Thus, in democracies, the many could directly rule via participation in open councils.Īlthough our democracies are much larger now, the core concepts remain the same: Our vote is our means of exercising our rule, and any one of us may chose to run for an office of the state.Īristotle argued that oligarchies and democracies are the most common forms of government, with much in common except their allocation of power and thus he spends a lot of time discussing them.įor the real difference between democracy and oligarchy is poverty and wealth. It is important to note that in Aristotle’s time, states were comparatively smaller than they are today. Tyranny is a kind of monarchy which has in view the interest of the monarch only oligarchy has in view the interest of the wealthy democracy, of the needy: none of them the common good of all. The true forms of government, therefore, are those in which the one, or the few, or the many, govern with a view to the common interest but governments which rule with a view to the private interest, whether to the one, or the few, or of the many, are perversions. Those in the first row he referred to as “true forms” of government, while those in the second row were the “defective and perverted forms” of the first three. Forms of GovernmentĪristotle argued that there were six general ways in which societies could be organized under political rule, depending on who ruled, and for whom they ruled.

His text Politics is an exploration of different types of state organizations and tries to describe the state which will ultimately lead to the most fulfilled citizens. The Greek philosopher Aristotle believed that questions of the state, how it should be organized, and how it should pursue its ends, were fundamental to the achievement of happiness.

We’ve written before about why Plato matters.

Government tyranny def