Limitations of Democracy in Ancient Greece

More than half the citizens were literate person and the passel controlled the law courts, yet although the middle and laboring classes had won only "political, [and] not social, equality with the landowning gentry," on that point was ne'er either attempt to force any other type of equality on the rich (Stone 119). Even though the citizenry at large "claimed equality [they also] continued to leave the exercise of office to the few--whose competence and knowledge could gain them a hearing" ( soften 65). This serviceable resolution of some of the problems of direct democracy was later to hail to Aristotle in his analysis of types of constitutional government in the Politics. worldly concerny another(prenominal) conservative Athenians, however, did not favor democracy at all. The " grey-haired Oligarch" (Pseudo-Xenophon), for example, condemned the Athenian democracy "because it favored the interests of the poorer (inferior) sections of the community too untold" (Grant 65). But he, like other conservatives, allowed that "it is pardonable for any man to help himself" and also admitted that since the common people manned the city's warships, there was nothing to be done about it (quoted in Grant 65). The Old Oligarch was not unlike Socrates in the sense that, trance he despised democracy, he accepted the legitimacy of the democratic evince. And, again like Socrates, he did not feel that this meant he should not speak out against the idea.

Aristotle was equally committed to the idea of slavery and defended it as a natural recount. The natural possession of virtue (goodness) implied tops(predicate)ity and Aristotle argued that "superior goodness is really the ground of owning and controlling slaves" (Aristotle 15). The superiority of those who clear in war, for example, is in itself enough of a justification for the victorious of foreign slaves. But, in general, there were simply some people who were "essentially slaves" no matter what their circumstances were and others who are ne'er slaves, and since this is natural it is also just as natural that know rule slaves as it is that rulers have authority over the state (Grant 98).

But the two types of rule are not the similar thing, Aristotle says, since "the authority of the statesman is exercised over men who are by nature free [while] the master [rules over] men who are naturally slaves" (Aristotle 17).

Stone, I. F. The mental testing of Socrates. New York: Anchor-Doubleday, 1988.

Barker, Ernest. "Introduction." The Politics of Aristotle. Trans. Ernest Barker. New York: Oxford UP, 1958. xi-lxxvi.

Aristotle examined numerous different shipway of securing equality among the naturally free and equal citizens of an ideal state and he adhered to the idea that the free-born men of a society had a natural right to a voice in the election of their rulers. But, because he could not separate the notion that the ownership of belongings conferred special rights from the notion of the inherent equality of citizens, he was never able to support the idea of democracy unadorned.

Aristotle spent the utmost from 347 to 345 in various parts of Asia Minor and as Alexander's autobus in Macedonia. He returned to Athens in 335, "concurrent with the come out to power of his pupil," and stayed there almost until his death in 322 (BodTns 55). Aristotle's annotation of the workings of power, combined with his training in the Academy of Plato, veritable his interest in the questions o
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