Aristotle's "Politics"

The pompous, patronizing style that Aristotle uses in “Politics” could easily disguise the beauty of his ideas. In “Politics” he lays out things relating to the “polis”, or the city state – from listing the ways to govern different kinds of governments to asking if music should be part of education. Let’s look at two main points Aristotle covers.

1: Types of government

The essence of government is authority. Aristotle recognizes this and breaks down the use of authority into three main categories.

- Familial

Aristotle held the view that families should be ruled by the man of the house. Early on, he said, “the wife should be treated as a citizen of a free state, the children should be under kingly power.” Women were created to help and assist their husbands, working diligently at home. The children obeyed, since Aristotle argued that youth had much courage but little understanding. It was the men governed households.

- Herile

Aristotle contends that some were created to be slaves, and others to rule, according to the nature of things. Perhaps biased by the customs of his time, he failed to understand that God didn’t create anyone for slavery.

- Political

In addition to isolating a few main types of government, Aristotle subdivided those main types even further. But right now we’ll just take a look at the four he presents.

• Monarchy

In a monarchy, the semi-absolute kingship is passed from father to child.

• Oligarchy

Basically, this is rule by the rich.

• Democracy

The poor have the biggest say in a democracy.

• “Free state”

A strong middle class to balance out the rich and the poor composes this so-called “free state”. Popular sovereignty guides the government of the free state, according to Aristotle.

2: Best form of political government

Aristotle argues for popular sovereignty in terms of pure practicality. He says, “the judgment of an individual must necessarily be perverted if he is overcome by anger or any other passion; but it would be hard indeed if the whole community should be misled by anger.” An individual ruler might have a bad day with anger, and cause the government to violate justice for no other reason than his own varying emotions. But when is everybody angry all at once? The sheer number of people in popular sovereignty outweighs extreme ideas. Better yet, popular sovereignty provides a huge diversity of opinions to guide the government. Similarly to how a hand, foot, or eye by itself doesn’t make up a body, just a few people ruling over the entire population can’t see the big picture. But when you bring in popular sovereignty, there are a multitude of perspectives.

Popular sovereignty provides a big picture of justice, kind of like the story of the blind men and elephant. One feels the elephant’s trunk and decides the elephant is like a snake. Feeling the elephant’s leg, another says the elephant is like a pillar. Another feels the tusks, thinking an elephant is like a spear. We see the elephant only when we put the different perspectives together. Similarly, different perspectives are invaluable in government. Aristotle said that “If [justice] … [is] to be found in democracy, … [it] will be best attained when all persons alike share in government to the utmost.”

Based on the ‘checks and balances’ that popular sovereignty provides, Aristotle concludes that in general the populace should guide the government’s decisions.