state. He saw the government of Rome as a classic
MIXED CONSTITUTION, blending MONARCHY, ARISTOCRACY,
and DEMOCRACY. This balanced authority provided a
premier system of CHECKS AND BALANCESand political
stability for the Roman state. He also applied a Greek
theory of natural life cycles of a government (birth,
growth, maturity, decline, and death), or theory of rev-
olution, to Rome. After Plato, he saw the corruption of
the state in terms of a decline of public VIRTUE, and,
like Aristotle, he saw this in terms of monarchy degen-
erating into tyranny, aristocracy declining into oli-
garchy, and democracy corrupted into ochlocracy
(mob rule), followed by ANARCHY and a return to
monarchy.
This Greco-Roman theory was widely read by
MODERN Europeans and Americans (such as MON-
TESQUIEU and James MADISON) and informed their
attempts to construct stable, just CONSTITUTIONS and
governments.
Further Readings
Polybius. The Histories,W. R. Paton, transl., 6 vols. London:
Heinemann, 1922–27.
Walbank, F. W. Polybius. Berkeley: University of California
Press, 1972.
Popper, Karl (1902–1994) Political and scien-
tific philosopher
Born in Vienna, Austria, Popper emigrated to New
Zealand and to London, England, when the NAZIScame
to power in his native country. He taught scientific
philosophy at the London School of Economics for
most of his career.
Popper is most famous for his book The Open Soci-
ety and Its Enemies(1945), which argues that political
LIBERTY and DEMOCRACY are necessary to social and
technological PROGRESS. An “open” society allows FREE-
DOMof thought, speech, press, and intellectual inquiry.
This openness allows for new ideas and discoveries,
advancing prosperity, happiness, and civilization. The
“enemies” of such an open, free country are the vari-
ous TOTALITARIAN systems (FASCISM, COMMUNISM) that
control thought by some closed ideological doctrine
(MARXISM, Nazism) and restrict individual freedom of
thought and expression. Popper thus adheres to a basi-
cally British LIBERALview of HUMAN NATUREand politics
(as is John LOCKEand John Stuart MILL) and rejects
philosophical ABSOLUTISM. He is especially critical of
PLATO’s political philosophy, claiming that the rulers in
the Republic are a closed elite that restricts freedom.
He also criticizes G. W. F. HEGELand the DIALECTICthat
leads to an Absolute Truth.
For Popper, the most important political question
is not “How can we get the best rulers?” but “How can
we prevent tyranny and correct errors quickly?” His
liberalism follows the skeptical Calvinism of American
Founder James MADISON and his CONSTITUTIONALsys-
tem of CHECKS AND BALANCES. Human pride and power
are exceedingly dangerous and must not be allowed to
dominate others. The STATEshould protect individual
liberty and EQUALITYand not engage in extensive social
planning and reform. Ameliorating extreme misery
and poverty is a valid function of the government;
securing the greatest good possible (as in socialism) or
trying to eliminate all social ills is not.
Popper also wrote against HISTORICISM—the philo-
sophical view that believes that human history devel-
ops by scientific laws. Karl MARX’s theory is the worst
example of this historicist viewpoint—it takes prob-
lems or trends in CAPITALISTdevelopment and general-
izes them across all history. This critique by
communism effectively undercut its view of the
inevitable emergence of socialism.
The Logic of Scientific Discovery (1959) and The
Poverty of Historicism(1957) are Popper’s other princi-
pal books. They are criticized by COMMUNITARIANs such
as Benjamin BARBERfor their absence of a sense of the
human being as a social animal who needs community
to develop fully.Further Readings
Magee, B. Popper.London: Fontana, 1973.
Popper, K. R. The Open Society and Its Enemies.Princeton, N.J.:
Princeton University Press, 1945.
———. The Poverty of Historicism.New York: Basic Books,
1957.populism/populist
A political movement or IDEOLOGYthat appeals to the
common people against a minority ELITE; one who
espouses the movement. In the United States in the
late 1800s, populism occurred in the DEMOCRATIC PARTY
under William Jennings Bryan. This came out of the
concerns of poor farmers in the western United States
who saw the national government controlled by an
elite of intellectual, big-business “foreigners” and east-
ern banks. The populist program seeks to use the gov-236 Popper, Karl