Aristotle's main view about the nature of citizenship is that the work of citizens actively engages man's rational capacity and that it is serious, honored work. Slaves do the "necessary tasks" of life. Rational citizens, who are free, are the ones who set about the business of the polis without being distracted by day-to-day cares. However, citizenship is a skill that has to be learned, and the citizen properly so called has a special "characteristic," which is that "he shares in the administration of justice, and in offices" (3.1). A state, which may take various forms, nevertheless in any of its configurations is properly composed of citizens who have an administrative voice and who engage in "sufficing for the purpose of life" (3.1). The citizen is thus concerned not only with individual survival but for contributing to the "common interest." That does not mean that all citizens have or even should have everything in common in a state, but the citizenry should have the capacity to assume administrative duties, with successive offices passing through the community of public servants.
The common interest of which Aristotle speaks has to do with a continuity of community identity. The fact that survival, or the "salvation of the community" (3.4) is at stake explains why education of the youth is so important, for Aristotle identifies the good of the best kind of state with the goodness of the people who run it. However, because there are different kinds of states, in some states "the good man and the good citizen are the same, and in others different. When they are the same it is not every citizen who is a good man, but only the statesman and those who have or may have, alone or in conjunction with others, the conduct of public affairs" (3.5). Good, in this context, refers to virtue, which refers to the abilities associated with being involved in governance.
Not all persons have the same qualities of virtue or the same abilities...