Plato, the proponent of the concept of state, is the right person to impart us the aim of politics. When he, in his magnum opus, ‘The Republic’, portrays his ideal state as one that ensures justice, harmony and the well-being of its citizens, we can extract that the aim of politics is to increase the wellbeing of people.

In fact, Plato’s concept of ideal state is still in line with contemporary ideas. A philosopher-king, in his ideal state theory, is one who must be an enlightened ruler with a deep understanding of the state affairs and the ability to discern absolute truth and justice.

In the modern times, however, one may express her caveats about the use of the words, ‘king’ and ‘ruler’. Whatever be the words, the inner meaning remains the same and what stands out from Plato’s concept of ideal state is, wellbeing of the people should be the ultimate goal of politics, but when politics is dominated by family dynasties or if the state suffers from crony capitalism, wellbeing of the people is seen to be diminishing.

The historical events that have given rise to this modern world are the Industrial Revolution, Magna Carta, Glorious Revolution of England, French Revolution, Bill of Rights enacted in the USA and Russian Revolution. The gist of all these events is the empowerment of people and in some cases transition from monarchy (centralized power to one family) to democracy (the government of the people, by the people, for the people). Why did this transition take place? The answer is to uphold people’s interest— to maximize people’s wellbeing. It means that when power is captured by one family, people’s wellbeing is never maximized. And that’s the reason why people revolted against monarchy so that opportunities that the state could provide, become open to all irrespective of caste and creed— so that people might enjoy the freedom of choice, freedom of enterprise, and thus maximize their........

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