Aristotle's Politics

In his Politics Aristotle recognized that neither oligarchy nor democracy was a form of constitutional government free of the threat of tyranny. According to his definition, "democracy exists wherever the free-born are sovereign, and oligarchy wherever the rich are in control" (Aristotle 163). In the former, the wealthy could tyrannize over the poor and, according to the logic that assigns a powerful role in government to people on the basis of their wealth, it could be plausibly argued that "a single person who owns more than all the other owners of property put together will have a just claim to be the sole ruler" (Aristotle 261). This would, of course, be tyranny. But he worried as well that in a democracy, the will of the many (i.e., the poor) would tyrannize over the minority (i.e., the wealthy). His solution was to design a combination of democracy and oligarchy in which the claims of the free-born to a role in their own governance was balanced against the claims of the wealthy to special consideration.

What Aristotle did, in effect, was to compare apples and oranges. The first half of this argument says that everyone (including the rich) has a right to some degree of involvement in the state). But the second half puts economic interests (the things the wealthy have in common) on a par with the interests all citizens have in good government. It implies, without meaning to, that the poor have no economic interests--though they probably think more about access t

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taxes would have to be paid in proportion to wealth. There could no longer be any attempt to allow the wealthy to retain a greater portion of their profits than workers retain of their earnings. The United States has a very low rate of taxation at present and it would be necessary to raise taxes in order to provide a higher level of services for all--including the mandatory participation of all in their own governance. If presented as an evening of the burden--forcing the rich to assume a much larger share since they use a much larger share of public facilities--this would mean that the non-wealthy citizens would be less resentful of the taxes they themselves paid. But the election of officers of the state presents another difficulty, since it would not be possible to have everyone in turn take on what are, of necessity, full-time jobs in government. Legislators would continue to be elected but the rules for elections would change. It would be a crime punishable by law for any individual who runs for office to use any personal funds or any donations from any corporation, interest group, relative, or interested individual to aid her/him in running for office. It would also be illegal for anyone to spend money on behalf of

Category: Philosophy - A