Plato’s Republic, Books VIII -IX

Here are yet more questions for you to think about (again, these are all just meant as jumping-off points for a wide-ranging discussion).

How do the regimes Socrates describes promote the moral characters that Socrates claims correspond to them?
What are the principles that lead to the transformation of each of these regimes into the next?
This is the crucial question: what about philosophy? What is the place of the philosopher in the regimes that Socrates describes? Of all of the regimes discussed in book VIII, in which one or ones is the Socratic life possible?
Do you see any parallels between the United States and the regimes described in book VIII?
Are any of these actual regimes just?
Socrates has some harsh words for the character of democratic people. Do you see any truth to his criticisms?
In what ways are the philosophical soul and the tyrannical soul alike? How does the presentation of education in the image of the cave add to our understanding of this question, and of the tyrannical soul more generally?