nated throughout the Western world for more than two millennia. For example, Abraham Lincoln, in the Gettysburg Address, exhorted the American people to continue the fight in the Civil War to ensure that ô . . . a government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earthö (Fehrenbacher, 1989, p. 536).
Lincoln's ôgovernment of the peopleö could be traced back to Plato's Republic, where the author described an ideal state that continues to capture the imagination of many. ôFirst of all, they are free. Liberty and free speech are rife everywhere; anyone is allowed to do what he likes. Every man will arrange his own manner of life to suit his pleasure. The result will be a greater variety of individuals than under any other constitution. So it may be the finest of all, with its variegated pattern of all sorts of characters. . . .A democracy is so free that it contains a sample of every kind. And perhaps anyone who intends to found a state, as we have been doing, ought first to visit this emporium of constitutions and choose the model he likes bestö (Cornford, 1945, p. 282).
Thus, according to Plato, democracy is not only the best form of government, but it also will produce the best kind of society. That society will be so free that each individual (men only in Plato's world) will be allowed to flourish in the pursuit of their interests. Everyone will be happier doing what he or she wants and society will be better off because of its variety.
Plato's utopian world, though, prompts more questions than it answers. First, what if one person's pursuit of happiness tramples on another's? Second, how will this society be governed? Plato envisions one man, one vote. Everybody gets together and votes, and majority rules. Yet according to Plato, nobody is bound by the decision, nor is anybody bound to serve the society as a whole. ô[Y]ou are not obliged to be in authority, however compet...