The question "who shall rule the state?" has been accepted as a fundamental question in philosophy and the practice of politics. Popper posed the question “who shall rule?” as a useful starting point for political philosophy. He also briefly discussed his alternative approach to the theory of democracy. By doing so he presented additional arguments for an institutional approach to democracy, in preference to theories that placed a lot of emphasis on temporary leaderships issues. He examined Plato’s theory of the leadership of the wise and launched an attack on the system of education that Plato proposed to prepare the philosopher kings for their role. Plato’s theory of justice indicates that Plato saw the fundamental problem of politics in the question, “Who shall rule the state?” by expressing the problem of politics in the form “ Who should rule?” or “Whose will should be supreme?”. As a result Plato created a lasting confusion in political philosophy.
Those that share the same beliefs as Plato admit that political rulers are not always “good” or “wise”, and that it is not easy to get a government whose goodness and wisdom can correlate. If that is granted, then we must ask whether political thought should or should not be the forefront when determining if a government is being poorly ran. In addition, whether we should or should not prepare for the worst leaders, and hope for the best. However, this leads to a new approach to the problem of politics, for it forces us to replace the question, “Who should rule?” by the new question, “how can we organize political institutions where bad or incompetent rulers can be prevented from doing too much damage?"
It is suggested that the concept "who shall rule" is based on the assumption that political power is essentially unchecked, so that the rulers or the ruling party can do as they please. If it is assumed that political power is essentially sovereign, the only important question left is "who is to be the sovereign?”. An alternative to this approach, which Popper had not mentioned, is the rule of law, so that everyone, including the leaders, are subjected to a set of rules that apply to everyone, rulers and the ruled are meant to follow. Instead of pursuing that path, Popper criticized the theory of unchecked sovereignty, pointing out that even the most powerful dictators depended on their own people. According to Popper, ”My claim is that every theory of sovereignty omits to face a more fundamental question – the question, namely, whether we should not strive towards institutional control of the rulers by balancing their powers against other powers. This theory of checks and balances can at least claim careful consideration. The only objections to this claim, as far as I can see, are (a) that such a control is practically impossible, or (b) that it is essentially inconceivable since political power is essentially sovereign. Both of these objections are refuted by the facts; and with them fall a number of other influential views. In order to raise the question of institutional control of the rulers, we need not assume more than that governments are not always good or wise.” He explained that all theories of sovereignty are not accurate and they do not provide answers for all questions. For instance, there is a theory that the state should be ruled by the good, what if the good decide that the state should be ruled by the wise. Or if a democratic state votes into power an anti-democrat.
He then proceeded to sketch a contradictory theory which is not based on any majority rule, but rather from the decision to avoid and resist tyranny. He drew a distinction between two types of government. The first type consists of governments that can be dismissed or replaced without bloodshed, that is by peaceful means such as general elections. The second type consists of governments which cannot be changed by any means short of a successful revolution. Using those two labels, the leading principle of democratic policy is to invent, develop and protect political institutions and lastly to control the abuse of power of all kinds. That is, to avoid tyranny. This democratic principle assumes that accepting a bad policy in a democracy is better than yielding to the rule of a tyrant, even one who appears to be wise. However, problems may arise when a dictator and the successors hold too much power and influence. The theory of democracy is not based upon the principle that the majority should rule, rather, the various methods of democratic control, such as general elections and representative government, are to be considered more suitable options instead of tyranny. The person who favors that kind of democracy is open to the idea that the result of a democratic vote is the right decision or even a good one but he will accept the view of the majority to make the democratic institutions work. Popper then goes on to say that, ”And should he live to see the day when the majority vote destroys the democratic institutions, then this sad experience will tell him only that there does not exist a foolproof method of avoiding tyranny. But it need not weaken his decision to fight tyranny, nor will it expose his theory as inconsistent."
Popper then examined the way that Plato distracted attention from the institutional issues of keeping the leaders under control. In Popper’s view, Plato focused too much on the short-term question of the who should be in charge, so the most urgent problem for Plato would be the selection of the natural leaders and training them for leadership. In contrast Popper insisted on the importance of institutional matters. The principle of leadership does not replace institutional problems it only creates new institutional problems. Not only does the construction of institutions involve important personal decisions, but the functioning of even the best institutions will always depend on the people involved. Institutions will always be created to be controlled by others. This distinction between the personal and the institutional element in a social situation is a point which is often missed by the critics of democracy. Most of them are dissatisfied with democratic institutions because they find that these do not necessarily prevent a state or a policy from falling short of some moral standards or of some political demands which may be urgent as well as admirable. He went on to say that those critics have failed to understand what democratic institutions may be expected to do. The institutions cannot improve themselves, that is the task of the citizens and those who criticize democracy on “moral” grounds fail to distinguish between personal and institutional problems. In the short term we may wish for better leaders, in the long term we need better institutions.
According to Socrates, when establishing the guardians it’s our duty to determine if we are aiming for the happiness of the whole city of just the guardian itself. In the end it is important that auxiliaries and the guardians are happy because if they are encouraged to produce the best work possible the whole city would be developed and governed well. Concluding, Karl Popper criticizes all interpretations of politics that place emphasis on the focus of sovereignty, including popular sovereignty.