The usually media-shy Plato, head of the non-partisan Academy think-tank, was back in the spot-light Wednesday with an interview on The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer. In his remarks he provided a harsh socio-political analysis of the financial crisis and predicted that its poor handling by the administration will inevitably lead to difficult structural adjustments culminating in democracy. He proposed radical financial reforms including limits on leverage and a removal of guarantees on bank liabilities to restrain excessive risk-taking. In response, the White House spokesman Gibbs thanked Plato for his advice, and said the president had extended an invitation discuss the issues over some red wine and olives. Below, the CNN transcript of the interview.

Blitzer: Welcome, Mr. Plato, to The Situation Room - the best political team on television. So, on the occasion of the release of your bestselling book Republic on Kindle, what is its relevance to the present financial crisis?
Plato: Thank you Wolf. Great to be here. Well, if you read my book, I say that the recent decline of our republic into oligarchy was inevitably going to end badly. It was obvious enough, even to a blind man. Oligarchy destroys itself as a result of lack of restraint in the ruling class's pursuit of getting as rich as possible.
Blitzer: Tell me how.
Plato: Because the rulers, owing their power to wealth as they do, are unwilling to curtail by law the extravagance of the young, and prevent them squandering their money and ruining themselves; for it is by loans to such spendthrifts or by buying up their property that they hope to increase their own wealth and influence.
Blitzer: That's just Capitalism, isn'it it?
Plato: What's Capitalism...? Anyway, whatever you call it, it should then be clear that love of money and adequate self-discipline in its citizens are two things that can't co-exist in any society; one or the other must be neglected.
Blitzer: That's pretty clear.
Plato: This neglect and the encouragement of extravagance in an oligarchy often reduces to poverty men destined for better things.
Blitzer: Yes, I guess so.
Plato: Some of them get into debt, some disenfranchised, some both, and they settle down, with hatred in their hearts, to plot against those who have deprived them of their property and against the rest of society, and to long for revolution.
Blitzer: Yes, they do.
Plato: Meanwhile the money-makers [ed. note. - i.e. the financial sector], bent on their business, don't appear to notice them, but continue to inject their poisoned loans wherever they can find a victim, and to demand high rates of interest on the sum lent, with the result that the unemployed and beggars multiply.
Blitzer: A result that's bound to follow.
Plato: Yet even when the evil becomes flagrant they do nothing to quench it, either by preventing people from disposing of their property as they like, or alternatively by other suitable legislation.
Blitzer: What legislation?
Plato: It's only a second best, but it does compel some respect for decent behavior. If contracts for a loan were, in general, made by law at the lender's risk, there would be a good deal less shameless financial shenanigans and a good deal less of the evils I have been describing.
Blitzer: Much less.
Plato: But as it is, the oligarchs reduce their subjects to the state we have described, while as for themselves and their dependants - their young men live in luxury and idleness, physical and mental, and lose their ability to resist pain or pleasure.
Blitzer: Indeed they do.
Plato: And they themselves care for nothing but making money, and have no greater concern for morality than the poor.
Blitzer: True
Plato: Such being the state of rulers and ruled, what will happen when they come up against each other in the streets or in the course of business? [...] Won't the poor conclude that people like this are rich because their subjects are cowards, and won't he say to his fellows, when he meets them in private, "this lot are no good; we've got them where we want them"?
Blitzer: I'm quite sure they will.
Plato: Then democracy originates when the poor win, kill or exile their opponents, and give the rest equal civil rights and opportunities of office.
None of this is surprising. I predicted it twenty-four centuries ago in book eight, chapter six, of Republic. Actually, word for word, just what I said here.
Blitzer: Well, 'kill' is a bit strong [uncomfortable laughter]. But do you think America is ready for democracy? After all, it is a center-oligarchical nation.
Plato: Well, democracy does have flaws. Ideally government should be run by philosopher kings with a good grounding in geometry.
Blitzer: Interesting. With that we have to end this fascinating discussion. Thank you Mr. Plato, and we hope to have you back here soon again.
That was Plato, author of Republic. After the commercial break: Does Bo Obama secretly hate cats? The best political team on television analyses the issue. Don't go away...