Of course, no thing ever manifests as its Platonic ideal, but most things that society relies on, for its continuation or its livelihood, are functional, and can be said to represent their form adequately enough that one will recognize the ideal on which they are based, when one looks at them; and certainly American democracy, for instance, functioned for some time, for the first two centuries after its founding; only in the last fifty years (perhaps even fewer) can it be said to have become a travesty of itself.