Interesting read
Hello Radio-Astronomer! Thank you for the valuable link!
Notwithstanding, as a life-long student of Plato — starting with Symposium at age 16 (and many, many moons have intervened since then), I take exception to the characterization of his political theory set forth in the italics at the top.
First of all, I gather this text relies on the quite modern understanding of The Republic (as widely promulgated by Ayn Rand and others in the last century), that the work must be read and understood as a formula or blueprint for an undemocratic, "utopian" political state. But such a characterization testifies to ignorance of Plato's main purposes and goals as a world-class, preeminently distinguished political philosopher.
In the second place, Plato was not a "doctrinalizer" nor a system builder. This is difficult for us moderns to grasp, because we have come to believe that one-size-fits-all prescriptions to treat what ails the human condition can be administered "from the outside" just by setting up the "right" expertly-designed arrangements to facilitate the public good (however determined). In other words, the good political order comes from the proper institutional arrangements.
Plato did not believe that at all. Plato's conception of political order can be put thusly: The polis is the individual man writ large. In other words, the order and quality of any political system depends on the type of person that constitutes its majority beliefs/opinions/habits. If the people are disordered, then the state will be disordered. There is no "external" corrective that can be successfully applied to end the disordered state.
Plato didn't "hate" democracy per se; though it seems he worried about it. Because in a democracy, it is entirely possible that the majority opinion is not ordered to the objective public good: If the people are corrupt, then their political order will be corrupt, and corrupt things will happen...to the disadvantage of actual citizens -- "corrupt" and "uncorrupt" alike.
On the other hand, Plato was well aware that other forms of political organization were equally subject to opportunities for corruption: monarchies, aristocracies, et al. Timocracy especially gave him the fits it seems.
Plato's life-long political search was always ultimately focused on the state or condition of the individual man, of the state and condition of his psyche, or soul; and how that condition propagates from the sphere of the personal into the public sphere.
And that I daresay is the outline of Plato's political theory in a nutshell.
Anyhoot, if you want to understand Plato's political thought, you can't stop with The Republic, a comparatively early work, in which it seems he is more interested in delineating problems and propounding the right questions to ask about them than in dealing with prospective solutions to them. Continue on and read The Laws, the work of a more seasoned, mature mind....
Thank you so much for writing, R-A! It's good to hear from you again.