The Ideal State

A socialist author explores the intersection of history, violence, and economics in this nonfiction work.

More than 2,000 years ago, Plato's seminal Republic centered on what an ideal society would look like. In this work, Tayyib hopes to provide a revised version of Plato's vision, based on humanity's subsequent actions and the development of political science as an academic discipline. In its ideal form, per the author, political science is a "science of sciences" that not only blends the qualitative nature of humanities and history with the quantitative analysis of social sciences but is also informed by the scientific study of human behavior and evolution. Indeed, much of the book is a survey of the totality of human history from an interdisciplinary perspective, beginning with the evolution of Homo sapiens and early tribalism and continuing through the development of socio-economic structures over centuries and into the present. Central to the book's argument is a challenge to the traditional demarcation between a prehistoric "age of savagery" and an "age of civilization" that began 6,000 years ago. To the author, many of the hallmarks of supposed social order—from feudalism to modern capitalism—demonstrate the "continuing savagery" of eras defined by colonialism, warfare, and the exploitation of the weak. Drawing heavily from Marxist analysis—the book is dedicated, in part, to Karl Marx, Leon Trotsky, Mao Zedong, and Vladimir Lenin—Tayyib places blame squarely on the so-called elites of society.

Although much of the book offers a standard Marxist interpretation of the ruling class exploiting the masses, its strength lies in its accessible style, which eschews the sort of academic jargon that's characteristic of leftist theoretical analysis. Indeed, the author notes his hesitancy in using the word elite (which he believes serves "to glorify them"), instead opting for more jarring terminology, such as the exploiter class. Still, the author doesn't resort to mere attacks on capitalist strawmen, instead offering a nuanced survey that, for example, distinguishes between the "Intensive Capitalism" of ideological purists such as Adam Smith and the "Benevolent Capitalism" of liberals such as Franklin D. Roosevelt. The book's generally negative view of the past as "a history of violence" belies its ultimate conclusion that, given humanity's evolutionary impulses toward sympathy and compassion, the world will "inevitably become" a more democratic, socialist place "ruled by the people themselves." Even if one doesn't agree with the book's ideological propositions, it's an undeniably well-researched work, backed by an array of scholarly endnotes as well as the author's personal observations as a Pakistani citizen who's seen the legacy of colonialism, war, and economic exploitation firsthand. Although the volume's length of more than 400 pages is a bit daunting—as are most books that attempt to examine the totality of human existence—the author does a good job of balancing his scholarly approach with an easy-to-grasp narrative that's accompanied by more than 50 maps, photos, charts, graphs, and other visual elements.

A thoroughly researched, definitively leftist, and ambitious interpretation of humankind's past and future. - "Kirus Reviews"

This book is on sale on Amazon.com.