Twenty five years after Popper (1902-1994): Plato and Marx as Social Engineers (Karl Popper’s Criticism)

Abstract

The paper exposes Plato’s and Marx’s doctrines for thorough social changes as being specific versions of utopian large-scale social engineering. In the basis of these views lies what Popper names as “radical historicist thinking”. The issue of the use of violence is discussed in the context of the search for justice, both in Plato’s ideal city-state and in the future communist society outlined in broad lines by Marx. The paper concludes by emphasizing that both types of the proposed large-scale social changes can best be understood as specific types of utopian thinking which always invites for violence.