Oligarchy

In his work, Politics, Aristotle credits a city-state’s constitution as being its only enduring identity when he remarks “when the constitution changes its form, it would seem that the city-state too cannot remain the same” (1276b). Democracy is among the several different types of constitutions Aristotle recognizes. Democracy is what Aristotle describes as a “deviant constitution.” This type of constitution is deviant because it is for the benefit of the poor, but not for its common profit.…

With our power, we created an Oligarchy Totalitarian Dictatorship in order to ensure a controlled and successful society. We used Divine Right Theory in which the right to rule comes directly from a God and not from the consent of the people. Through the consent of the Dragon God, we gained power and started a small community called Dragon City. The dual leadership of Dragon City makes it an Oligarchy because a small group of people hold power. We are also totalitarian…

The oligarchy transpires when the distasteful characteristics of a timocracy become more prevalent than the virtuous aspects. Because timocrats are also interested in material wealth along with virtue, the pleasure they gain from their material property will begin to overshadow the society’s virtues; laws will be adjusted to meet the material desire of the citizens. A timocracy officially becomes an oligarchy when the law is changed to limit political power to the rich. An oligarchy is naturally…

Widely considered the forerunner to modern western democracy, ancient Athenian democracy dominated the political landscape of Ancient Greece for many years. The transition from oligarchy to democracy did not occur overnight; rather it came through the empowerment of the lower classes in the Athenian military of the fifth and fourth centuries. This focus on the lower classes is of the utmost importance when examining Athenian democracy, as they were the primary beneficiaries of democracy, and as…

popular representation (Brand, n.d.; Halsall, 1999), in Athens they had what is considered to be the only true democratic experience thus far, interleaved with periods of tyranny, and many other type of governments composed by an aristocracy and an oligarchy (Blackwell, 2003; Cartledge, 2011). The biggest difference between all these forms are the amount of popular participation in the political decisions. However, an additional and important distinction between these forms are the occupants of…

In book eight of Plato’s Republic, he describes the five different types of constitutions: the first and best being the aristocracy, also known as the kallipolis, followed by the timocracy, third is the oligarchy, fourth is the democracy and finally the last and worst of the cities is the tyranny. The cities, and therefore the corresponding types of the soul degenerate because of the character of the ruler as Plato tells us at the beginning of book eight: “And do you realize that of necessity…

the changes into five cyclic stages of government. Aristocracy is the first stage of government, wherein the aristocrat will do their art for the sake of their art. Timocracy is the second stage, wherein the timocrat works for the sake of honor. Oligarchy is the third stage, wherein the oligarch works under the sway of greed. Democracy, is the fourth stage, where the democrat is slave to the destructive thirst for freedom. Tyranny is the final, and according to Plato, the worst stage, wherein…

Plato’s critique of democracy in Republic For as long as human society has existed, there has always been a search for the” best” or most optimal forms of organization of human life within a political community. Despite many controversies related to the concept of democracy, so far democracy is considered to be one of the most optimal and most thoroughly conceptualized way of organizing a political community. Since the rise of first societies people searched for relevant rules that would…

To compare and contrast these forms of government we have to separately explain each of them. We have: MONARCHY: The word comes from ancient Greek and it literally means "government of one". In Ancient Greek city-states it wasn't a common thing to find a pure monarchy, but in other realities (Persian Empire for example), the monarch (the king) was a male aristocrat who held the power, often, he had counselors or other similar organs which guaranteed in a certain way that the government would…

In Origin of Inequality, Rousseau describes the evolution into society almost like a trickster (the rich) fooling his mark (the poor). In time, individuals would amass land and cattle at the sake of another, leading to “dominion and slavery, or violence and rapine” (Rousseau 1755, 29). This series of conflicts prompted the rich into devising a plan to “employ in his favour the forces of those who attacked him” and to “give them other institutions as favourable to himself as the law of nature was…