A framework for better systems of government.
A new vision for a city state.
Callipolis
This site shares an academic project which reimagines governance structures for the modern era. Here, we aim to encourage a public exploration of this theory of institutional improvement and we share our vision for a new city state.
Callipolis is the name that Plato’s Socrates gave to the city in speech that he sketched out for Glaucon and Adeimantus in The Republic. Socrates’ Callipolis was what Thomas More would later call a utopia. It was a good place (eutopía), and even more to the point it was no place (outopía). It existed nowhere.
Our callipolis
Our Callipolis is not a eutopía in the Platonic sense. Its purpose is not the perfection of the human soul. Its aims are more modest – justice and fair-dealing; security; the rule of law; a protection of the rights to life, self-defense, liberty, and property (above all, the fruits of one’s own labor); a protection of religious freedom; and provision for self-government.
BASED ON A SMALL REPUBLIC
Our Callipolis is a utopia in the second sense that Thomas More had in mind. It is located nowhere in particular. This is no doubt a defect. A constitution should be designed to fit a particular people situated in a particular place. It should reflect and take advantage of these particularities. It should fit the people and the place to be governed in the way that well-tailored clothing fits the person for whom it has been produced. Our constitution has been framed for a small republic situated on a territory with no defining natural divisions– such as Singapore, Malta, Cyprus, Slovenia, Lithuania, Latvia, Jordan, and Tunisia.
It is designed for an age in which commerce and technological dynamism loom large. Otherwise, however, it is generic. It is not a blueprint. To fit the needs of any particular people located in a particular place, it would have to be altered and adjusted.
We offer it here as a jeu d’esprit. It is intended to provide food for thought. Somewhere its contemplation might even inspire constitutional reform.
THE CONSTITUTION AND ITS EXPLICATION
We present this framework of self-government in two forms – the constitution proper and its explication. The former is intended to educate the citizens of Callipolis regarding their rights, the ends to which their government is to be devoted, its peculiar character as a government of limited scope, and the means adopted to form the citizens into a single people and enable them to govern themselves with an eye to those rights, those ends, and a respect for the polity’s restricted compass. The explication, which spells out what is intended in more detail and with greater clarity, is meant to serve as a guide to all three branches of the government. Above all, it is intended as an obstacle to misinterpretation of the Constitution by the judiciary.
A New Constitution?
The people of the Commonwealth of Callipolis together join in civic association to protect and promote individual liberty, attain safety in domestic and foreign relations, secure justice, and advance the common good. By sacred compact, we mutually pledge to one another our fidelity according to the terms of this charter and the spirit of amity and self-government that informs it, ordained and established by our sovereign authority and enlightened accord.......
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