This book argues that Platos Crito is a fundamental critique of democracy, presenting Crito as the representative democratic citizen. Initially appearing good, decent and law-abiding, but ultimately revealed as bad, indecent and a lawbreaker, harmful to the polis. Through the dialogues three-stage structurerevelation, rectification, and refutationSocrates exposes in Crito a fatal democratic flaw. This the author calls the Measure for Measure argument: the social legitimation of lawbreaking in pursuit of private interest, conceived as unconsciously repaying injustice with injustice. Democratic citizens are generally law-abiding, yet violate the law whenever private interests are at stake, justifying this by subconsciously claiming the State did me an injustice. Platos solution to securing obedience lies not in the Laws speech, but in internalizing that breaking the law harms ones own soul.
