The Open Society and Its Enemies

The Open Society and its Enemies #1+2

by Karl Popper

One of the most important books of the twentieth century, Karl Popper's The Open Society and Its Enemies is an uncompromising defense of liberal democracy and a powerful attack on the intellectual origins of totalitarianism. Popper was born in 1902 to a Viennese family of Jewish origin. He taught in Austria until 1937, when he emigrated to New Zealand in anticipation of the Nazi annexation of Austria the following year, and he settled in England in 1949. Before the annexation, Popper had written mainly about the philosophy of science, but from 1938 until the end of the Second World War he focused his energies on political philosophy, seeking to diagnose the intellectual origins of German and Soviet totalitarianism. The Open Society and Its Enemies was the result.

An immediate sensation when it was first published in two volumes in 1945, Popper's monumental achievement has attained legendary status on both the Left and Right and is credited with inspiring anticommunist dissidents during the Cold War. Arguing that the spirit of free, critical inquiry that governs scientific investigation should also apply to politics, Popper traces the roots of an opposite, authoritarian tendency to a tradition represented by Plato, Marx, and Hegel.

In a substantial new introduction written for this edition, acclaimed political philosopher Alan Ryan puts Popper's landmark work in biographical, intellectual, and historical context. Also included is a personal essay by eminent art historian E. H. Gombrich, in which he recounts the story of the book's eventual publication despite numerous rejections and wartime deprivations.

Genres: Philosophy, Politics, Nonfiction, History, Sociology, Science, Society

803 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1956

About the author

Sir Karl Raimund Popper, FRS, rose from a modest background as an assistant cabinet maker and school teacher to become one of the most influential theorists and leading philosophers. Popper commanded international audiences and conversation with him was an intellectual adventure—even if a little rough—animated by a myriad of philosophical problems. He contributed to a field of thought encompassing (among others) political theory, quantum mechanics, logic, scientific method and evolutionary theory.

Popper challenged some of the ruling orthodoxies of philosophy: logical positivism, Marxism, determinism and linguistic philosophy. He argued that there are no subject matters but only problems and our desire to solve them. He said that scientific theories cannot be verified but only tentatively refuted, and that the best philosophy is about profound problems, not word meanings. Isaiah Berlin rightly said that Popper produced one of the most devastating refutations of Marxism. Through his ideas Popper promoted a critical ethos, a world in which the give and take of debate is highly esteemed in the precept that we are all infinitely ignorant, that we differ only in the little bits of knowledge that we do have, and that with some co-operative effort we may get nearer to the truth.

Nearly every first-year philosophy student knows that Popper regarded his solutions to the problems of induction and the demarcation of science from pseudo-science as his greatest contributions. He is less known for the problems of verisimilitude, of probability (a life-long love of his), and of the relationship between the mind and body.

Popper was a Fellow of the Royal Society, Fellow of the British Academy, and Membre de I'Institute de France. He was an Honorary member of the Harvard Chapter of Phi Beta Kappa, and an Honorary Fellow of the London School of Economics, King's College London, and of Darwin College Cambridge. He was awarded prizes and honours throughout the world, including the Austrian Grand Decoration of Honour in Gold, the Lippincott Award of the American Political Science Association, and the Sonning Prize for merit in work which had furthered European civilization.

Karl Popper was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 1965 and invested by her with the Insignia of a Companion of Honour in 1982.

(edited from http://www.tkpw.net/intro_popper/intr...)

Reviews

[Trevor · Rating 3 out of 5]

The preface to this talked about Popper’s relationship with Hayek, so much so that since I’d only just finished ‘The Road to Serfdom’ I really wasn’t sure I could bring myself to read yet another defence of capitalist realism. This book ended up being much less such a defence than Hayek’s book did – but that said, what I found disturbing about this book reminds me of what I found most disturbing about Hayek’s – that is, the total rejection of everyone that might disagree with the author. You know, when a writer says Plato, Aristotle, Hegel, Wittgenstein, Bergson, Whitehead and Freud where all either fools or (in Hegel’s case) traitors to philosophy itself, then, well, that’s going to cause me some angst. They might even be right, but that does mean that lots and lots of other people will have had to have been wrong and wrong for a very long time. I’m not saying that Popper is wrong because his opinions are controversial, but discarding quite so many ‘greats’ of philosophy in one book ought to give you reason to pause. The onus of proof is very much on Popper here.

And this is one of the things I found so surprising about this book. I mean, the ‘open’ society he is proposing is based in a kind of meritocracy, which is turn is based on a kind of pragmatism, and that is based on a kind of extreme version of Kantian dualism/agnosticism that could properly be called radical doubt. But for a radical doubter, Popper seems, as T S Eliot would say, assured of certain certainties. I was somewhat gobsmacked when he cast Aristotle aside in a single chapter – look I know Popper had other fish to fry, but he certainly didn’t have ‘bigger’ fish to fry – we are talking Aristotle, not someone’s uncle Jack…

I guess another thing is similar to Hayek in this book. With Hayek if you believe even the smallest, slightest amount of state intervention might be necessary in an economy occasionally, then he sees you as either a Nazi or a Communist – it hardly matters which, since he sees the two as identical. In this book it is if you think that history portrays any patterns at all that might give us clues to the future development of society, then you are a dangerous fool convinced of the most terrible mistake in the history of philosophy.

This book starts with a refutation of Plato. A friend of mine gave me a book years ago, which I’ve meant to read, but never quite gotten around to. It was called something like Why Socrates Had it Coming – I would have to go searching for it, but I think my title is even better than the original, so finding it wouldn’t help with my point here anyway. From what I remember of my conversation with my friend about the book, it argues pretty much what Popper argues here, except the book attributes to Socrates all of the bad things that Popper here attributes to Plato. Mostly that is that Socrates was killed because he took the side of tyrants and then, once democracy was re-established, he got what was coming to him. I really don’t know enough about the politics of this period of Greek history to make an informed contribution to this debate. But what Popper says isn’t (and wasn’t at the time he wrote it) uncontroversial. Others at the time and since have jumped to Plato’s defence, and those others have qualifications to do so. Popper dismisses much of this criticism as these experts either wilfully misinterpreting his criticism of Plato or of them being essentially religiously required to attack Popper so as to sustain their faith in the immortal Plato. Like I said, I’m not qualified to enter this discussion, but I suspect it is hardly as black and white as Popper makes it out to be.

In part, I guess Popper is right on Plato – you could hardly say Plato was a great fan of democracy or that his vision of an ideal republic sounds particularly fun or egalitarian. And I think Popper is also right to say Plato believed that the problem with the world is that it is in a state of near constant decay and that as a philosopher he sees the historical tendency of the world to be in one direction – and that is in the opposite direction to greater perfection. To slow this inevitable descent, we need to have people in charge who understand the perfection we are moving away from, and therefore people best able to arrest that descent – and those people are the philosophers. For Popper the most important idea here is a notion that history has a direction that is independent of individual human activity, and that humans can understand and respond to that history as a driving force. This is an idea that Popper completely rejects, and he see’s Plato as an early and still influential advocate of this historicism. This book was originally published in two volumes and the whole of the first volume was dedicated to Plato – Popper definitely takes Plato’s influence seriously.

I was going to say this is similar to his criticism of Hegel, except it isn’t really. He really, really dislikes Hegel. In fact, his hatred of Hegel is a bit pathological. He sees Hegel’s philosophy as worse than mere word games, but literally as cant, something he says over and over again. In fact, he struggles to believe people could ever have been fooled by Hegel, and admits he struggles to take Hegel’s ideas seriously. He sees Hegel as dishonest and his method, which he refers to as zigzags and in other derogatory terms, as a kind of philosophical joke. Having just finished an introduction to Hegel, and in the past having read quite a few books by Hegel, I have to say it was difficult to reconcile that with what Popper says here.

What is clear, however, is that Hegel’s historicism is, in a sense, the opposite of Plato’s, in that where Plato saw the world as in a near constant process of decay, Hegel sees it as constantly progressing.

It is definitely clear that Hegel sees development as central to how history progresses and that development is central to his understanding of the world and his philosophy. So, even if Popper has simplified Hegel’s philosophy here (close to the point of it being unrecognisable) he has attacked his philosophy on a point that is still important – whether or not history can be said to have a direction and whether or not we can understand that direction. For the sake of brevity of this review (which, when you look at how long this bloody thing is, ought to give you a smile) I’m going to include Marx here too (since Popper is remarkably kind to Marx in many ways in this book, but that he sees Marx’s main problem being his acceptance of historicism and therefore his acceptance that history has a direction and one that will, inevitably, lead to socialism). That Hegel considered Prussia as the pinnacle of human civilisation is something that is often said, but that might not be as true as it might seem – however, I think there is little doubt that Marx did predict that the inherent laws of capitalist development were such that socialism was basically inevitable and urgent on the basis of his understanding of historical materialism.

Popper makes it clear that it is hard to disagree with Marx’s analysis of the early stages of Capitalist society. People were definitely not living in paradise. Life expectancy, the condition of children in factories, and the living conditions of the majority of working people were as horrendous as Marx paints them. However, Popper says that by the end of Marx’s life rather than these conditions worsening, as Marx had predicted, they had in fact gotten much better for most of the working people. In large part, this is attributed by Popper to the power of legislative changes, and to these being imposed on society by trade unions and other bodies working for reforms. Such reforms, according to Popper, made the driving need for the kind of social revolution anticipated by Marx less and less necessary.

This is interesting, since it presents what saved capitalism was precisely the things that Popper’s friend Hayek was proposing needed to be removed so as to make capitalism more dynamic and competitive. What is particularly interesting in relation to this is that just about every one of the safety nets Popper praises as humanising capitalism are either gone or currently in the process of being removed – at the same time as inequality has risen to levels not seen since the 1920s. But Marx did predict the total impoverishment of the working class – and it is hard to argue that this has come to pass – well, as long as you limit your gaze to the developed capitalist countries and stick with averages. The working conditions in the factories of developing nations, as books such as ‘No Logo’ make all too clear, bring Victorian Manchester back from the dead. Trade Unions have lost virtually all of their power in developed nations and we are seeing austerity and disappearing social safety nets making the lives of too many people precarious not too different from what Marx said they would look like. I think Popper would struggle to brush aside Marx’s predictions as merely those symptomatic of an early and degenerate phase of capitalist development as he does in this book.

All the same, and perhaps paradoxically, the failure of just about every single one of Popper’s refutations of why Marxism is no longer relevant actually goes some way to supporting his larger thesis – that is, that historicism is flawed because the patterns you think you are able to discern melt before your eyes as history passes and they can just as quickly turn into their opposites again, although, let’s not mention Hegel’s zigzags…

This would be, I guess, Popper’s response to our current situation – that Marx was very specific that the development of capitalism would inevitably lead to the development of a proletariat that would develop its own revolutionary aims and that these would be most pronounced in the most developed capitalist countries, and would lead to a socialist revolution. That the development of communication technologies (in Marx’s day, the printing press and railways) would dissolve national distinctions and thereby facilitate an international class struggle and social revolution that would end capitalism. It is hard not to notice that those predictions have not come to pass. It seems Marx underestimated the nationalist feeling of people (ironically enough, something Castells discusses at length in his fascinating chapter in volume three of The Rise of Network Society in relation to the collapse of the Soviet Union). Marx also underestimated the power of the capitalist media and the weakness of any counter forms of media – his predictions of the workers’ press also never really came to pass. Popper would say that the failure of so many of Marx’s predictions show the sterility of the historicist method and the pointlessness of making such predictions in the first place.

His open society is not premised on these ideas, but rather on an extreme form of pragmatism. Rather than seeking to overthrow the existing order, we would be much better advised to make piecemeal improvements to society. We ought to see legal and social institutions as having been built to protect all of us, and if they have not been, then modifying them so that they are is the most likely way that we can develop those protections. The issues facing us cannot be solved all at once and for all time, but rather need to be tackled in much the same way as we tackle problems within the science. That is, provide a hypothesis and test it, always seeking to not only find validation for that hypothesis, but also attempting to falsify it too. Only by the most rigorous critical analysis based on radical doubt can we have any hope of transcending our limited understanding. To the extent that Marx was a pragmatist, Popper believes he was on the right track, but Popper feels it is his historicism that let Marx down in the end. And that this ultimately had tragic consequences across Eastern Europe.

I think there are problems with this application of a narrow vision of a kind of Kantian scientific method to social processes. As we have seen, changing society piecemeal seemed the obvious solution following the second world war, but from the 1980s onward the change has been decidedly towards a more dog-eat-dog world, where the benefits of economic development have been horded increasingly in fewer and fewer hands and where democracy appears everywhere under attack. While Popper could point to the forces that were encouraging social progress and a more equitable distribution of social wealth in the 1940s, such forces are much harder to discern today.

It would appear ludicrous to speak of the inevitability of a socialist revolution today, something that certainly would not have seemed so when this book was written. All the same, this does feel like a baby and bathwater problem. While I doubt we will ever be able to accurately predict the future, I don’t feel, as Popper clearly does here, that we can afford to ignore the role the past and present play in preparing the way for the future. I don’t think this is pure chaos, but that patterns can be seen and that they provide the only hope of responding to the demands of our age. Popper has a section here on his version of this, but I think he is having a bet each way in part here.

Perhaps history acts more like Socrates’s daemon – a voice he sometimes heard, but that only spoke up to warn him what not to do, rather than advising him on what to do. In a world of gross and rising inequalities, rising nationalist feeling in some of the most ‘developed’ nations, populist movements that are at best uninterested in the truth, potential ecological collapse and global corporations that surveil and market and interfere in our government in ways that would make Stasi blush, such a foreboding daemon would indeed be a blessing.

[Josh · Rating 1 out of 5]

One of the most mind-numbingly bad readings of Hegel I have ever come across. Not only is it deliberately uncharitable, its just downright moronic, and I struggle to understand how anyone could have such a woefully incorrect reading of Hegel. It honestly reads like a 12 year old who read the Wikipedia page of Hegel and then tries to force Hegel into a preconceived set of positions for which there is no textual support.

Just to give an example, Popper actually writes: 'Hegel's intention is to operate freely with all contradictions. 'All things are contradictory in themselves', he insists in order to defend a position which means the end not only of all science, but of all rational argument. And the reason why he wishes to admit contradictions is that he wants to stop rational argument, and with it, scientific and intellectual progress.'

That's right, this is Popper's understanding of Hegelian contradiction: its an intentional ploy by Hegel to destroy science, rational argument, and intellectual progress. Anyone who takes Popper seriously is the sort of person who has never read the thinkers they hate and disparage.

[Hmd Book · Rating 5 out of 5]

کتابی ارزشمند از یک فیلسوف تحلیلی با ترجمه‌ای عالی به فارسی. کارل پوپر در این کتاب که در اثنای جنگ جهانی دوم نوشته شد به ریشه‌یابی دو فاجعه سیاسی در قرن بیستم پرداخته است: ۱. ظهور فاشیسم هیتلری ۲. ظهور مارکسیسم استالینی.
نویسنده ریشه این دو فاجعه را در افکار نژادپرستانه افلاطون می‌بیند و مفصلا در مورد فلسفه افلاطون از نظریه فرم‌ها (ایده‌ها) تا نظریه شاه‌فیلسوف بحث می‌کند. نویسنده با ذکر زندگی شخصی افلاطون و به ویژه دایی او (کریتیاس) و حکومت‌های مستقر در آتن پیش و در زمان زندگی افلاطون به ریشه‌یابی افکار به زعم نویسنده دیکتاتوری او می‌پردازد. پوپر با شرح کتاب‌های افلاطون که با رندی از شخصیت فرزانه سقراط (که توسط حکومت دموکراتیک آتن به نوشیدن شوکران محکوم شد و این را از دلایل تنفر افلاطون از دموکراسی ذکر می‌کند) سواستفاده می‌کند، نشان می‌دهد چگونه افلاطون در کتاب‌های مختلفش فاشیسم را که قرن‌ها بعد فرصت خودنمایی پیدا کرد تئوریزه کرده است. تیغ برّان نقد پوپر بر اسطوره فلسفه غرب و قرائتی که خود پوپر با ترجمه متون افلاطون از زبان یونانی داشته جنجال‌های زیادی برانگیخت.
شخصا به ندرت با کتابی غیر علمی مواجه شدم که بحث‌هایش کاملا مستدل و منطقی باشد. همچنین به عنوان تجربه شخصی با خواندن این کتاب حجیم اطلاعات فلسفی و سیاسی خواننده مطمئنا چند برابر می‌شود-چرا که پانوشت‌های کتاب (که خود شاید بیش از ۱۰ درصد حجم کتاب باشد) بحث‌هایی از محاسبه عدد پی توسط افلاطون تا معنادار بودن گزاره‌ها از دید ویتگنشتاین را می‌پوشاند! هر چقدر بر متن تحلیلی و در عین حال منصفانه کتاب تاکید کنیم کم است: به عنوان نمونه پوپر در فصولی که به مارکس می‌پردازد با تشریح شرایط کارگران بعد انقلاب صنعتی تصویر مثبتی از شخص مارکس و نظریه او در آن کانتکست می‌دهد. در عین حال با ریشه‌یابی ماتریالیسم دیالکتیک مارکس در فلسفه هگل و تاریخی‌گری او با استدلال قوی هگل را یک کلاه‌بردار می‌نامد- در ابتدای فصلی مربوط به هگل از نویسنده‌ای نقل می‌کند

فلسفه او به قدری فخیم بود که بخش اعظم آن فهم نمی‌شد.

اما مطالعه این کتاب، از لحاظ سیاسی، برای خواننده ایرانی بسیار واجب است: عبدالکریم سروش روشنفکر ایرانی به شدت تحت تاثیر فلسفه تحلیلی پوپر و نظریه آزمون‌پذیری او در فلسفه علم بود. سروش در جایی گفته بود که استدلال پوپر در بطلان نظریه شاه‌فیلسوف افلاطون -این که فرزانه‌ترین فرد باید حکومت کند- و نظر پوپر که مهم نیست که چه کسی حکومت می‌کند، مهم آن است که حکومت دموکراتیک باشد٬ در مورد ایران هم صادق است. پوپر مفصلا به تعریف حکومت دموکراتیک در کتاب می‌پردازد و با پیوند آن به «فرد گرایی» در مقابل «جمع‌گرایی»- که مفهوم هر دو این عبارات را روشن کرده و اشتباه رایج برداشت از فردگرایی به معنی خودخواهی را مستدلا نفی کرده- خواننده‌ی به ویژه ایرانی را شگفت‌زده می‌کند.

[Ryan Boissonneault · Rating 5 out of 5]

The main question driving this two-volume masterpiece of political philosophy is this: What are the intellectual origins of totalitarianism and how can we combat them with better principles?

This takes Popper all the way back to ancient Greece, where he makes the strong (read: indisputable) case that the intellectual origin of totalitarianism starts with Plato (the subject of the first volume). While Popper admired many aspects of Plato’s works, he recognized in his political philosophy the first and most influential intellectual defense of totalitarian government.

Not that this was, in hindsight, particularly difficult to see (once we get over our infatuation with Plato’s genius). A quick read of Plato’s Republic will reveal his plans for a caste-based society with state-controlled human reproduction (i.e., eugenics), limited to no social mobility between the classes, the prevention of the mixing of blood between races, centralized and censored education, and intentionally lying to the population to maintain social control and harmony. (The link between state-controlled human breeding and totalitarianism is hard to deny even for Plato’s biggest apologists.)

Plato is quite clear in his desire to eradicate all forms of individualism. As Plato wrote, “In the highest form of the state there is common property of wives, of children, and of all chattels. And everything possible has been done to eradicate from our life everywhere and in every way all that is private and individual.”

In contrast to the egalitarian philosophy of superior thinkers like Pericles, Democritus, and others, Plato’s idea of justice is any action that benefits the state collectively, without regard to its individual members.

This idea of asking the individual members of a society to make great sacrifices for some eventual utopian ideal did not end with Plato. In fact, Karl Marx would take these ideas—transmitted principally through Aristotle and Hegel—to their most dangerous levels, as described in the second volume of The Open Society.

What you’ll find in the second volume is the best and most thorough critique of Marxism available. Unlike with Plato, however, Popper gives Marx more credit for his humanitarian intentions. We should remember that when Marx was critiquing capitalism, working conditions were horrendous, to say the least (including rampant child labor and 15-hour work days). Against this backdrop of unrestrained capitalism, we can see how Marx would think (and hope) that it would only be a matter of time before the workers revolted.

Where Marx went wrong was in his historicist approach (i.e., the uncovering of historical “laws” that can be used to predict the future). Marx thought that capitalism would destroy itself because it would inevitably lead to an increased concentration of wealth, increasing levels of misery among the workers, and increasing class tension that could never be mitigated by political reform.

Except that political reform is exactly what happened; Marx failed to anticipate wealth redistribution, in which the state redistributes capitalist profits through taxation, providing, among other things, subsidies for medical insurance, education, social security, and welfare. The state has also taken an active role in regulating the capitalists by limiting working hours and setting minimum pay levels, for example.

That Marxists fail to see these developments as falsifying Marxism speaks to the power of historical prophecy; regardless of what happens, it can always be made to fit into the Marxist narrative (i.e., the road to socialism is not linear). Ironically, this makes Marxism unscientific (because it's not falsifiable), despite the fact that Marxism is often claimed to be a scientific theory.

The dangers of Marxism are the same as with Platonism; it asks people to make great sacrifices for a distant ideal or utopian vision and ignores the types of reforms that can make people’s lives better in the near-term (and it disregards the conception of justice as the non-violent resolution of conflicting priorities).

But be careful to not take from this that Popper was a conservative. Popper used the concept of the paradox of freedom to show that unlimited freedom—including economic freedom—destroys itself. Just as the state restricts the freedom of others to commit physical violence, Popper recommends state intervention to prevent the economically strong from dominating the economically weak. That’s why Popper is best thought of as a progressive (using the state to combat economic injustice), rather than as either a Marxist (who thinks the social revolution will make the state unnecessary) or a conservative/libertarian (who advocates for unlimited economic freedom, and therefore, for economic exploitation).

The Open Society is sometimes thought of only as a critique of Plato and Marx (and an effective one at that), but it is something much more profound than even that. Popper lays out his own innovative political philosophy that replaces the question “Who should rule?” with the better question “How can we so organize political institutions that bad or incompetent rulers can be prevented from doing too much damage?”

This shift of emphasis is grounded in the historical fact that most leaders throughout history have exhibited below-average intelligence and morality, indicating that humanity is generally quite bad at selecting capable and worthwhile leaders. While we should hope for the best in our political leaders, we should also prepare for the worst. Democracy, in this sense, is less about the authoritative rule of the majority as it is the perpetual defense against tyranny.

This is why a focus on institutions, and the establishment of effective systems of accountability, is far more important than selecting any particular leader, particularly if that leader is determined to weaken those very democratic institutions.

Additionally, the implementation of policy should “adopt the method of searching for, and fighting against, the greatest and most urgent evils of society, rather than searching for, and fighting for, its greatest ultimate good.”

The “piecemeal social engineer,” using Popper’s term, will, like the scientist, run experiments and measure outcomes with an eye toward the reduction of unnecessary suffering, harm, and injustice, without concern for the eventual attainment of perfection (solving problems only introduces new ones). Because things do not always turn out as we imagine—and often generate unintended consequences—it is always necessary to test and revise our ideas. This doesn’t prohibit bold or progressive policy, it only suggests that we should maintain some humility with regard to our ability to prophesy the future. As Popper wrote:

“In fact, [a scientific orientation to politics] might lead to the happy situation where politicians begin to look out for their own mistakes instead of trying to explain them away and to prove that they have always been right. This—and not Utopian planning or historical prophecy—would mean the introduction of scientific method into politics, since the whole secret of scientific method is a readiness to learn from mistakes.”

[Nathan · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is one of those books that have inspired many generations of bad readings of Plato, Hegel, and Heraclitus. Popper clearly becomes victim of his own critique. The history of philosophy in the west is forced to support his thesis. I would even go so far as to call his presentation irresponsible.

[Beauregard Bottomley · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an incredibly great book for four different reasons: Popper explains Plato, Aristotle, Hegel and Marx distinctly; historicism is demolished; the Popperian nature of science is expounded; and the madness of today is understood through his 1938 – 1945 interpretation of the past both as he presents his historical interpretations and as a meta-history (a history about a history) through how we today see what he saw because we see the world from our perspective of today as he saw his world through his own time lens.

Facetiously I can say, you’re neurotic and have psychological problems since you deny your own neurosis because you repress it since you obviously deny it. If you don’t, then you would admit to being neurotic, and then I would also know you are neurotic by your own testimony. Popper, of course, in this book mocks psychoanalysis by pointing out its ‘catch 22’ pseudo-scientific roots. There was a surprisingly large amount of philosophy of science in this book even though its main thrust was fascism, Marxism and the falseness of historicism and the enemies of an open society.

Popper will present Plato’s Republic as he interprets it as a template for fascism. All one needs to do is read Hitler’s ‘Mein Kampf’ in order to see the connections (though, Popper never mentions Hitler at least I don’t think he does). Hitler (imo) was clearly inspired by Plato for the creation of his Nazi madness. Sparta is a model for the Republic and Hitler in his insane ramblings describes his ‘social revolution’ of the classless one class with the state being the end of all being similarly as presented by Plato by encouraging the physical over the arts, opposing learning just for its own sake as in the learning a foreign language such as French (Hitler gave that example in his book), discouraging poetry or anything that distances one from the perfect form as embodied in the Platonic virtues (courage, justice, wisdom and prudence), all actions must be for the sake of the state (or as Popper often refers to the state: the tribe) as represented by the guardians, and the mixing of bronze with gold or silver let alone anyone outside of the original tribe should not be tolerated and would only cheapen the culture, blood and characteristics derived from the soil and culture. Popper will show all of these to be part and parcel for fascism and also within the Republic and amplified by Hegel.

Popper preemptively mocks the evo-devo (evolutionary development) crowd of today such as Jordan Peterson and the always shallow Steven Pinker by his critic of psychologicism with its mythical origins necessitating the denial of a sociological reality. He connects the fascist and the Marxist to a community without an individual and power for the sake of power itself through the state (left Hegelianism, Marxism) or through the individual guardian (cult leader, e.g. Hitler or Donald Trump) in a classless one class society (right wing Hegelianism, fascism).

Popper was surprisingly sympathetic to Marx and his methodology but not to his conclusions. Marx’s critic is within the given assumptions of capitalism and liberalism and is therefore an ‘immanent critique’ and gave a warning for the excesses in the industrial age and very well could be applicable as a warning for our digital age as a warning against Facebook, Google, Apple and Amazon dominating our spheres of influence through market domination and leading to excessive power for a select few. Popper will quote the brutality that Marx documented in which unfettered capitalism would inflict upon a 9 year old boy and his 16 ½ hour working days, with no sick days or sympathy or soul and so on. Popper will note that government intervention, protection and laws allowed some checks on unfettered capitalism, but it by inference to today is not necessarily a guarantee against excessive power in the hands of today’s monopolistic gatekeepers (tell me again why Facebook did not stop the spreading of the doctored Nancy Pelosi tape last week but Youtube did, and with certainty a similar propagation of false news will happen without adequate counter warnings potentially leading to us re-electing a president who believes ‘climate change is a Chinese hoax’ and that ‘vaccines cause autism’, or lies, exaggerates and misleads intentionally without impunity. Matter of fact, Popper has a section on how enemies of the open society will always have conspiracies without substance to blame others for harm to the in-tribe, that is similar to those today who pretend they are the ‘Real Americans’, the ones who claim to have no identity because they are the definition of what all should strive for since they are already of the privileged class, the in-tribe).

Popper will say that Plato wants a return to the original tribe without change since all change is evil except for the change of evil itself, and Marx wants a change away from the tribe’s origins to a utopian classless changeless society.

Popper really seemed to like Schopenhauer and Kierkegaard. Popper said that Kierkegaard was anti anti-Christians and anti anti-humanism of his day. I see Kierkegaard differently. I see him as against humanism especially that which came out of the modernist Enlightenment, but that is just a matter of opinion and labels. Popper is most definitely a humanist, a believer in classical liberalism and equality (fairness), and I think that Popper just might have misinterpreted Kierkegaard’s overall life project.

There were some interesting conversations on irrationality, rationality and reason. Popper will call Alfred Whitehead a mystic and mocks him for thinking knowledge is for the domain of only the elect who have special insight and will show an irrational like Arnold Toynbee can reach rational conclusions. Fascism needs the pretense of rationality. It needs the esoteric certainty of the self anointed elect to such a degree that all others who have different beliefs must under their paradigm be under the false illusion of ‘fake news’. (BTW, Whitehead is a big believer in a pernicious teleology driving science and life, see ‘The Function of Reason’ for amplification).

This is a superior book. It is freely available on the internet in PDF. I put it into ‘voice dream reader’ on my Iphone and listened to it as an audio book. The author assumes that the reader really wants to know what was going on in the world and why and assumed that the reader was willing to learn and was doing everything in their power to understand. I think this book would have been a must read when it came out, and I would classify it as a must read today.

[Dan · Rating 3 out of 5]

To follow any author – even critically – one needs some minimum empathy with their project. Popper had enough empathy with Marx and his project, and as such that part of the book is quite good. On the other hand, his dislike of Hegel and especially of Plato is so pronounced that it is painful to read the rest of this book. Basically, Popper is telling us – “do not read Plato and Hegel because they are both incomprehensible and dangerous; I tried to read and understand them, but I was so angry with them that I could not do it.” In addition to all these intellectual dislikes, Popper included a lot of counter-attacks against critics of this book in the subsequent editions. He even took the opportunity to attack some people from his own logical positivist camp here – like several direct attacks against Wittgenstein.

Popper is applying the distinction closed society – tribal - irrational - elitist - dictatorial – essence - hidden etc. vs. open society – modern - rational - popular – democratic – negotiated - obvious etc. along with the “progress” of the first into the second to the understanding of what a society and knowledge are and should be. In my opinion, Arendt's “The Origins of Totalitarianism” and Kuhn's “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions” offer much better insights into the understanding of totalitarianism and knowledge.

I think that by following Popper's project, some social sciences like sociology lost a lot of ground recently. On the other hand, a lot of “proper” scientists and inherent of logical positivism in the AI field are engaging in wild historicism and prophecies these days; one just need to read Tegmark's “Life 3.0” or similar. And while talking about historicism and prophecies - I am sure that in 100 years from now people will continue to read Plato, Hegel, and Marx; but not Popper at all. In fact, he is already half forgotten...

[E. G. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Foreword
Preface: 'Karl Popper's The Open Society and Its Enemies in the Contemporary Global World', by Václav Havel
'Personal Recollections of the Publication of The Open Society', by E. H. Gombrich
Acknowledgements
Preface to the First Edition
Preface to the Second Edition
Introduction

--The Open Society and Its Enemies

Notes
Notes to Volume I
Notes to Volume II
Index

[Jawad A. · Rating 1 out of 5]

Academic bullshit! Completely detached from historical facts. Facts as much more important than opinions.

[ZaRi · Rating 4 out of 5]

«در هیچ جامعه‌ای تفکر بالیدن نمی‌گیرد مگر آنکه شرایط گفتگوی امن و برابر برای همه از چپِ چپ تا راستِ راست فراهم باشد.
جامعه باز که دستاورد یونانیان است، غیر دینی است. در جامعه باز طبیعت و قرارداد از یکدیگر جدا و زمینه برای رویکرد انتقادی فراهم است.
در جامعه باز فردیت انسان‌ها در درجه نخستِ اهمیت قرار دارد و در جامعه بسته فردیت به بهانه وحدت ملی یا وحدت قوم و قبیله سرکوب می‌شود.
اگر راست است که دانش بدون نقد و آزمایش ممکن نیست، خرد حکم می‌کند که امور جامعه هم به روی نقد باز باشد.»

[Zach · Rating 5 out of 5]

Come for the defense of the open society, stay for the sick Hegel burns.

Popper's work is concerned with the defense of the open society - liberal democracy as a political system, with policies underpinned by piecemeal social engineering with humanitarian aims - against its enemies - totalitarians of various stripes.

The first volume deals largely with Plato, whom Popper regards as a genius who lost his moral way, abandoning and then reversing the humanitarianism of his mentor, Socrates, and his generation of Periclean democrats. In its stead, in the Statesman, the Laws, and most of all in the Republic, is a racial dictatorship where anything the racial leaders do to keep the population quiescent is justified. Lies, violence, and eugenics are all justified in pursuit of totalitarian "justice" and "truth". But since Plato's early dialogues are imbued with the true spirit of Socrates, and since Plato is such a brilliant writer, he has deceived many humanitarian defenders of the open society into agreeing with his closed, totalitarian tribalism. I find this attack on Plato to be extremely devastating and I don't think I will ever look at him the same way.

The second volume is largely concerned with Hegel and with Marx. As opposed to Plato, who Popper regards as an evil genius, Hegel is simply evil; there is no genius to be found. The sick burns of Hegel are really quite hilarious, though Hegel's influence on philosophy is not quite so funny. The argument is that Hegel, as a toady of the absolutist Prussian government that sponsored him, revived Plato's right-wing, racial totalitarianism, by bombastically contending that the Spirit of the Nation is the true actor of history and is always just. For Spirit, substitute race, and you have the fascists of a century after Hegel; since the awful places where this philosophy leads are pretty obvious Popper does not spend much more time criticizing it.

Instead, he turns to Marx. His contention is that Marx is much misunderstood; he is a humanitarian (though he may not admit it), who was unable to shake off his Hegelian education and that led him to try to create immutable laws of history and to not renounce violence, both fatal errors. On his humanitarianism, Popper argues that Marx saw the insane exploitation of the workers of the 1850s - children working 18 hour days for starvation wages only to die before they were 18 - and was fundamentally revolted. This led him to socialism, but his Hegelian upbringing led him to try and prophecy socialism out of history, in which he failed. The workers succeeded in uniting enough to change many parts of their fate via the ballot box, rather than by a Communist revolution. However, Popper argues that because of their faith in that revolution, the worker's parties failed to do as much with their power as they could have in the early nineteenth century - that Marxists really didn't have a plan for gradually reforming society because Marx thought that only revolutionary change counted. Further, the ambiguity around the use of violence to effect revolutionary change triggered a corresponding readiness to use violence among the owners of capital, giving us the fascists, who, as owners of capital, had access to better guns. And even in the place where the Communists had a successful (violent) revolution - Russia - Lenin quickly discovered that there wasn't really a plan after the revolution. So he clung to power and created a totalitarianism of the left, appropriating Marxist slogans to benefit his own party. So Marx's desire to help the workers was admirable, but his program - due largely to his Hegelian historical prophecies - led to disaster.

As an attack on totalitarianisms of the right (Plato, Hegel) and the left (Marx), Popper could hardly be more devastating. But he has a positive social program as well. In place of utopian social engineering - the complete reformation of society based on race or class - Popper offers a defense of piecemeal social engineering, what we might call nowadays liberal incrementalism, with a goal of minimizing suffering. Revolutions are justified only in removing an un-democratic regime and replacing it with democratic institutions - doing more invites the rule of the strongman. Social policies should be conducted as experiments, to discover what is most effective in alleviating suffering. This may be less romantic that Marx's program of total revolution, but it is much more effective.

I would recommend this book to everyone. The Open Society needs its defenders now as much as ever. Not only must we contend with the re-emergence of racial totalitarianisms and the attack from Plato, we are also confronted with a desire to return to the conditions of capitalism that so enraged Marx - capital accumulation, wage stagnation, and a rollback of the intervention of the state to help the needy, defended by an authoritarian (as against humanitarian) version of Christianity. We have an open society, and it is up to us to keep it, and to improve it.

[Zanna · Rating 4 out of 5]

Popper mounts many-faceted defence of liberal democracy and its underpinnings against what he sees as attacks on it by Plato/Aristotle (essentialist, authoritarian) and Marx/Engels (historicist). These great tidy, totalising theories of society stand against the messy muddling through of democracy.

I was largely in agreement with Popper through much of the text. I'm sure I would re-read more critically now (I am an anarchist), but remain grateful to it for furnishing me with criticisms of essentialism, tyrannical positivism, and historicism, the dubious belief that a certain outcome (revolution) is inevitable, foretold by a discernable pattern of historical events.

Popper doesn't only critique Plato & Marx; he also expounds his own (liberal as in John Stuart Mill) position on socio-political philosophy and the whole book is very wide ranging. The foundations of Popper's well known philosophy of science (falsificationism) and his theory of reason as faith are key building blocks. Fellow opponents of head-in-the-sand rationalism might find Popper's demolition of a priori justifications for reason handy.

[Jim Neeley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wow.

That was a book I did not think I was going to get through. Some parts I just really comprehended easily, some I had to go back and reread. I'm sure part of the reason is my complete lack of knowledge, beyond pop culture snippets, of that historical era. But I do have this to say, that I agree with Poppers criticism of power,authority, totalitarianism, and his view of an open society.

What I think this book did for me, was made me look at my critical thinking better and reasoning ability.Use it as a guide in making a stronger foundation arguments. It was very thorough and reasoned.

A must read for those interested in democracy and civic responsibility,take your time and use the foot notes. It will be worth it.

[Arash kh]

به حتم خواندن کتاب بسیار مفید و باارزش خواهد بود اما نویسنده با گرایش و دیدگاه خاصی به افلاطون هگل مارکس پرداخته است. به نظر نمی رسد اصل خود فلسفه افلاطون و به ویژه نظریه مثل و فیلسوف شاه او بخواهد به دیکتاتوری و فاشیست بینجامد. لازم است نگاهی دقیق و موشکافانه به کتاب جمهور ( ودر اصل مصلح عامه) او بیندازی��. ضمن این که او در کتاب های بعدی به خصوص سیاستمدار نظریه های خود را تعدیل کرده است. تعریفی که هگل نیز از روح و دولت ارایه می دهد با آن مقدمات و فرضیات مقرر نیست که به فاشیست منتهی شود یا این که نظریه های مارکس دقیقا به منظور مقابله با نوع خاصی از تمامیت خواهی است که او برعکس معتقد از سرمایه داری شروع می شود. برینگتون مور و حتی هانا آرنت از دیدگاهی جامعه شناختی اثبات کرده اثبات کرده اند فاشیست ریشه در دیدگاه سرمایه داری و ایدیولوژی نزدیک به آن یعنی لیبرالیسم دارد.

[Erwin · Rating 1 out of 5]

An excellent book on the "inner workings" of ultra-liberalism. Don't take this stuff seriously. Read it as a warning.

[Julio Pino · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Anti-communism, as an ism, is the creation of ex-communists".---Hannah Arendt. It's Sir Karl Popper to you! Or, how Plato, Hegel, and Marx formed an ugly totalitarian trio to justify slavery and tyranny in the name of utopia. Popper, a one-time Marxist in Vienna, always claimed "the target of this book was Hitler" but that is hard to square with the anti-communism that runs through these hundreds of pages. His thesis "dream-societies inevitably lead to the GULAG" is hard to square with his own support for right-wing regimes during the Cold War". THE OPEN SOCIETY AND ITS ENEMIES belongs on the same shelf as Camus' THE REBEL; both are relics of the Cold War and both are anti-communist tomes disguised as "in defense of freedom" polemics. Popper was a much better critic of science and how science is done, which earned him the wrath of working scientists, than he was an intellectual historian. (Also the anger of Wittgenstein, his fellow Viennese.) No wonder he was knighted by the late Queen Elizabeth.

[Ferio · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ponerle una puntuación menor a este libro solo por mis propias ideas políticas sería engañarme a mí mismo y a todos los interesados en leerlo. Antes de escribir esto he estado leyendo críticas y comentarios al mismo en varios portales diferentes y me doy cuenta de que, probablemente, ninguno de los que lo ponen como manual fundamental o lo denostan como ataque a sus ideas lo han entendido bien. Eso si lo han leído, claro, aunque entendería que no lo hicieran porque a ratos es una travesía en el desierto.

Este libro me lo regaló por un cumpleaños, hace ya tiempo, una persona que se definía a sí misma como anarcocapitalista, diciéndome que era su obra de cabecera sobre cómo deberían funcionar las cosas. Varios políticos de un partido conservador me han alabado por leerlo, y un neomarxista me ha dicho que no debería hacerlo. Como os digo, sospecho que nadie lo ha terminado de entender; yo sí porque soy muy listo, pero los demás no. A mi humilde parecer, el ataque que el autor realiza contra Plato, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel y Karl Marx no habla en ningún momento de capitalismo sin límites ni de conservadurismo ni de que los marxistas son el Demonio; más bien propone la socialdemocracia, entendida como un sistema democrático liberal y un capitalismo con intervencionismo estatal. ¿Es eso un pecado? No: es el mundo en el que vivimos en muchos países; que esto nos guste o no es otra historia de la que podemos hablar largo y tendido.

En la crítica que realiza a Platón y a Hegel no voy a entrar mucho, dado que mis conocimientos reales sobre ellos se quedaron en algún lugar de mi mente al que no puedo acceder tras la Selectividad, pero últimamente he leído mucho a los grandes autores marxistas (el propio Marx, Friedrich Engels, Vladimir Lenin, Mao Tse-tung...) y entiendo perfectamente lo que dice de ellos; es más, habiéndolos leído sé que ellos también lo hubieran entendido, y empiezo a preguntarme cuánto de Política y cuánto de Religión tiene el Comunismo actual. El grueso de la crítica radica en que Marx hizo una profecía muy rígida de cómo debían terminar las cosas con la dictadura del proletariado, el derrumbe del Estado y el advenimiento de la sociedad comunista, puntos que los marxistas posteriores han repetido también bastante como si fuera un mantra, sin pararse a analizar demasiado si las condiciones eran las mismas en unos sitios u otros y si realmente esa profecía era cierta (porque repetir mucho una cosa no la convierte en real). De hecho, tanto Lenin como Mao criticaron las llamadas desviaciones de izquierda dentro de sus ideologías porque veían que la aplicación de ciertos puntos era imposible tras sus revoluciones y que había que mantener un sistema mixto estatal-privado que nunca llegó a romperse del todo, dando lugar al Capitalismo de Estado. No, de verdad, amigo marxista que lees esto: no olvides que Mao propuso que no se expropiaran las tierras a los grandes terratenientes con mucha fuerza, que no se subieran mucho los sueldos de los pobres y que lo mejor era una alianza con los capitalistas hasta que llegara el Reino Prometido. Claro que nunca llegó porque nadie hizo nada por su advenimiento aparte de repetirlo en cada discurso público.

Porque esa es otra de las cosas que critica mucho Popper: hay unas teorías que se repiten mucho como si fueran eternas e inmutables, pero nunca se llegan a poner en práctica porque no se dan las condiciones (o han cambiado directamente) o no es el momento: ¿a partir de qué punto siguen siendo válidas? Él propone que con el intervencionismo estatal, y particularmente el derecho a la sindicación y la huelga dentro de los estados liberales, la mayor parte de la fuerza del marxismo desaparece porque las condiciones cambian bastante. Esto es solo verdadero en cierto grado, pero sí desmonta un poco, si no las ganas de que llegue una fase socialista, sí los pilares en las que esta debería basarse. Con tantos miles de millones de humanos también sería un poco complicado que todos se pusieran de acuerdo, claro.

Y estos son los puntos básicos de la obra, en la que se aboga porque la iniciativa individual y el libre contrato entre personas sean la base de la sociedad (prácticamente como en el Anarquismo o la fase final del Comunismo), pero que exista un justo contrapeso de intervencionismo estatal para cuando algunos sean más individuales que otros y empiecen las corrupciones a las que tan acostumbrados estamos en los países latinos. De verdad, quitando que es algo farragoso en algunos puntos y sin estar de acuerdo con él en otros, lo que dice no es tan grave ni el hecho de que se lo usara como símbolo para derrocar a los gobiernos comunistas le convierte en Satanás, principalmente porque sospecho que la mayor parte de aquellos eslavos no se lo leyeron, ¡si incluso dice que Marx le parecía un buen tipo!

Definitivamente, una obra seminal que, o yo me paso de listo, o la mayor parte de la gente que la reclama no la ha entendido, o son los demás los que se pasan de listos y yo sigo aquí haciendo el tonto sin reclamar nada.

[Steve · Rating 3 out of 5]

Professor Popper’s noted work is a warning to us for how the agents of power politics incorporate themes from philosophers like Plato, Hegel and Marx to enhance their control, to close society, in effect. Writing at the conclusion of the Second World War, Professor Popper had ample evidence to spur this work and support his conclusions. I suggest, though, that the forces steering political power needn’t limit their resources to the works of Plato, Hegel and Marx; the weapons involved in social repression are fed with ammunition of infinite calibers.

Several disjointed, derivative thoughts came to mind reading this work:

First, as I’ve written elsewhere, I believe any work authored before the first movable type in 1439 to be of dubious provenance, unless an original version exists. This is especially true for the Greeks, whose writings were passed along for many centuries before becoming fixed in print. The Republic is believed to have been written c. 375 BC, however, the oldest existing manuscript, according to the authoritative source Wikipedia, dates from the late 9th century AD, a difference of nearly 1300 years. So who knows what Plato really had to say; I’m pretty sure it’s not what is contained in the latest Penguin edition of The Republic. Recognizing this makes it downright difficult to follow Professor Popper’s criticism of Plato, page after page analyzing writings of dubious authenticity; doesn’t this make Professor’s Popper’s effort rather silly?

Second, I believe Karl Marx to be one of the greatest advocates for social justice in history. I recall finishing volume 1 of Das Kapital thinking that were he writing today, he might easily be confused for a Kennedy liberal. I do believe he erred significantly in his analysis in volumes 2 and 3; I think criticizing Marx’s economic theory became something of an industry in itself and remains so to this day. What struck me the most in those latter volumes was Marx’s simplistic notion of capital; ignoring risk, an omnipresent component of investment. The biggest criticism against Karl Marx, however, has nothing to do with the details of his observations or theories; no, the biggest criticism is that many of the worst atrocities on record were committed under the banner of the cause he sparked. This fact alone makes Marx low hanging fruit for criticism, regardless of the merits of his writings.

Third, I thought about my country, the USA. I think a work titled ‘American Socialism’ is in order. I caught on the news recently a politician defending himself against the socialist tag. Really? If you all haven’t already noticed, we are a socialist country, except not the kind of socialism that would make a social scientist proud.

Finally, a note on Professor Popper’s writing—it’s laborious; pity the student that finds this work on their syllabus. Consider this quote from Chapter 24:

Thus I think that we have every right to make the socio-analytical diagnosis that Toynbee’s neglect to take serious arguments seriously is representative of a twentieth-century intellectualism which expresses its disillusionment, or even despair, of reason, and of a rational solution of our social problems, by an escape into a religious mysticism.

Is it too much to ask for clarity of expression from esteemed academic minds?

[Saeed Abdavi · Rating 4 out of 5]

بالاخره بعد از حدود ۹ ماه٬به پایان رسید.نویسنده به طرز استادانه ای به انتقاد از دشمنان جامعه باز یعنی افلاطون٬
هگل و مارکس می پردازد. در واقع هر فصل از کتاب به طور مفصل در باره هرکدام از فیلسوفان فوق به بحث و نقد می پردازد.اگرچه
هیچکدام از متفکران فوق از از تیغ انتقاد نویسنده به سلامت عبور نمی کنند٬هگل اماج بیشترین انتقادات قرار میگیرد و نویسنده او
را به یاوه گویی متهم میکند.در فصول اخر کتاب درباره مفهوم تاریخی گری و معنای تاریخ بحث میشود.
چیزی که باعث اعجاب و شگفتی نگارنده این سطور است اشراف فوق العاده نویسنده به حوزه های مختلف علم ٬فلسفه و تاریخ میباشد. شاید مهمترین تاثیری
که مطالعه این کتاب میتواند داشته باشد جلوگیری از رشد تفکر بت سازی و بت پرستی و استقبال از مفهوم لغزش پذیری باشد.

[Ali · Rating 4 out of 5]

پوپر به <ناکجا آباد گرایی> حمله می کند و با مکاتبی که ساختن جامعه کامل و ایده را نوید می دهند، مخالف است. از دموکراسی در برابر حکومت جابرانه دفاع می کند. <نظریه توطئه> را رد می نماید. همچنین پوپر می گوید، این عقیده که مباحثه فقط باید میان کسانی باشد که مفروضات مشترکی را می پذیرند و چارچوب و اصولی را قبول دارند، پیامدهای وحشتناک دارد. کتاب مفصلی است و باید زمان زیادی برای خواندن آن صرف کرد. ترجمه عالی و غنی و قوی <فولادوند> ، خواندن کتاب را لذت بخش می کند

[Gregg Wingo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Karl Popper’s “The Open Society and Its Enemies” is one of the greatest defenses of liberal democracy ever written. Like some medieval monk, he toiled away in virtual isolation in New Zealand during the depths of World War II, an exile and Jewish refugee from his native Austria. The forces of fascism drove Popper into seeking academic exile at Canterbury College in Christchurch, although he had options in England, he did this to allow others of lesser means to seek the closer asylum. This did not curb his intellectual bravery, instead, it insulated him from academic norming and allowed him to focus on a critique of the origins of right-wing totalitarianism in the Western tradition.

Free to pursue thought independent of traditional perceptions, the good professor attacked the political writings of Plato in “The Republic”, “States”, and “Laws” and the works on this subject by Aristotle, too. How does a 20th century attack on totalitarianism become a philosophical attack on foundations of Western philosophy? By the recognition that Plato and Aristotle were both opponents of Athenian democracy and that they represented the aristocratic platform of this Great Generation. Popper demonstrates that Plato’s “Republic” is a blueprint of a totalitarian and genetically based system led by a philosopher-king with the authority and power of The Leader in the fascist sense. Plato even formulates the birth of propaganda and the police state as the basis of societal control from cradle to grave. Like his relatives, Plato chose the traditional and static society of Sparta over the dynamics of the Athenian Empire. And his pupil, Aristotle would further this by educating and philosophically supporting the pseudo-philosopher-king, Alexander the Great, in his conquests of the known world and the creator of the Hellenic Age. Popper shows that the Academia tradition squashes the tolerance and egalitarianism of other Classical thinkers over and over again through human history by quoting ancient philosophers such as Xenophanes:

“The Ethiops say their gods are flat-nosed and black,
While the Thracians say theirs have blue eyes and red hair.
Yet if cattle or horses or lions had hands and could draw,
And could sculpture like men, then horse would draw their gods
Like horses, and cattle; and each they would shape
Bodies of gods in the likeness, each kind, of their own.”

And in his own words:

“The rationalist interpretation of history views with hope those periods in which man attempted to look upon human affairs rationally. It sees in the Great Generation and especially in Socrates, in early Christianity (down to Constantine), in the Renaissance and the period of the Enlightenment, and in modern science, parts of an often interrupted movement, the efforts of men to free themselves, to break out of the cage of the closed society, and to form an open society. It is aware that this movement does not represent a ‘law of progress’ or anything of that sort, but that it depends solely upon ourselves, and must disappear if we do not defend it against its antagonists as well as against laziness and indolence. This interpretation sees in the intervening periods dark ages with their Platonizing authorities, their hierarchies of priest and tribalist orders of knights.”

Popper’s technique in Volume I is significant in separating the Socratic writings of Plato from Plato’s own writings. While Plato utilizes the authority of Socrates in his own writings, in his middle and later periods he is clearly placing his own words in the mouth of his long dead master. In Volume II Popper will utilize this same technique to separate Marx the Economist from Marx the Revolutionary. While much of the second book is focused on Marxism and Communism, its chief focus is on Hegel.

Popper was by nature in his youth a Marxist, however, as the politics of Central Europe played out he realized that the teleological aspects of Marxism were leading to totalitarianism and even worse inaction from the Left against fascism and societal progress. So where did these aspects come from? Popper lays them at the feet of Hegel and historicism – the professor’s great enemy. Hegel’s dialecticism argues that history is determinate something Popper renounces utterly in the quote above and in the following quote by H. A. L. Fisher:

“One intellectual excitement has…been denied me. Men wiser and more learned than I have discerned in history a plot, a rhythm, a pre-determined pattern. These harmonies are concealed from me. I can only see only one emergency following upon another as wave follows wave, only one great fact with respect to which, since it is unique, there can be no generalizations, only one safe rule for the historian: that he should recognize…the play of the contingent and the unforeseen….This is not a doctrine of cynicism and despair. The fact of progress is written plain and large on the page of history; but progress is not a law of nature. The ground gained by one generation may be lost by the next.”

When Marx embraced the dialectic and formulated historical materialism, he doomed his revolutionary argument to failure. He also crippled the evolution of his economic analysis under the decline of unrestrained capitalism. Popper, while seeing the disappearance of unrestrained capitalism, the fall of fascism, and the decline of Communism, does not view these as inevitable events but rather the hard work of democracy. He sees these holistic revolutions as disruptive change based on utopianism and dependent on coercive force and violence, and he demands that liberal democracy must focus on continuous improvement (piecemeal social change) and vigilance against the totalitarian forces on the left and the right:

“Even more important, it can show us that the role of thought is to carry out revolutions by means of critical debate rather than by means of violence and of warfare; that it is the great tradition of Western rationalism to fight our battles with words rather than swords. This is why our Western civilization is an essentially pluralistic one, and why monolithic social ends would mean the death of freedom: of freedom of thought, of the free search for truth, and with it, of rationality and the dignity of man.”

Critical to vigilance are democratic institutions both in the political and economic spheres. Popper firmly rejects the laissez-faire doctrine of Libertarianism as doomed to failure as surely as the Weimar Republic’s ineffective Liberalism:

”The problem of the free market…is of very considerable importance. Generalizing…it is clear that the idea of a free market is paradoxical. If the state does not interfere, then other semi-political organizations such as monopolies, trusts, unions, etc., may interfere, reducing the freedom of the market to a fiction. On the other hand, it is most important to realize that without a carefully protected free market, the whole economic system must cease to serve its only rational purpose, that is, to satisfy the demands of the consumer. If the consumer cannot choose; he must take what the producer offers; if the producer, whether a private producer or the state or a marketing department, is master of the market, instead of the consumer; then the situation must arise that the consumer serves, ultimately, as a kind of money-supply and rubbish-remover for the producer, instead of the producer serving the needs and desires of the consumer.”

Popper has observed and argues that elitism is at the heart of all totalitarian societies whether formulated along religious, genetic, national heritage, class or birth lines. When a group of privileged individuals is place above the rest with guaranteed rights and protections, freedom and liberty will die. He directly reflects on this in terms of the institution of Christianity in this quote by H. Blueher:

“Christianity is emphatically an aristocratic creed, free of morals, unteachable. The Christians know one another by their exterior type; they form a set in human society who never fail in mutual understanding, and who are understood by none but themselves. They constitute a secret league. Furthermore, the kind of love that operates in Christianity is that which illuminates the pagan temples; it bears no relation to the Jewish invention of so-called love of mankind or love of one’s neighbours.”

It is not religion or nationalism that is the problem but the inherent tribalism of Humankind as social creatures. It is only by resisting such tendencies that freedom and progress can be sustained and our evolutionally derived societal behaviors can be curbed. Popper strongly argues that these tendencies are not aberrant individual psychological behaviors but rather our human social nature.

Since being published in 1945 this work remains a critical work on the human condition and the nature of our societies. Popper defended and revised the work in 1965 in order to clarify and reinforce his argument based on twenty years of exposure to academic criticism and post-WWII events. His positions remained unchanged on Plato, Aristotle, and Hegel. Only on Marx did he question the firmness of the classical economist’s humanitarian intentions based on documentary evidence discovered by Leopold Schwarzschild in the correspondence of Marx and Engels. “The Open Society and Its Enemies” has withstood the test of time and provides insights into our milieu of the second era of unrestrained capitalism and Postmodern relativism.

[Mansoor · Rating 1 out of 5]

سوسیالیست‌جماعت عوض‌بشو نیست. حتی وقتی علیه گذشته‌ی خودش می‌نویسد، باز سوسیالیست است

[Patrick · Rating 5 out of 5]

This set of two books is a philosophical treat. Although I haven't read a lot of philosophy, this book, I believe, is good guidance for me. In it, the author critiques three philosophers, Plato, Hegel and Marx. He shows how each one failed to live up to democratic values.

Socrates, for instance, held an open inquiry method that was well-crafted for the democratic society that had risen up in ancient Greece in the time in which he lived. But Plato who was responsible for writing down Socrates' arguments was actually a member of the elite and was not as interested in democratic values. In fact, Plato held that only the elite should have freedom. While Socrates taught open inquiry, Plato was actually in favor of tyranny.

Similarly, Popper offers other arguments against Hegel and Marx. This book was a revelation to me in that it offered sharp criticism of highly regarded philosophers and thereby opens the world of philosophy to me in a way that traditional laudatory introductions would not have.

[Ehsan falah · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sir Karl Raimund Popper is counted among the most influential philosophers of science of the 20th century, and also wrote extensively on social and political philosophy. In The "Open Society and Its Enemies", Popper developed a critique of historicism and a defence of the 'Open Society' and liberal democracy. He was the famous and powerfull enemy for authoritarianism and totalitarianism.
سر كارل ريموند پوپر در شمار فلاسفه مهم و پرقدرت فلسفه علم و فلسفه سياسي قرن بيستم است. عمده بحث وي در كتاب "جامعه باز و دشمنان آن" در باره ساختارهاي ديكتانوري و تماميت خواه است.
ساختار سياسي پيشنهادي او بر محور قدرت مردم است. حكومتي كه مردم بتوانند به سادگي آن را تغيير دهند يا واليانش را عوض كنند.

[The Laughing Man · Rating 5 out of 5]

Seriously one of the heaviest books I have read, it's decoding the entire mindset behind totalitarian / regressive ideologies especially the poisonous Marxism, if you really want to put communists down leaving them no point of defense for their arguments you need to arm yourself with this book. Popper has taken down Marx with style. And if you have even a modicum or respect for Plato or Hegel, get ready to lose it... This book will force you to grow.

[Eugene Kernes · Rating 3 out of 5]

Overview:
Closed societies reinforce officially claimed rules, often through repression and totalitarianism. Closed societies resist change, and resist learning from experiences. Within an open society, criticisms are welcome. Open societies are inclusive to different people, interests, and ideas. The open society learns from experiences. Society cannot delegate all their thinking, even to those deemed the best of decision makers. For everyone makes mistakes.

Closed societies have people determine what to do, without allowing for criticism. Totalitarian regimes consider any criticism as hostile, as they are a challenge to the authority. This process leads to surprise and contradictions. Wanting to be correct, and therefore ignore contradictory evidence is not limited to totalitarian decision makers. Without criticism, the decision makers can get more influence, even when they are against freedom and reason. Reluctance to criticize bad ideas leads to the destruction of good ideas. Humanitarian claims can be made by their deadliest enemies, as totalitarian regimes often get favored for their humanitarian claims. Under the guise of humanitarian allies, they generate disunion and confusion.

Alternatively, the open society prevents people from hiding their contradictions. Those who desire an open society want to reject absolute authority, and reject the values that are hurting human kind. The open society wants rational criticism. To find values, whether new or old, that raise the standards of freedom. The open society declares an unwillingness to delegate all responsibility for thinking to others in authority.

Social Engineering:
The open society is intimately tied to Popper’s views on science, which is defined by a need to put conjectures to experimental tests. There is tension in the challenges that open society has for its claims, but there is far more tension in closed society. For Popper, it was democratic inquiry that facilitated finding values that were wanted to be achieved, and the experts who explain how to achieve that.

Popper supported piecemeal social engineering, and was opposed to large scale social engineering. Plato thought large scale social engineering was needed. Utopian engineering tends to try to be large scale, effecting the whole society. Grand scale social engineering is too complicated to be managed practically. Alternatively, piecemeal engineering is much simpler. Small scale engineering can experiment with appropriate ways. To make adjusts to policy designs. To bring in science to politics, and to learn from mistakes. Wrong ways, will not damage everyone. The potential damage will be localized. Small scale engineering is also politically viable for they are less risky, and therefore also more practical.

What Is Historicism?
Historicism is the use of science founded upon laws of history to obtain predictions and prophecies. Historicism is a misunderstanding of the method of science. Under historicism, all historical events are interpreted as leading to an ultimate outcome. Historicist theories depend on group formation, elements of collectivism. A tribe, or larger groups, that the individual cannot exist without.

What the historicist do, is find the origin and historic role of institutions to find their destiny. They interpret history to discover laws of development to obtain historical forecasts. Fascism and Marxian are different version of historical philosophies that see different prophecies, but both are totalitarian. Fascism has a feature for racialism, in which history is interpreted as a struggle between different races for mastery. With in Marx’s views, history is interpreted as a struggle between the different classes for economic supremacy.

Natural vs Normative Laws:
The distinction between natural and normative laws become blurred. Natural laws reflect physical realities. Laws of nature that either are or are not true. No exceptions to natural laws. Uncertainties about them are hypothesis. Humans cannot control natural laws. Humans can use natural laws for technical purposes.

Normative laws are those that reflect human social structure. Normative laws are legislature, and needs to be enforced by people. Legislature that can be altered. Legislature that provides direction for behavior. Their enforcement subject to human actions and decisions, requiring human sanction. Some decisions are impossible as they contradict natural laws.

Does History Have Meaning:
History does not have meaning, but people can give it meaning. As history becomes interpreted, it provides impetus for change in the present. History is based on interpretations, which continually change.

Popper did not believe in a separation been ideas and theories. Every observation contains preconceptions. Theories define which facts are selected. History, is no different than science in the selection of facts. There is always a point of view. This does not legitimate purposely falsifying anything. But, that it is difficult to decide on the truth or false value of ideas.

Heraclitus:
Earliest forms of historicism come from Heraclitus. Heraclitus emphasized change, with an immutable law of destiny. Setting up the contradiction of change, contemporaneously with unchangeable laws. Resisting change, while also demanding it. Change breaks the stability that society needs, while also the need to change to social circumstances.

Heraclitus also elevated certain people who had reason that came from a mystical intuitive understanding. That mystical intuition gives those people power, to be able to understand the more appropriate way of behavior.

Plato:
Plato exhibited Greek culture at the time. A culture situated in a cosmic setting. Plato through that Plato’s era was depraved, due to a historical tendency towards decay. Plato also thought that it was possible to end the process of decay through human effort. Not just human effort, but superhuman effort. A law of decay broken by wise humans, with powerful human reason. A contradiction, for breaking the law of decay is part of the law of historical destiny. Degeneration was part of moral degeneration, which had the consequent of political degeneration. Intertwined with racial degeneration.

For Plato, everything that preserves is good, while anything that corrupts is evil. Change leads away from the perfect originator. Copies are rarely perfect replicas. Copies have errors, which are a corruption of the perfect. This is part of the law of increasing decay and corruption, for copies of copies will have even more errors. Although, Plato thinks that change and decay can be defied by someone of a good soul.

The historical tendency towards corruption could be prevented by preventing change. By arresting all political change. Without change, there is no degeneration. Without change, there would be no evil. Central to Plato’s philosophy is are the Forms (or Idea). Perfect and unchanging things. The Platonic Form is the origin of things. Sustainable virtues.

Plato was looking for knowledge that would not change. Knowledge used to understand the changing world and society. To understand the political changes, and the historical laws. To understand how to rule humans. Without some knowledge that would not change, it would make comparisons between the same ideas. Essences that can be discovered with intellectual intuition. Essences are the proper name to related things, a definition.

Plato provided a philosophic defense for those who claim to have an unchallengeable insight into the operations of reality. Plato created a hierarchy of people, with the few enlightened and the rest thoughtless.

Plato favored communally shared resources, and people. Communism directed by a ruling class. For the ruling class to be effective, the family structure must be disassembled. The family must cover the whole warrior class. Communism that is meant to prevent disunion. There are more conditions for the stability of the ruling class. Conditions such as division of the classes, identity of state with the ruling class. The ruling class is meant to be educated and make decisions based on collective interests of the members. Popper identifies additional conditions based on the same logic. Conditions such as a monopoly of military training, while exclusion from economic activity. The aim of the state is autarky. The ideas that the ruling class views have to be the same. Alternatives to economics or ideas would undermine stability. Popper considers this program totalitarian.

Plato recognized that even the best people, still depend on others and cannot be self-sufficient. Society and the individual depend on each other for their existence. Individual lack of self-sufficiency gives rise to the society. Gives rise to the state. Perfection depends on the state. It is the state that protects the perfection of the people. The state provides the social conditions for the perfection of the people. The state takes priority over people, for it is the state that can be self-sufficient.

Contemporary views on what humanitarian means is equal rights for citizens, an impartial justice system, and equal opportunities. Traditional Greek ideas about justice appear close to contemporary usage, but Plato was opposed to this usage. For Plato justice would be what is best for the state. Which would involve arresting change, and maintaining class division and class rule. Plato seems to have wanted those within a class to be treated as equals, but not those across classes. Different classes would get different treatment. Also, Plato disapproved of democracy because it provided equality to everyone.

Those who agree with Plato, still claim that rulers are not always good or wise. Popper would advise to prepare for bad governance and leaders, rather than expect the best. Which does raise the concern of whom should rule, and how can bad leaders be preventing from damaging decisions. Plato wanted rulers to be educated, to be philosophers, to be wise. For succession, a wise ruler would know who the successor should be. This would mean dependency on uncertain situations that risks threatening the state due to personal decisions.

Aristotle:
Aristotle thought it impossible to demonstrate all knowledge, because each proof needed a preceding premise. Creating an infinite regression continuously going to the preceding premise. To avoid the infinite regression, Aristotle used Plato’s essences. Essences that are basic premises, that need no proof. What that means, is that the basic premise are definitions.

Hegel:
Plato favored the ideas in the mind, as they were the abstract unchangeable things. Plato considered them real, while perishable things as unreal. Kant made a similar reference to ideas of pure reason. Hegel takes both claims of idea=real and ideas=reason, to yield real=reason. That equation gave support to maintaining the status quo. For what is real, must have come about due it being necessary and reasonable.

Karl Marx:
There are those who defend Marx’s views as unassailable no matter if parts of the doctrines were wrong. Popper sees Marxism as a method, and therefore wrong to deflect all attacks. Popper advises to judge Marxism method through scientific methodological standards. Marx would have wanted criticism of Marx’s method. Marx wanted practical politicians, and for science to yield practical results.

Marx either forbidden or denounced social technology. Marx denounced rational planning as Utopian and illegitimate. This made the successors even less unprepared than the bourgeois economists. Russian successors were unprepared for social engineering. Even Lenin acknowledged not to know how to deal with the various problems, as the economics problems were not practically described in their texts. Lenin’s failure with war-communism, caused Lenin to reintroduced limited and temporary private enterprise. The New Economic Policy was not part of Marx and Engels policy took kit.

Marx’s economic research is subservient to historical prophecy. To Marx, each system contains its own self-destructive forces that will produce the next economic system.

For Marx, history is class struggle. Although there have been historical conflicts between the classes, there have been many conflicts within classes. Conflicts arising from ruling and ruled class is a dangerous simplification. Issues between rich and poor are important, but not all conflicts are between exploiter and exploited. Marxism is usually interpreted as all conflicts are between the exploiter and exploited. Any aggression can be legitimated through the framework of conflicts between those who have and those who do not have.

Marx saw democracy as a kind of class dictatorship. Under capitalism, the state is a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. Under socialism, the state is a dictatorship of the proletariat. As the proletariat state loses function, and becomes a classless society, there will be no class-dictatorship, in which case the state disappears.

Unlimited freedom defeats itself, for that would accept violence as a legitimate way to distribute resources. The state limits freedom to some extent, to protect everyone’s freedom. None to be at the mercy of others, but also to be protected by the state. But physical intimidation is not the only means to coerce others, as there are economic means as well. Unlimited economic freedom would mean freely accepted servitude to those who have surplus food. The state can create social institutions to prevent inequitable arrangements under duress of economic ruin. For freedom to be guarded, non-intervention cannot be a policy. Which replaced economic freedom with planned economic intervention by the state. This is what happens under Marx, for the economic system ceases to exist.

Marxist organizations have been persuasive on humanitarian grounds, but in their efforts, have been very anti-democratic, and anti-humanitarian. They claim to stand for freedom and against oppression. Marxist appear harmless, and democratic in trying to obtain a majority. The problem is that once in power, they intent to entrench themselves. That they will use the majority vote, to prevent any other from gaining power by regular democratic means. This created a contradiction, for that means that they legitimate the use of majority power to suppress a minority, which includes them when they are a minority. These are ambiguities of violence and power-conquest.

Under capitalism, competitors are forced to accumulate to survive, which leads to higher concentrations of power. In practice, this means investing in higher productivity of the workers. And also, wealth becomes concentrated.

Theory of value is the view that prices are determined by the labor hours needed for production. Which is a problem, because consumers do not know the labor hours used for production. Consumers only see the relative prices of products.

Caveats?
The book is generally difficult to read, and is polarizing. The book was written during World War 2, to explain the totalitarian philosophical background. The core of the book is an attack on the various philosophers who were historicists. Historicism is the use of history to make predictions, which includes raising the status of a few to be above everyone else. The two main philosophers presented are Plato and Karl Marx. Their perceived errors are well established, but not their potentially appropriate values. Logic behind the errors is well established, but often, the resolutions are lacking. Sometimes, the errors themselves come from misunderstanding concepts.

Popper acknowledges various limitations of Popper’s criticism. A recognized limitation is that Popper is a later philosopher with far more historical examples. Popper has more error corrections and historical experiences to lean on than the earlier philosophers.

Popper also recognized that Popper no doubt misjudged those who were described as they are long past. This was recognized because Popper’s contemporaries had misjudged Popper.

Making comparisons between the past and present is difficult. The earlier philosophers had different social contexts, and relied on different sources. But Popper shows how there were philosopher’s during Plato’s time who raised alternative views. Views such as justice, as Popper shows how the general Greek version was similar to contemporary times, but Plato used it to mean something else. This creates a problem with separating what Plato (and others) have changed in the philosophy that was contrary to their culture, and how much of their philosophy was reflecting the values of the time.

[Vidur Kapur · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sir Karl Popper makes a spirited defence of liberal democracy in this detailed analysis of Heraclitus, Plato, Aristotle, Hegel and Marx. His interpretations of these philosophers have been challenged by some, but I believe he gets the essentials right and has voiced the concerns of many who were perhaps too afraid to challenge these Great Thinkers.

Central to his criticisms of these figures are the concepts of historicism, moral positivism and, in the case of Plato, biological and spiritual naturalism. He sees these not just in their works of political philosophy, but also in their more abstract ideas (Plato’s Theory of Forms, Hegelian dialectics). All have totalitarian implications, Popper argues, and indeed he quotes passages, particularly from Plato and Hegel, which seem to corroborate these fears. Aristotle and Hegel come in for the most criticism, while Popper is more willing to praise Plato and Marx (particularly the latter, whom he considers a genuine humanitarian; Popper does not fall into the common ‘classical liberal’ trap of equating Marxism with Fascism).

The most interesting parts of the book involve his examination of the social context in which these figures were embedded and the possible influence this may have had on their thinking. These parts of the book are necessarily more speculative, but are nonetheless very informative. In particular, Popper’s superb discussion of classical Greece (when critiquing Plato and Aristotle) is highly engaging, though his view of Athenian democracy is a bit too rosy (and he is therefore overly critical of Aristotle, Plato and the ‘Old Oligarch’ for having criticised Athens).

For example, he blames Athens’ loss of the Peloponnesian War on oligarchs such as Critias who allegedly conspired with Sparta, ignoring the fact that demagogues such as Cleon and Cleophon, as well as aristocrats like Alcibiades, frequently appealed to populist and democratic sentiment to prolong the war. Later on, after the defeat at Notium in 406 BC, the impulsive demos replaced Alcibiades, Thrasybulus and Theramenes, which only harmed Athens’ chances in the closing stages of the war.

While it is true, as Popper says, that the democracy ultimately survived the war, one cannot deny the huge beating that it took in the process. Nonetheless, he makes the valid point that the same historians who praise Rome for having established a universal empire, often seem to criticise classical Athens for its imperialist tendencies. He is also right to draw attention to the slavery abolition movement in Athens, which was clearly prominent enough to attract the ire of Plato and Aristotle.

All in all, this is a fascinating read that spans metaphysics, political philosophy, economics and history. Readers will learn a lot, or at least be introduced to alternative interpretations of philosophers with whom they are familiar.

[Koen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Een monument van een boek als dit verlangt naar enkele verzuchtingen:

Wat ik bewonder aan de mens Popper is zijn zachtaardige maar daarom niet minder diepgaande kritiek op methodisch gebrekkige volksverheffers enerzijds (vijand Marx) en zijn snoeiharde afrekening met pretentieuze volksonderdrukkers verdwaald in eigen gespuide metafysische mistbanken anderzijds. (vijanden Plato & Hegel)

Ik begon aan dit boek om meer duidelijkheid te verkrijgen over de limieten van de kennistheorie maar die is eigenlijk van ondergeschikt belang in dit werk. Het is in wezen een wereldbeschouwelijk boek waarin Popper de wetenschappelijke methode toepast om allerlei invloedrijke orakel-ideologieën (hij heeft het vooral over de term 'historicisme') te falsifiëren en zo het pad te effenen voor individuele vrijheid. Die kan, zo stelt hij, alleen gegarandeerd worden in een open, democratische samenleving.

In die zin vraag ik me af wat Popper van de huidige machtsstructuren van de EU gedacht zou hebben. Hij zou de eurogroep waarschijnlijk beschouwen als democratisch illegitiem zoals Yanis Varoufakis thans proclameert. Zo zie je maar dat erfgenamen van Poppers liberalisme uit onverwachte hoek kunnen komen.

Ook als je Poppers kritiek op het onderwijssysteem anno 1945 ziet kun je niet anders dan stellen dat er weinig veranderd is. Ons systeem is nog steeds gestoeld op het premoderne dogma van het vergaren van autoriteit. Waar vind men nog Socrates-figuren in onze 'agora'-luwe spektakelmaatschappij?

Van Daesh tot Trump: Tribalisme is terug van nooit weggeweest. Hopelijk heeft Europa genoeg lessen getrokken uit de vorige eeuw om niet dezelfde weg in te slaan. Nationalisme is iets wat overwonnen moet worden. Popper toont de methode...

[Thore Husfeldt · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely fantastic. A monumental, meticulously argued, and sometimes vigorous defence of liberal democracy based on an original, nontrivial, insightful, surprising, and very convincing description of the tribal and authoritarian aspects that make up the perennial attack on the open society sometimes known as totalitarianism. Written with admirable clarity, this book feels to me as valuable today as ever.

I should have read this decades ago.

[Robert · Rating 3 out of 5]

Given the reputation of the book and indeed the theme, I was disappointed.

I was expecting an attack on idealism, on its possible dangers with magnates of irresponsibility.
What I got was an idealized defence of the autonomous "individual" rather than a case that would give understanding, belief and realization of an "open society".

The other disappointing feature was a lack to understanding of the two Big Hitters which Popper fires against in the second volume: Hegel and Marx. This charge is particularly acute with Hegel.

The main theme of the book is the concept of Historicism. Popper uses a reverse Historicism in the first volume - which he applies to Plato, viewing History as a spiral of decline, starting with perfection of the City State of Athens, only for it do be dragged down with every enactment of change, the more the slaves demanded a greater share of the spoils and worked towards their own freedom. That this is, nonetheless inevitable, played out like a Greek Tragedy, enacted in the war against Sparta. An early 20th Century example of this reverse Historicism can be seen in Oswald Spengler's "Decline of the West".

The second volume applies a historicist Historicism, or if you like a teleology, which paints a bright picture of the future towards which we are surely headed. Methodologically speaking, however, both are the same.

The main problem with Popper's treatment of Hegel is that he does not work with Hegel's key texts but instead rushes out to some of Hegel's conclusions without looking how he might have arrived at them. So we learn that: "The State is the Divine Idea as it exists on Earth ..The State is the march of God through the world." (p283) And a little later: "History, as he [Hegel] sees it, is the thought process of 'Absolute Spirit' or 'World Spirit'."(p299).

That Hegel was a "Historicist" thinker is undeniable, Hegel was the first to pioneer the "End of History" almost 200 years before the neo-liberals and one Hegel scholar (Francis Fukuyama) were to crow the same at the end of the cold war in 1989. For Hegel the possibility of an "end point" were glimpsed upon the battlefield in 1806 where the young Hegel witnessed Napoleon lead his troops on horseback in the battle of Jena. Napoleon's victory gave rise him presiding over an Empire in which individuals could find and recognise themselves within a "universal state" which was now a real possibility in place of the individuated war of all against all which had characterized the prior historical period.

Popper gives no hint as to how some of Hegel's Historicist conclusions are arrived at. Key terms from Hegel such as "master/slave dialectic" and "mutual recognition" are not touched upon.
For Hegel the master/slave relationship was the motor of history, not in the sense that Marx renders it as "all history is the history of class struggle" but the realization of our very being. That selfhood cannot be determined within a mirror but only through the recognition of oneself given by another. As long as the master denigrates the slave in a state of un-freedom then the slave can have no recognised sense of "self" he is but an object of his master. But likewise, standing as a master denigrating the slave, the master can get no recognition either as the common humanity between the two is never realized. In killing the master in a historical struggle the slave frees himself to be recognised as Man by others, but where he then becomes a member of the Master class the whole process is kicked off again until a common humanity is realized among all men which culminates in the realization of the Absolute Idea embodied in the modern state.

Hegel has Historicist conclusions but only realizes through historical struggle and battle. The revolutionary side of Hegel's work is one of radical negation of upturning the tables of the money lenders. Popper's strengths as a thinker lay in the philosophy of science - and the real irony here is that the school of thought which Popper belonged to, logical positivism, its core component positivism (to positively affirm through empirical verification of the existing) was in fact a historical and conservative reaction to negativism (the negation) to which Hegel's thinking had unleashed. An example of this all consuming negation is powerfully presented in famous lectures of the 1930s, in Paris, given by Russian émigré Alexander Kojeve: -

"Man must be an emptiness, a nothingness, which is not a pure nothingness (reines Nichts), but something that is to the extent that it annihilates Being, in order to realize itself at the expense of Being in order to nihilate in being."(Kojeve, Introduction to the Reading of Hegel, p38)

This radical negation, to upset, to overturn, to destroy which had been unleashed after the French Revolution required a counter-movement to maintain order. The opposite of the "negation" was the positive "affirmation" of the existing order. Thus, positivism as heralded by Auguste Comte at the start of the 19th Century was a conservative reaction to the revolutionary nihilism which the French Revolution had unleashed.

Another twist and irony of Popper's argument is that he elicits a kind of Historicism and End of History of his own. He does this when taking on Marx as a prophet.

Popper chides, correctly I believe, those Marxists who have removed any moral dimension to their work or thinking, in contrast to the morally charged work of Marx himself. They had consoled themselves with the "scientific" (Popper later charges that Marxism and Psychoanalysis are pseudo sciences) that their great socialist future would come to pass and so could absolve themselves from any ethical reasoning in the present: -

"Marxists often decline to discuss whether or not a violent revolution would be 'justified'; they say they are not moralists but scientists, and they do not deal with speculations about what ought to be, but with facts about what will be." (p416)

Popper's main point against Marx and the Marxists is to extricate the "end of the era" and "we hold the future" parts of Marx's work and contrast that to the genesis of "state intervention" which Popper would have witnessed through the command economy employed during the Second World War when this work was written. He writes: -

"Unemployment insurance, however, means intervention, and therefore an increase in responsibility of the state, and it is likely to lead to experiments in counter [business] cycle policy." And he continues: "But I wish to assert most emphatically that the belief the it is impossible to abolish unemployment by piecemeal measures in on the same plane of dogmatism as the numerous physical proofs that the problems of aviation would always remain insoluble." (p447).

There is no doubt, that even in the dark days of the Second World War whence Popper wrote this work, that the lives of working people had improved immeasurably from the time when Marx wrote Capital in the 1860s. And in fact, in rebuilding Britain, literally out of the ashes at the end of the war, they were to improve immeasurably again during the post war boom, generously say 1950 - 1975. However, only aspects of Marx were to shown to be wrong as such, not his whole thesis. Popper quotes Marx thus: -

"Along with the steady decrease in the number of capitalist magnates who usurp and monopolize all the advantages of this development, there grows the extent of misery, oppression, servitude, degradation and exploitation; but at the same time, there rises the rebellious indignation of the working class which is being disciplined, unified and organized by the very mechanism of the capitalist mode of production. Ultimately, the monopoly of capital becomes a fetter on the mode of production which has flourished with it and under it." (cited, p417)

This was known as the "pauperization thesis" - which promoted a "historicist" view that things were "bound to get worse" and the "worse things got the better" as the New Socialist Dawn would be just around the corner as the oppressed threw off their chains.

By 1957, the then new British Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan told the people of Britain that: "you've never had it so good" and so concurring with what Popper had written about progressing our lives through piecemeal social reform. It's worth noting however, that if you were born in 1900, like Popper, what you would have gone through to get the consumer goodies that came on offer during the latter part of the 1950s in Britain at the end of rationing:

By your teenage years, you may have just missed conscription into the great slaughter on the battlefields of Europe that wasted millions of lives during the First World War.

The stride of your working life severely stalled amid the Great Depression following the Wall Street Crash on 1929 - creating a decade of depression through the 1930s.

The resolution to this depression only drastically resolved through the re-division of the world that was to take place through and in the aftermath of the Second World War, itself brining about the slaughter of some 60 million people world-wide.

The conflict continued after the Second World War as British troops were deployed all over the world, particularly South East Asia as Britain tried to hang on to its collapsing empire. On the home front austerity prevailed, rationing only coming to an end in 1954. The year before Macmillan made his famous declaration, Britain had been kicked out the Suez Canal by the Americans leading to the resignation of Anthony Eden.

Where Marx was better was in the rigorous analysis of prevailing trends of development in the capitalist mode of production rather than the empiricist observation of large scale misery necessitating, in his and the views of others, social revolution. Popper does not take up Marx's "rising organic composition of capital" as the bedrock of both crisis and progress within the capitalist mode of production. This abstract term takes shape in the investments in the technologies that enable production to take place, faster and more efficiently, driving forward further technological change and innovation. This is the capitalist mode of production at its very best, producing the foods, culture and technologies that have enhanced our lives - and provided the very ammunition that many, including Popper threw back at Marx. Yet the other side of the "rising organic composition of capital" was that profitability was now under question. The more that can be produced, the greater the mass of profitability, but it is slowly offset by its decreasing unit value, a fall in the rate of profit from cheapened output.

Popper's "end of history" moment in the emergent post-war boom was to be washed away with Oil crisis of 1973 that was to herald the end of the long post-war boom. State intervention, rather than be viewed as "piecemeal social reform" as it was for Popper was now seen to part of the problem as the Welfare State began to unravel by the 1980s.

We no longer have an open society, though we may have an open road ahead.