El comunismo de Platón y de los Guaraníes: Observaciones sobre el De Administratione guaranica comparanda ad Rempublicam Platonis commentarius de José Manuel Peramás

Abstract

The present paper is dedicated to the study of the work De administratio guaranica comparate ad Republicam Platonis commentarius, written by the Catalan Jesuit Jose Manuel Peramás and published in 1793. This work was written in order to criticize the liberal and enlightened utopias which the author characterizes as Epicurean and disrespectful to holy institutions. In this controversial work, Peramás recovers Plato’s political utopia, expressed both in the Republic and especially in the Laws. The most compelling argument in Peramas’ stance against the liberal utopias of his time is that, among the Guaranis of the Missions, in American lands, at least Plato’s political model became reality (§2). Peramás, who was a missionary in Paraguay from 1755 to 1767, the year of the expulsion of the Jesuits, draws a careful comparative study between the Platonic text and what he actually knows about the Guaraní missions. For this author, Europe was corrupted by the ideals of the French Revolution and, in this context, the coincidence of Plato’s utopia with the political institutions of the Guarani is proof of the need to combat the new liberal political philosophy and its revolution in order to return to the ideals of ancient and primitive Justice.