Opinion: The new oligarchy

The times, wrote Bob Dylan, they are a-changin’. His song, released on his 1964 album, foretold of the eventual success of the hippie movement in effecting major changes in our culture, particularly the civil rights and anti-war movements. Sixty years later, the metamorphosis that occurred during the decade of the sixties is still evident.

Christopher Ricks, a literary critic, wrote that “the song transcends the political preoccupations of the time in which it was written…. Once upon a time it may have been a matter of urging square people to accept the fact that their children were, you know, hippies. But the capacious urging could then come to mean that ex-hippie parents had better accept that their children… (are) becoming yuppies.”

Dylan, of course, was not the first person to suggest major political changes in society. More than 2,000 years ago, Greek philosopher Plato suggested in “The Republic” that societies were best ruled by an aristocracy of wise philosopher-kings. But aristocracy would yield to timocracy as the generals who had acquired vast land holdings through their victories would take over. During their reign, certain men would become wealthy, and timocracy would devolve into oligarchy, or rule by wealthy men. These wealthy people, however, would highly value temperance and moderation. They held these attitudes not because of any ethical principle, but rather to protect against wasteful tendencies. Of course, “wealth” in those days was quite modest compared to twenty-first century wealth.