aristotle

Essay on Aristotle’s Politics
by Charles Glenn

Aristotle’s stated goal in writing Politics was to identify what form of government is " . . . best for all those who are most able to realize their ideal of life." He spent the majority of the first two books criticizing the Socratic/Platonic "Republic," after which he turned to three main forms of government and exhaustively analyzed their strengths and weaknesses.

According to Aristotle, all governments in existence are some variation of these three forms, which are monarchical, aristocratic and constitutional. He eventually narrows the three to the latter two, and discusses the manner in which they are manifested in real human politics. The manifestations (or as he calls them, "perversions") of the two pure forms are oligarchy and democracy, respectively.

At the end of Book VII, the author describes what he perceives as "the best state," which ends up being somewhat ambiguously situated between an oligarchy and a democracy, but with the primary distinction of being governed by citizens of the middle class.

For Aristotle, the form of government is not as important as who holds the power within that government. He does not see government as a system imposed on a group of people as much as a natural outgrowth of that group’s demographics.

Aristotle gives ample support for his view by first identifying the key elements of politics, offering his definitions of a state, a citizen, and in a more obscure way, his conception of political power. In reaching his conclusions, he touches on the vitally important distinction between what government is designed to do and what it actually does.

He calls the oligarchy and democracy "perversions" because the individuals with the power in each are motivated by what is best for themselves and those they are similar to. In the case of the oligarchy, rich men rule and pass laws protecting other rich men. The poor, who rule the democracy, end up doing the same thing. Ironically, Aristotle could be described as the first socialist, because in his view, human society is divided by class structures.

For him, only the middle classes possess the ability to govern for the common good, which is the only truly just political virtue.