As Max Weber observed in Politics as a Vocation and Science as a
Vocation—and as borne out by his own unsuccessful forays into
political life—the qualities that make a first-rate political or
social theorist are not the same as those required for success
as a statesman. For every Cicero or Edmund Burke, there are many
more like Weber, Tocqueville, and Plato, whose longings for
influence in public affairs were largely unfulfilled. Plato was
exceptionally unlucky in his attempts to take part in politics.
In his Seventh Letter, he recounts how as a young man he briefly
joined two successive Athenian administrations but quit both,
disillusioned and disgusted. Many years later, he traveled to
Syracuse to become an adviser to Dionysius II, a ruler who
professed to be interested in philosophy. Although initially
hesitant—a previous meeting with Dionysius' father had gone
badly—he convinced himself that “if ever anyone was to try to
carry out in practice my ideas about laws and constitutions, now
was the time for mak