Aristotle's schema of governmental forms
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Aristotle's schema of governmental forms by W. Lindsay Wheeler
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Aristotle, in his book Politics, lays out six forms of government. He divides them up between three good forms with their three bad counterparts.
| in whose interest: | Public interest | Self interest |
| Rule by which caste | ||
| foremost caste | Monarchy | Tyranny |
| the middle caste | Aristocracy | Oligarchy |
| combination of the castes | politeia | →↓ |
| lower caste | Democracy | |
| True form | Perverted form | |
Monarchy, Aristocracy and the Politiea are good forms because they seek the common good of the whole society. Tyranny, Oligarchy and Democracy are the bad forms for they seek their own selfish interests and harm the other classes. Please note, that this conception above is far different that is in many other text books; mistakes are made by many by the fact that the good form of government is not done by the quantity, i.e. numbers such as 'the one', 'the few', and 'the many', but by the castes, i.e. royalty, aristocracy, demos. It is inconceivable to the Greek mind that persons and castes and their functions be reduced to a mathematical conception of quantity which disregards function. Furthermore, the politiea is mixture of castes and so naturally there is no direct opposite bad form. A politiea is the rule of 'the many' but it is the combined rule of the many castes, not of 'the many' of individuals which a democracy is. Democracy is the degenerate form of politiea.
Reference
- Political Ideologies and the Democratic Ideal, editors: Terence Ball and Richard Dagger, 2nd ed, HarperCollins College Publishers, l995. pg 26. (with slight modifications)
