 |
Glyn Hughes'
Squashed Philosophers The
Condensed Edition of "If it is in our power to act nobly, it is also in our power to do evil." |
|
Glyn Hughes'
Squashed Philosophers The
Condensed Edition of "If it is in our power to act nobly, it is also in our power to do evil." |
INTRODUCTION
to ARISTOTLE'S POLITICS
ALTHOUGH preceded by the Republic of Plato, the Politics of
Aristotle is the earliest extant treatise in which the subject is
dealt with as a specific branch of practical science, and in
obtaining data Aristotle examined the constitutions of over a
hundred Greek states; to him, as to all Greeks, the city-state
was the only state highly enough organized to deserve the name.
His work substantially holds the field to the present day; and,
if some of his doctrines are interesting primarily as
illustrating the difference in the conditions of the ancient and
modern world, others are as true of Europe to-day as they were of
ancient Greece.
Politics
By
Aristotle, c330BC
Squashed version
edited by Glyn Hughes © 2005
I
- THE BASES OF POLITICAL SCIENCE
THE natures of various forms of rule are not identical. To
ascertain the fundamental differences let us begin at the
beginning, with the genesis, or coming into being, of the state.
Starting with the household, three relations are implied - of
parents and children, husband and wife, master and slaves. Slaves
are a form of property, defined as an aggregate of the
instruments conducive to life; animate instruments of action.
From the slave as property arises the general question of
property, its acquisition and application. Naturally, necessary
things are acquired by simple processes - hunting, fishing,
husbandry, etc. But there is a further and differing art of
acquisition by way of exchange. The simple barter of necessaries
is also natural; but exchange becomes so no longer when it is
made in terms of a standard medium, the currency. To the
acquisition of property, as defined, and its employment there is
a limit; but to the acquisition of money, which is only
potentially property, there is none.
It is with this kind of accumulation that finance is concerned,
while domestic economy has to do with actual property. Finance is
in any case non-natural; it is most unnatural in the form of
usury. Simple acquisition of property is natural and involves
knowledge of agriculture and live-stock. Finance proper covers
the commercial field. Between these is the production of what
conduces only indirectly to life. Incidentally, we note that the
most effective of financial devices is that of capturing a
monopoly of the supply.
Returning to the government of the household, the moral virtues
are demanded of the ruler; we do not deny them to its other
members, whether women, slaves, or children; but the virtues of
these are not identical with those of the head, their functions
being different.
Turning to Plato's ideal commonwealth, our first criticism is
that Plato's aim is to produce uniformity, whereas uniformity is
destructive of the state, which depends on diversity of service
rendered. We should maintain that diversity.
Secondly, the Platonic communism, especially of wives and
children, fails of its purpose; joint ownership produces not
harmony, but discord, besides reducing the individual's interest
in what is merely shared. All the force of family affections is
watered away, and there are boundless ugly possibilities arising
from the actual ignorance of relationships.
Common possession of other goods, too, generally leads to
quarrels. Voluntary or regulated sharing of distinctively private
property is another thing. If the scheme had been in any way
practicable, someone would have tried it before now.
Thirdly, Socrates never explains how far the ordinary citizens
fall under the same rules as the guardians; unity among them is
not provided for, nor subordination. To which three main
criticisms other minor ones may, of course, be added.
Plato's variations from the Republic in his Laws help us little -
e.g. there he puts his professional soldiery at 5,000, an
incredibly large proportion for any state deserving the name. He
omits foreign relations altogether; says nothing of how the
population is to be kept within bounds; and the total result
seems to be a polity professing to be a cross between democracy
and despotism, and actually more of an oligarchy than anything
else.
From the theorists we turn to known practical constitutions; and,
first, to that of Sparta. The plan of securing leisure for the
free citizen by having a large subject population involves danger
from servile revolts. The licence allowed to women - an important
factor in a military state - is a corrupting influence. The
absorption of the land in a very few hands - women's, to a very
disproportionate degree - brought down the Spartiate population
almost to vanishing point. The ephors, the real rulers, are
elected from the whole free population by a childish method; so
are the senators. As for the kings, the law emphasises the fact
that they are distrusted. Poor and rich alike contribute to the
common meals, which is unfair to the poor. Militarism is too
obviously the one aim of the whole system, and the financial
regulations foster avarice.
TRADITION says that the Spartan polity was borrowed from the
Cretan, which differs from it in minor points of detail but has
practically the same defects in the main. The polity of Carthage
is akin to these two, with variations which are in its favour. It
aims at securing a larger influence for merit as against chance
in elections, but tends to find merit in wealth to a dangerous
extent.
At Athens, Solon's legislation displaced the old oligarchy,
strengthened the aristocratic element by the manner of election
to offices of state, and introduced a democratic element by the
judical system. It was the later demagogues who reduced the
Solonian Constitution to the democracy we know. Of some
half-dozen other legislators the names and a brief note are
sufficient record.
II - OF CITIZENSHIP, GOVERNMENT AND KINGSHIP
THE virtue of a citizen as such differs from that of a good man
as such in being specifically relative to the polity; hence it is
not uniform, but varies as the polity varies. The virtue of a
ruler is the virtue of a good man, combining moral virtue with
what we name 'prudence' in the Ethics. But the citizen who is not
a ruler does not, as such, require prudence. The citizen should,
no doubt, have the capacity both for rule and for subjection -
the subjection of a free man, not of a slave; but the virtues in
the two spheres differ.
We classify politics as the seat of government is in one person,
in few, or in the masses. The normal forms, which aim at the good
of the community, are called kingship, aristocracy (the rule of
the best) and constitutional government; the abnormal deviations
which seek the benefit of the rulers, are called tyranny,
oligarchy and democracy. Of these last the second means the
domination of the rich over the poor, the third the domination of
the poor over the rich. In one sense equality is just; in
another, inequality; the democrat recognizes the first, but not
the second; the oligarch the second, but not the first. Superior
wealth does not constitute fundamental superiority; nor equality
in freedom, as the others think, equality in all respects. It is
by virtue that the distribution of political power should be
regulated.
As to which is superior, the few or the many, there is force in
the view that the many collectively strike a sounder average
judgement than the few; and their collective interests are the
more extensive. The masses should not be indiscriminately
admitted to office, but should collectively choose the officers.
There are several qualities which go to good administration;
superiority in one quality or another, such as birth or wealth,
must not be assumed to involve superiority in the rest and
treated as the sole criterion of inequality. The pre-eminence of
a class in one of these qualities does not confer the right to
rule; and, in the aggregate, the masses collectively seem to have
the pre- eminence over any class.
The Greek kingship exemplified in Sparta is not a despotism, but
supreme and permanent military command. The essential difference
of tyranny is that the forces at command are mercenary, while the
king's forces are armed subjects. Beside these stand the
non-Greek forms of monarchy, which would be tyrannies if they
were not hereditary, and the Aesymnetes, the elective tyranny,
which would be kingship but that it is not hereditary. The kings
of the heroic period, with larger powers than the Spartan, made
those powers - acquired by personal prowess- -hereditary; but
they were gradually curtailed. Historically, aristocracy
displaced monarchy; oligarchy aristocracy; tyranny the
oligarchies, and democracy the tyrannies. Finally, there is the
absolute monarch.
The vital objection to absolutism is that, besides being
non-natural, the individual is arbitrary and corruptible, and the
law is not. It may be held that even discretion in dealing with
the law may be more safely vested in several persons than in one.
III - THE REQUIREMENTS OF A STATE
THE ideal polity is bound up with the ideal of individual life;
and we have ascertained that individual happiness lies not in
external goods but in the exercise of virtue. Further, the
virtues, and therefore the happiness, of the state, are identical
with those of the individual. Is it desirable for the individual
that he should participate in affairs of state? Or for the state
that all individuals should participate in its affairs? Mere
desire of the individual or of the state to lord it over others
is not right, though this is a common view. To accept
responsibility for a due share in guiding and controlling others
is quite distinct from this, and involves a corresponding
readiness to accept control and guidance.
For the state, as for the individual, adequate external
conditions are needed. Mere magnitude is not an advantage. A
degree of magnitude is essential, as without it the state cannot
be self-sufficing and independent; the limit is, that it must not
be too big for all the citizens to have personal knowledge of
each other, and to be gathered in a single controllable assembly.
As to situation, it requires communication with the sea, both for
strategical and commercial reasons; but not so that the foreign
element, which is found in all ports, may affect the citizens
injuriously. The Greeks are happily situated in such a position
as to develop both enterprise and intellectuality; whereas the
Asiatics are intellectual but not enterprising, and the European
barbarians enterprising but not intellectual. The union of the
Greeks in one polity might secure them universal dominion.
Now, it is indispensable that the state should produce food,
requiring husbandmen, provide mechanical arts, requiring
mechanics, an army, a propertied class, a government, a judicial
body and a priesthood.
The non-citizens alone will not be allowed to hold property. The
distinction between citizens and non-citizens is permanent;
between classes of citizens only temporary, though there is
something to be said for the caste system. There is also benefit
in common meals maintained by the state; but property should not
be in common. Land should be in part public, and in part private;
and the actual cultivators a servile population.
The situation of the city should be healthy and strategically
adapted for defence, and it should be properly fortified; the
details of arrangement for common meals and public buildings
should accord with the convenience of the classes of citizens in
the discharge of their public duties, and so with the extra-mural
public buildings.
The external circumstances which condition happiness must be
assumed. Given these, happiness lies in the habit of virtuous
activity, attainable by natural disposition, habituation and
reason. The application of these two is the business of
education.
For obvious reasons education begins with care of the body,
proceeds with the non-rational part of the soul, and works up to
the rational. Legislation should begin by regulating marriage, so
as to ensure that the parents are physically fit. Cripples, if
born, ought not to be reared.
Should education be on a fixed system? Conducted privately, or by
the state? And what should the character of the system be?
Clearly, to the state the formation in its citizens of the
character appropriate to the polity is of the highest importance.
It should be a state affair, not controlled by private caprices.
But the best methods are very disputable. Should useful pursuits,
or moral training, or intellectual development be aimed at? Such
useful pursuits as are not cramping to mind and morals may be
taught. Reading, writing, design, gymnastic and music are the
recognized curriculum; the first four on utilitarian grounds, the
last apparently as a training in the right use of leisure, as
distinct from strictly recreative amusement. Moreover, the
aforesaid utilitarian subjects have ends other than utilitarian.
First comes gymnastic, which is apt to be mistakenly conducted on
brutalising lines. Brutality does not imply valour.
MUSIC is, in the first place, an amusement both recreative and
pleasurable; also, it has a direct moral influence. For children
the acquisition of musical skill is beneficial, as well as merely
learning to appreciate music by listening to it; but not with
instruments which tend to make them mechanical or check their
progress in other ways. Moreover, only harmonies which have an
ethical character should be admitted into education.
IV - OLIGARCHY, DEMOCRACY AND DESPOTISM
THE study of political science demands examination of the polity
ideally best; of the best practicable for a particular state; of
the best practicable for the generality of states; and of the
best attainable under certain hypothetical conditions. Government
by the best, whether one or more - the ideal - we have discussed.
There remain the varieties of oligarchy and democracy, which are
many, and tyranny.
All variations are due to the differences of the parties or
classes in the state. Popularly, they are grouped in two sets -
democracy, including constitutional government; and oligarchy,
including aristocracy. The former involves the domination of a
poor majority over a rich minority, the latter of a rich minority
over a poor majority. The classes are the agricultural, the
mechanical, the trading, and the workers for hire; then the
military, the priestly, the propertied, the executive, the
deliberative and the judical. The personnel of these divisions
may overlap.
In theory, the root principle of democracy is equality. A low
property qualification for those admitted to equality, i.e. to
office, is characteristic of some forms of democracy; the most
vital differentiation is between those where the law is supreme,
and those where it is at the mercy of a popular decree - for
which the demagogues are responsible. This last cannot be
recognized as a constitutional form of government at all.
A high property qualification produces an oligarchy - the
domination of the wealthy minority. A variation places nomination
to office in the hands of the executive; another makes office
hereditary; and in a fourth, the executive overrides the law.
Custom, however, may make what is in form democratic actually
oligarchical; and vice versa.
In democracies, for the most part, practical considerations limit
the candidature though not eligibility for office. In
oligarchies, where virtue is a factor, the name of aristocracy is
popularly misapplied to them.
Constitutional rule is really a fusion of democracy and
oligarchy. It fixes a triple criterion for equality - of freedom,
of wealth and of virtue. It approximates to aristocracy. It
combines counteracting characteristics from oligarchy and
democracy; or strikes a mean between them. Hence, according to
the point of view, it is sometimes called one sometimes the
other.
Of tyranny, or despotism, we noted two semi-regal kinds, the
oriental and the elective or aesymnetic. Besides these there is
the tyranny absolute.
IN any state, individuals who are too richly endowed tend to wax
arrogant; those at the other extreme tend to knavery. The best
chance for constitutionalism is in the state where the largest
body is intermediate; otherwise the relation between rulers and
ruled becomes that of masters and slaves. A decently satisfied
large middle class is a guarantee of order; where it is weak,
oligarchy or democracy prevails.
Oligarchies employ misleading artifices - penalising the wealthy,
but for failure to bear their share in the practices of public
life whereby the oligarchical power is maintained. Similarly
democracies proceed by offering the poor inducements to take
their corresponding share in public life. Under a constitution,
the two methods should be combined, keeping both poor and rich up
to the mark; and citizenship and carrying heavy armour should go
together. The only rule as to property qualification is that it
should be low enough to admit a majority.
The original constitutional governments, historically speaking,
admitted only men who could mount themselves; then those who
could bear arms as heavy infantry.
Every state has three departments - deliberative, executive,
judicial. The first controls war and peace, and elections, as
well as legislation. In a democracy, the whole body of citizens
performs the whole deliberative function, or delegates fragments
of it. As the exercise of that function is limited by high
property qualification or otherwise, an oligarchy more or less
pronounced is established. The power of veto, but not that of
positive enactment, should be vested in the masses.
EXECUTIVE office should mean offices involving independent
deliberation, decision, and especially command. In a small state
several of the necessary duties may be concentrated in the hands
of one official. Offices, and especially official boards,
appropriate to one form of polity are not necessarily appropriate
to another. Thus, a preliminary council which submits the
measures to the deliberative council is essentially oligarchic.
In the case of the judicial body, there is the question of
limiting fields of jurisdiction to several courts; from the
discussion whereof we gather information as to the diversities of
procedure in the Greek states.
Democracies vary as the populations are husbandmen, mechanics, or
hired labourers, or combinations, their institutions varying
correspondingly. Their common principle is liberty in the senses
of (a) personal liberty; and (b) sharing in the government -
which involves alternating between ruling and being ruled,
everyone being eligible and everyone an elector; appointments by
lot; non-recurrence of tenure; and other corollaries.
Equality of heads and numerical control make the root theory.
Thus, democracy finds justice in the decision of the arithmetical
majority, oligarchy finds it in that of the wealthy. One would
potentially prove wholesale spoliation just, the other tyranny
(if there were one supremely wealthy individual). Whereas if rich
and poor are antagonistic, justice would really hold the scales
between them.
THE best democratic population is agricultural or pastoral; being
less degraded than mechanics, tradesmen, or hired labourers; and
also having more difficulty in participating actively in public
affairs. The most fatal form is where there is manhood suffrage.
For the continuity of democracy, the wealthy must be reconciled
to it by release from public services in consideration of cash,
which will be used to relieve the burdens of the poor and keep
them from schemes of spoliation. The rich also should be
protected against wanton persecutions.
Oligarchy is nearest to constitutional government when most
offices are open. As these are more and more restricted to the
wealthy, it approximates to tyranny. An oligarchy should not be
too exclusive in the admission of new members.
The executive, or officers of state, consist of the council which
controls legislation, military-commanders and the civil service
generally; officers and teachers of religion and priests; and
also sundry special officials to be found in particular
localities.
V - CAUSES OF REVOLUTION IN POLITIES
REVOLUTIONS arise from inequalities, numerical or qualitative -
from a numerical mass claiming an equality denied them, or from a
minority claiming a superiority denied them. A revolution may
result either in a complete change of polity, or only in a
modification of the existing one. An oligarchy is less permanent
than a democracy, owing to factions within the oligarchical body.
In all revolutions, the conditions which leads up to them is the
desire of the many for equality, and the desire of the minority
for effective superiority. The purposes with which they are set
on foot are profit, honour, or avoidance of loss or dishonour.
The inciting occasions are many; jealousy of those who have
wealth and honour, official arrogance, fear of the law or of its
abuse, personal rivalries, failure of the middle class to
maintain a balance, race antagonisms, antagonism of localities,
and others.
In democracies, revolutions are due mainly to demagogic attacks
on wealth, leading the wealthy to combine, and they result in the
establishment of an oligarchy or of a tyranny, a 'popular'
military chief seizing the power for himself; or sometimes in
replacing a moderate by an extreme democracy.
In oligarchies they spring from the oppressive conduct of the
oligarchy, or from dissensions among the oligarchical body - e.g.
exclusion of those who think themselves entitled to membership;
attraction of the role of demagogue for individual members of the
oligarchy; employment of mercenary troops, whose captain seizes
power.
IN aristocracies they arise from the jealousy of those excluded
from power, personal ambitions, great inequality of wealth. In
these, and in constitutional governments - the most stable of all
- the main cause is the incomplete fusion of the three criteria,
wealth, numbers and merit. The comparative stability of
constitutions comes from the greater relative weight of numbers.
They are, however, more liable to be revolutionised by external
pressure. Equality in proportion to merit and security of rights
are the true conditions of permanence.
For the preservation of polities, minor illegalities must be
particularly guarded against: in oligarchies, personal rivalries,
abuse of power by individuals (making short tenures of office
advisable), insolence of privilege, tricks to deceive the masses;
in oligarchies and constitutional states, excessive concentration
of power in individuals or classes; oppression of the wealthy
minority in democracies, and of the poor majority in oligarchies.
OF monarchy, the two types are the regal and the tyrannic. The
king is the protector of the wealthy against spoliation, of the
poor against arrogance. His own or his family's virtues or
services have given him the kingship; his aim is excellence, and
his authority is maintained by a citizen bodyguard. The tyrant is
not a protector; his aim is his personal gratification.
Under monarchies, injustice and arrogance are the causes of
insurrection, or fear, or contempt for incompetence, coupled with
ambition. Tyrannies are overthrown by collision with external
forces, or by private intrigues in the tyrant's entourage, and
generally in the same sort of way as extreme oligarchies or
extreme democracies. Kingships are endangered by intrigues in the
royal family, by the King's personal incompetence, or by his
developing tyrannical attributes. Hereditary monarchies are in
particular danger from incompetents succeeding. But in a complex
society, kingship proper is all but impossible.
A kingship is maintained by the royal self-restraint. The tyrant
relies on the material and moral degradation, incapacity and lack
of mutual confidence among his subjects, which he fosters by
espionage, executions, taxation and the encouragement of licence.
Occasionally, the tyrant will seek to secure his position by
playing the part and assuming the attributes of a king proper.
The shrewd tyrant sees to it that he has the favour of the rich
or of the poor.
Neither tyrannies nor oligarchies have proved long-lived.
Aristotle
of Stagira
384-322 BC
Aristotle died at Chalcis in Euboea (above)
His last resting place is unknown.