of democracy and the resurrection of timocracy

Abstract

Throughout the centuries the ownership of wealth has been used as the measure for the determination of status in a community or society. Exactly what constituted wealth differed from one period to the next. The nature and extent of power within the narrow confines of the family and the wider political context was defined on the basis of ownership of wealth. Wealth power was transmuted into the authority to influence government and social morality. ‘What I have’ superseded ‘I am a human being’ and was thus decisive in the determination and adjudication of justice in human relations. This experience and concept of human relations in the sphere of politics was manifest in ancient Greece. It has persisted in different forms in the evolution of Western political philosophy and is an enduring reality of our time. Concretely, it left democracy intact only in name and replaced it with timocracy, or rule by money. This replacement is politically disturbing as it is a surreptitious negation of the principle of popular sovereignty. It is also morally disturbing because it undermines the principle of justice in human as well as in international politics. Accordingly, I explore the implications of this situation for moral education. The thesis defended in this paper is that the supersession of democracy by timocracy is ethically untenable. Feta kgomo o tshware motho—directly translated as ‘go past the cow and catch the human being’ is an ethical maxim in the African philosophy of Ubuntu among the Bantu‐speaking peoples. It is a philosophy whose practice is opposed to this supersession of democracy by timocracy.

Notes

1. Upon the realisation of this state of affairs, Olympe de Gouges (1748–1793) published ‘The Declaration of the rights of women’ in 1790, modelled on the ‘Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen’ of 1789 in France (Riemer & Fout, 1983).

2. These were the Pentacosiomedimni, men who produced 500 bushels, could serve as generals in the army; the Hippeis or Knights, produced 300 bushels a year and could maintain themselves and one horse for war; the Zeugitae or Tillers, who produced 200 bushels a year and owned at least two beasts of burden; and the Thetes or manual labourers who produced nothing. The Thetes were excluded from office, while only the Pentacosiomedimni could hold high office (Stanton, 1990).

3. The question whether or not African philosophy exists persists. The curious point about it is that similar expressions such as Indian, Russian, Japanese, Chinese or American philosophy or even Western philosophy do not invite the question whether or not such philosophies exist. The core of the question ultimately bears on whether or not Africans are members of the ‘rational animal’ group. This notwithstanding, the present writer affirms the existence of African philosophy both in terms of the etymological meaning of philosophy as the love of wisdom and philosophy as an academic discipline. On this basis, the present writer shall proceed to consider a response to the challenge of timocracy.