by Andrew Lynn
Aristotle was born around 384 BC at Stagira, in Thrace, and came to Athens at about the age of eighteen to become a pupil of Plato. He stayed at the Academy for nearly twenty years until the death of his tutor, at which point he accompanied Xenocrates to Lesbos, where he received the welcome of his friend the tyrant (and former slave) Hermias, whose adoptive daughter, Pythias, he later married. In around 343 BC, Aristotle was invited by Philip of Macedon to become tutor to his son Alexander, later to be known as Alexander the Great. Returning to Athens in 335 BC, Aristotle founded his own school, the Lyceum, and over the course of the next twelve years wrote most of his books. Upon the death of Alexander in 323 BC, however, Athens rebelled, and the situation became untenable for Alexander’s former tutor. Indicted for impiety, he fled to avoid punishment—in stark contrast to the conduct of Plato’s own mentor, Socrates, in the face of similar difficulties—and died in the following year.
At the heart of Aristotle’s Politics is the crucial realization that man is intended, by nature, to live in the state: the state is the highest kind of community and aims at the highest good, and it is through the state that man can best fulfil his purpose and potential.
Aristotle’s doctrine of the ‘four causes’ provided that natural phenomenon—such as the behaviour of plants, animals, persons, and institutions—are to be explained by their telos or ‘end’ (i.e. purpose) as much as by purely physical causation. A man cannot fulfil his purpose or end separately from the state, thought Aristotle, in the same way that a hand cannot fulfil its purpose separate from the body. Political society exists for the sake of enabling and facilitating the full development and ‘noble action’ of its members—and not merely for companionship, or trade, or the prevention of crime, although it is certainly also true, he held, that without law man is the worst of animals, and without the state there is no law. The state, thought Aristotle, is therefore prior to the individual—a startling proposition to the contemporary reader, trained conceptually to always put the individual first, but one that serves as a valuable counterpoise to the excesses of the individualistic philosophies that insist, absurdly, that each man’s achievements are his alone, owing nothing to his ancestors, his patrons, his associates, or his community.
Aristotle identified three kinds of ‘good’ government, being governments aiming at the good of the whole community: these are monarchy, aristocracy, and constitutional government (or polity), in which one, few, or many respectively exercise power for the benefit of the whole community. Similarly, there are three kinds of ‘bad’ government, namely tyranny, oligarchy, and democracy, in which the one, few, and the many exercise power for the benefit only of themselves. Monarchy is preferable to aristocracy and aristocracy is preferable to constitutional government; conversely, since corruption of what is best is the worst, tyranny (a corruption of monarchy) is worse than oligarchy, and oligarchy (a corruption of aristocracy) worse than democracy. Since in reality most governments are bad, the best form of government we are likely to encounter in practice is the democratic one.
That appears to be faint praise for the democratic regimes many of us live under today, but we must remember that for Aristotle democracies are those systems under which public officials are appointed by lot; to elect those officials was, for him, the hallmark of that still less attractive form of government known as oligarchy. And while neither democracy nor oligarchy is as disfavourable as tyranny, both are prone to instability, democracies because their inhabitants think that they are equal in some respects (i.e. equal in freedom) and should, therefore, be equal in all, and oligarchies because certain of their inhabitants think that they are superior in some respects (i.e. in property) and should be superior in all. There is a fundamental error in all this that persists today: it is the idea that equality, superiority, and inferiority must pertain the one or the other uniformly across all aspects of life, and the concomitant failure to accept that we may be equal in one respect, as in our civil rights and equality before the law, while being at the same time unequal in many others—and this without the least injustice.
The prevalence of imperfect oligarchical and democratic regimes being accepted, is there nevertheless any way we can render them better vehicles for the wellbeing of their inhabitants?
The Politics suggests several answers to this question.
Among the most important must be what Aristotle refers to as ‘justice and proportionate equality’. It is clear that for Aristotle equality is not an absolute and independent political good; but it is likewise clear that equality in a qualified or more tightly defined sense is, nevertheless, a precondition for the well-governed state. What is necessary is ‘proportionate’ equality—proportionate, it has been understood, to virtue. Advocates of ‘absolute’ equality have, of course, observed that the notion of proportionate equality poses dangers in practice: who, after all, is in a position to define virtue, and determine which of the citizens are held to possess it, if not those who already (and for some other reason) hold power in the state? What is equally clear, however, is that all political structures allocate unequal powers, and that wholly equal societies have never come into being. Even—and perhaps especially—when it has been proclaimed that all men are equal, there have always been some who have been more equal than others. Since a certain degree of inequality appears to be a necessary and unavoidable characteristic of complex societies, then, would it not make sense to at least attempt, following Aristotle, to allocate power and responsibility on the basis of virtue?
The state should, Aristotle suggests, be composed, as far as possible, of ‘equals and similars’, these generally being citizens of the middling sort. The middle classes do not covet the goods of their neighbours, as do the poor, nor do their neighbours covet theirs; they do not plot against others, nor are they themselves plotted against. They are the least likely to shrink from rule, and the least likely to be over-eager for it: the best legislators, says Aristotle, have been of the middle condition. Where extremes of wealth are found, on the other hand, despotism soon follows, for those of exceptional wealth know only how to command, while those handicapped by extreme poverty know only how to obey. It goes without saying that Aristotle, in stark contrast to his teacher Plato, fully appreciated the advantages of being a member of a property-owning society: personal ownership, he explains, gives us a stake in maintaining and improving property, whereas property held in common is subject to what has been called the ‘tragedy of the commons’, a phenomenon that occurs when private individuals exploit shared resources for personal benefit contrary the collective good. All the same, people should be trained in benevolence and encouraged to make available their property for the benefit of the community as a whole—but as a matter of moral duty rather than political obligation.
Citizenship was not, by any means, to be open to all. For Aristotle, it was a prerequisite for citizenship that a person was in a position ‘to rule and be ruled’—competent to participate in the affairs of state and to subrogate his conduct to such measures as the state might effect. The citizen should, therefore, be an economically independent, free, native male. It is on this basis that Aristotle would exclude from citizenship not only women, foreigners, and slaves, but also men employed as manual labourers. This did not mean that those groups would fall outside the protection of the law, but it did mean that they would not be entitled to exercise the full range of political rights of the citizen. Of course, it is unthinkable that anyone today would argue for citizenship to be restricted on the lines suggested by Aristotle in the fourth century BC. Nevertheless, the principle he was advancing—that the citizen ought to be in a fundamental sense autonomous as a precondition of exercising the full rights and privileges of citizenship—is more powerful and relevant today than ever.
The last—but by no means least—of the extracts provided below is Aristotle’s brief outline of the characteristic methods by which tyrants subjugate the peoples over whom they purport to rule. Tyranny, in Aristotle’s analysis, operates primarily throu
gh demoralization of its subjects: they are humiliated, encouraged to distrust one another, and made to feel incapable of action. The tyrant makes war to ensure that his subjects may have something to do and be always in want of a leader; citizens are spied upon and made to feel afraid to express their true thoughts. The tyrant elevates bad men because bad men can be used for bad purposes. Foreigners are preferred over citizens because they are no rival to the tyrant and pose no threat. And the tyrant raises taxes and impoverishes his people so that they have to keep hard at work and have no time to conspire. If, having read this account of tyranny, you are still in doubt about the relevance of Aristotle today, then there is nothing more that can be done to persuade you.
For the modern man, Aristotle’s work raises many important and disturbing questions, and challenges us to rethink many of our most fundamental assumptions. We don’t have to agree with everything he says; but we do owe it to our intellectual forebears, and more importantly to ourselves, to think beyond the rather narrow intellectual horizons of our current era.
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Book II, Part V
[Private Property]
Next let us consider what should be our arrangements about property: should the citizens of the perfect state have their possessions in common or not? This question may be discussed separately from the enactments about women and children. Even supposing that the women and children belong to individuals, according to the custom which is at present universal, may there not be an advantage in having and using possessions in common? Three cases are possible: (1) the soil may be appropriated, but the produce may be thrown for consumption into the common stock; and this is the practice of some nations. Or (2), the soil may be common, and may be cultivated in common, but the produce divided among individuals for their private use; this is a form of common property which is said to exist among certain barbarians. Or (3), the soil and the produce may be alike common.
When the husbandmen are not the owners, the case will be different and easier to deal with; but when they till the ground for themselves the question of ownership will give a world of trouble. If they do not share equally enjoyments and toils, those who labour much and get little will necessarily complain of those who labour little and receive or consume much. But indeed there is always a difficulty in men living together and having all human relations in common, but especially in their having common property. The partnerships of fellow-travellers are an example to the point; for they generally fall out over everyday matters and quarrel about any trifle which turns up. So with servants: we are most able to take offence at those with whom we most frequently come into contact in daily life.
These are only some of the disadvantages which attend the community of property; the present arrangement, if improved as it might be by good customs and laws, would be far better, and would have the advantages of both systems. Property should be in a certain sense common, but, as a general rule, private; for, when everyone has a distinct interest, men will not complain of one another, and they will make more progress, because everyone will be attending to his own business. And yet by reason of goodness, and in respect of use, ‘friends,’ as the proverb says, ‘will have all things common.’ Even now there are traces of such a principle, showing that it is not impracticable, but, in well-ordered states, exists already to a certain extent and may be carried further. For, although every man has his own property, some things he will place at the disposal of his friends, while of others he shares the use with them. The Lacedaemonians, for example, use one another’s slaves, and horses, and dogs, as if they were their own; and when they lack provisions on a journey, they appropriate what they find in the fields throughout the country. It is clearly better that property should be private, but the use of it common; and the special business of the legislator is to create in men this benevolent disposition. Again, how immeasurably greater is the pleasure, when a man feels a thing to be his own; for surely the love of self is a feeling implanted by nature and not given in vain, although selfishness is rightly censured; this, however, is not the mere love of self, but the love of self in excess, like the miser’s love of money; for all, or almost all, men love money and other such objects in a measure. And further, there is the greatest pleasure in doing a kindness or service to friends or guests or companions, which can only be rendered when a man has private property. These advantages are lost by excessive unification of the state. The exhibition of two virtues, besides, is visibly annihilated in such a state: first, temperance towards women (for it is an honourable action to abstain from another’s wife for temperance’s sake); secondly, liberality in the matter of property. No one, when men have all things in common, will any longer set an example of liberality or do any liberal action; for liberality consists in the use which is made of property.
Such legislation may have a specious appearance of benevolence; men readily listen to it, and are easily induced to believe that in some wonderful manner everybody will become everybody’s friend, especially when someone is heard denouncing the evils now existing in states, suits about contracts, convictions for perjury, flatteries of rich men and the like, which are said to arise out of the possession of private property. These evils, however, are due to a very different cause—the wickedness of human nature. Indeed, we see that there is much more quarrelling among those who have all things in common, though there are not many of them when compared with the vast numbers who have private property.
Again, we ought to reckon, not only the evils from which the citizens will be saved, but also the advantages which they will lose. The life which they are to lead appears to be quite impracticable. The error of Socrates must be attributed to the false notion of unity from which he starts. Unity there should be, both of the family and of the state, but in some respects only. For there is a point at which a state may attain such a degree of unity as to be no longer a state, or at which, without actually ceasing to exist, it will become an inferior state, like harmony passing into unison, or rhythm which has been reduced to a single foot. The state, as I was saying, is a plurality which should be united and made into a community by education; and it is strange that the author of a system of education which he thinks will make the state virtuous, should expect to improve his citizens by regulations of this sort, and not by philosophy or by customs and laws, like those which prevail at Sparta and Crete respecting common meals, whereby the legislator has made property common. Let us remember that we should not disregard the experience of ages; in the multitude of years these things, if they were good, would certainly not have been unknown; for almost everything has been found out, although sometimes they are not put together; in other cases men do not use the knowledge which they have. Great light would be thrown on this subject if we could see such a form of government in the actual process of construction; for the legislator could not form a state at all without distributing and dividing its constituents into associations for common meals, and into phratries[1] and tribes. But all this legislation ends only in forbidding agriculture to the guardians, a prohibition which the Lacedaemonians try to enforce already. …
Book III, Part V
[Citizens]
There still remains one more question about the citizen: Is he only a true citizen who has a share of office, or is the mechanic to be included? If they who hold no office are to be deemed citizens, not every citizen can have this virtue of ruling and obeying; for this man is a citizen. And if none of the lower class are citizens, in which part of the state are they to be placed? For they are not resident aliens, and they are not foreigners. May we not reply, that as far as this objection goes there is no more absurdity in excluding them than in excluding slaves and freedmen from any of the above-mentioned classes? It must be admitted that we cannot consider all those to be citizens who are necessary to the existence of the state; for example, children are not citizen equally with grown-up men, who are citizens absolutely, but children, not being grown up, are only citizens on a certain assumption. Nay, in ancient times, and
among some nations the artisan class were slaves or foreigners, and therefore the majority of them are so now. The best form of state will not admit them to citizenship; but if they are admitted, then our definition of the virtue of a citizen will not apply to every citizen nor to every free man as such, but only to those who are freed from necessary services. The necessary people are either slaves who minister to the wants of individuals, or mechanics and labourers who are the servants of the community. These reflections carried a little further will explain their position; and indeed what has been said already is of itself, when understood, explanation enough.
Since there are many forms of government there must be many varieties of citizen and especially of citizens who are subjects; so that under some governments the mechanic and the laborer will be citizens, but not in others, as, for example, in aristocracy or the so-called government of the best (if there be such a one), in which honours are given according to virtue and merit; for no man can practice virtue who is living the life of a mechanic or laborer. In oligarchies the qualification for office is high, and therefore no labourer can ever be a citizen; but a mechanic may, for an actual majority of them are rich. At Thebes there was a law that no man could hold office who had not retired from business for ten years. But in many states the law goes to the length of admitting aliens; for in some democracies a man is a citizen though his mother only be a citizen; and a similar principle is applied to illegitimate children; the law is relaxed when there is a dearth of population. But when the number of citizens increases, first the children of a male or a female slave are excluded; then those whose mothers only are citizens; and at last the right of citizenship is confined to those whose fathers and mothers are both citizens.
Hence, as is evident, there are different kinds of citizens; and he is a citizen in the highest sense who shares in the honours of the state. Compare Homer’s words, ‘like some dishonoured stranger’; he who is excluded from the honours of the state is no better than an alien. But when his exclusion is concealed, then the object is that the privileged class may deceive their fellow inhabitants. …
