Page 63 - DPOL201_WESTERN_POLITICAL_THOUGHT_ENGLISH

Unit 4: Aristotle’s Theory of Revolution

In all states there may be distinguished three parts, or classes, of the citizen body—the Notes
very rich, the very poor and the middle class which forms the mean ... as a general
principle the moderation and the mean are always the best ... in ownership of all gifts
of fortune a middle position will be the best. Men who are in this condition are the
most ready to listen to reason. Those who belong to either extreme ... find it hard to
follow reason ... those who enjoy too many advantages ... are unwilling to obey and
ignorant how to obey. This is a defect which appears in them from the first, during
childhood and in home life; nurtured in luxury, they never acquire a habit of discipline,
even in the matter of lessons. But there are also defects in those who suffer from the
opposite extreme of a lack of advantages: they are far too mean and too poor spirited.
We have this, on the one hand, people who are ignorant how to rule and only know
to obey, as if they were so many slaves, and, on the other hand, people who are
ignorant how to obey any sort of authority and only know how to rule as if they were
masters of slaves. The result is a state of envy on the one side and on the other
contempt. Nothing could be further removed from the spirit of friendship or the temper
of a political community.
Aristotle’s solution of putting the middle class in power flowed from his observations that in an
oligarchy, the rich were fined if they did not serve as judges and the poor were given no pay,
whereas in a democracy the poor were paid and the rich were not fined. Both these were extreme
practices. It was important to find a mean where the poor were given a moderate pay, while the
rich were fined at the same time. It was the middle class which provided the common ground and
was crucial to the societal mix. A stable society had to balance forces of quality and quantity.
Quality referred to an exclusive category of birth, wealth, property, social position or education,
while quantity meant numbers, the claims of the mass of people to political participation. Through
a combination of the lot (elections, property qualifications and relative merit), he hoped that a
balance could be attained and maintained in the realm of policy formulations and execution. The
historical model that Aristotle had in mind for the polity was the one drafted in 411 BC at a time
when democracy was temporarily eclipsed in Athens.
Aristotle saw in rule by the middle class fulfilment of two important political ideals: equality, and
consensus. Its civility would smoothen the rough edges in society, for it would know how to
simultaneously command and obey as free people. It would be a bulwark against selfishness,
tyranny, unlawfulness and instability. For Aristotle, since any state was better than an anarchy, he
preferred a mixed state to a pure one more, for that was more enduring.
The polity reflects a kind of condensation of his practical political wisdom Much of its basis is to
be found in Plato’s Statesman and Laws; ... . In its balance caution, and absence of any adventurous
spirit, the polity is almost a perfect epitome of Aristotle’s ethical-political position.
A polity took into account freedom, wealth, culture, noble birth, and numerical superiority. It also
gave scope for the attainment of goodness. It symbolized the principle of Mean or moderation or
the middle-way principles of practical politics. Popper viewed Aristotle’s best state as a compromise
between three things: a romantic Platonic aristocracy, a “sound and balanced” feudalism, and
some democratic ideas; but feudalism has the best of it. The reason for Popper’s assessment was
because Aristotle excluded slaves and producers from the citizen body, though he conceded the
right of participation to all citizens. Like Plato, he argued that the working class could not rule,
and that the ruling class should not work nor earn any money. They could own land but not work
on it. He defended the right of the leisured class to rule.
Citizenship
Aristotle placed the theme of citizenship at the centre of his political analysis because of his belief
in a law-based government. This was contrary to Plato, who ignored the issue and placed greater

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