Αριστοτέλης Πολιτικά βιβλίο ΙΙ
κριτική στην Πολιτεία
του Πλάτωνος
κριτική στους Νόμους
του Πλάτωνος
Translated by Benjamin Jowett
Introduction by H.W.C. Davis M.A.
Oxford 1908
ΚΟΙΝΩΝΙΚΗ ΣΚΕΨΗ
Από την εισαγωγή του βιβλίου
BOOK II
cc.
1-8.
Ideal
Commonwealths
—Plato,
Phaleas, Hippodamus.
To ascertain
the nature of the ideal state we should start by examining both the best states
of history and the best that theorists have imagined. Otherwise we might waste
our time over problems which others have already solved.
Among
theorists, Plato in the Republic (Πολιτεία)
raises the most fundamental questions. He desires to abolish private property
and the family (c. 1). But the end which he has in view is wrong. He wishes to
make all his citizens absolutely alike; but the differentiation of functions is
a law of nature.
There can be
too much unity in a state (c. 2). And the means by which he would promote unity
are wrong. The abolition of property will produce, not remove, dissension.
Communism of wives and children will destroy natural affection (c. 3).
Other objections
can be raised; but this is the fatal one. To descend to details. The
advantages to be expected from communism of property would be better secured if
private property were used in a liberal spirit to relieve the wants of others.
Private property makes men happier, and enables them to cultivate such virtues
as generosity. The Republic makes
unity the result of uniformity among the citizens, which is not the case. The
good sense of mankind has always been against Plato, and experiment would show
that his idea is impracticable.
Plato
sketched another ideal state in the Laws
(Νόμοι);
it was meant to be more practicable than the other. In the Laws he abandoned communism, but otherwise upheld the leading ideas
of the earlier treatise, except that he made the new state larger and too
large. He forgot to discuss foreign relations, and to fix a limit of private
property, and to restrict the increase of population, and to distinguish
between ruler and subject. The form of government which he proposed was bad.
Phaleas of
Chalcedon (Φαλέας ο Χαλκηδόνιος)
made equal distribution of property the main feature of his scheme. This would
be difficult to effect, and would not meet the evils which Phaleas had in mind.
Dissensions arise from deeper causes than inequality of wealth. His state would
be weak against foreign foes. His reforms would anger the rich and not satisfy
the poor .
Hippodamus (Ιππόδαμος ο Μιλήσιος),
who was not a practical politician, aimed at symmetry. In his state there were
to be three classes, three kinds of landed property, three sorts of laws.
He also
proposed to (1) create a Court of Appeal, (2) let juries qualify their
verdicts, (3) reward those who made discoveries of public utility.
His classes
and his property system were badly devised. Qualified verdicts are impossible
since jurymen may not confer together. The law about discoveries would
encourage men to tamper with the Constitution. Now laws when obsolete and
absurd should be changed; but needless changes diminish the respect for law.
Από τη μετάφραση του
αρχαίου κειμένου:
BOOK II
κριτική στην «Πολιτεία» του Πλάτωνος
II.1.
Our purpose is to consider what form of political
community is best of all for those who are most able to realize their ideal of
life. We must therefore examine not only this but other constitutions, both
such as actually exist in well-governed states, and any theoretical forms which
are held in esteem; that what is good and useful may be brought to light. And
let no one suppose that in seeking for something beyond them we at all want to
philosophize at the expense of truth?; we only undertake this enquiry because
all the constitutions with which we are acquainted are faulty.
We will begin
with the natural beginning of the subject.
Τhree
alternatives are conceivable: The members of a state must either have (1) all
things or (2) nothing in common, or (3) some things in common and some not.
That they should have nothing in common is clearly impossible, for the state is
a community, and must at any rate have a common place— one city will be in one
place, and the citizens are those who share in that one city. But should a
well-ordered state have all things, as far as may be, in common, or some only
and not others?
For the
citizens might conceivably have wives and children and property in common, as
Socrates proposes in the Republic of
Plato. Which is better, our present condition, or the proposed new order of
society ?
There are
many difficulties in the community of women.
The principle on which Socrates rests the necessity of
such an institution does not appear to be established by his arguments; and
then again as a means to the end which he ascribes to the state, taken
literally, it is impossible, and how we are to limit and qualify it is nowhere
precisely stated. I am speaking of the premiss from which the argument of
Socrates proceeds, ‘that the greater the unity of the state the better.’ Is it
not obvious that a state may at length attain such a degree of unity as to be
no longer a state ? — since the nature of a state is to be a plurality, and in
tending to greater unity, from being a state, it becomes a family, and from
being a family, an individual; for the family may be said to be more one than
the state, and the individual than the family. So that we ought not to attain
this greatest unity even if we could, for it would be the destruction of the
state.
Again, a
state is not made up only of so many men, but of different kinds of men; for
similars do not constitute a state. It is not like a military alliance, of
which the usefulness depends upon its quantity even where there is no
difference in quality. For in that mutual protection is the end aimed at; and
the question is the same as about the scales of a balance: which is the
heavier?
In like
manner, a state differs from a nation, whenever in a nation the people are not
dispersed in villages, but are in the condition of the Arcadians; in a state
the elements out of which the unity is to be formed differ in kind. Wherefore
the principle of reciprocity, as I have already remarked in the Ethics, is the salvation of states. And
among freemen and equals this is a principle which must be maintained, for they
cannot all rule together, but must change at the end of a year or some other
period of time or in some order of succession. The result is that upon this
plan they all govern; [but the manner of government is] just as if shoemakers
and carpenters were to exchange their occupations, and the same persons did not
always continue shoemakers and carpenters. And it is clearly better that, as in
business, so also in politics there should be continuance of the same persons
where this is possible. But where this is not possible by reason of the natural
equality of the citizens, and it would be unjust that any one should be
excluded from the government (whether to govern be a good thing or a bad), then
it is better, instead of all holding power, to adopt a principle of rotation,
equals giving place to equals, as the original rulers gave place to them. Thus
the one party rule and the others are ruled in turn, as if they were no longer
the same persons.
In like
manner there is a variety in the offices held by them. Hence it is evident that
a city is not by nature one in that sense which some persons affirm; and that
what is said to be the greatest good of cities is in reality their destruction;
but surely the good of things must be that which preserves them.
Again, in
another point of view, this extreme unification of the state is clearly not
good; for a family is more self-sufficing than an individual, and a city than a
family, and a city only comes into being when the community is large enough to
be self-sufficing (αυτάρκης).
If then self-sufficiency (αυτάρκεια)
is to be desired, the lesser degree of unity is more desirable than the
greater.
But, even
supposing that it were best for the community to have the greatest degree of
unity, this unity is by no means intecated by the fact ‘of all men saying
‘‘mine ” and “not 'mine” at the same instant of time,’ which, according to
Socrates, is the sign of perfect unity in a state.
For the word
‘all’ is ambiguous. If the meaning be that every individual says ‘mine’ and
‘not mine’ at the same time, then perhaps the result at which Socrates aims may
be in some degree accomplished; each man will call the same person his own son
and his own wife, and so of his property and of all that belongs to him.
This,
however, is not the way in which people would speak who had their wives and
children in common; they would say ‘all’ but not ‘each.’
In like
manner their property would be described as belonging to them, not severally
but collectively. There is an obvious fallacy in the term ‘all’: like some
other words, ‘both,’ ‘odd,’ ‘even,’ it is ambiguous, and in argument becomes a
source of logical puzzles. That all persons call the same thing mine in the
sense in which each does so may be a fine thing, but it is impracticable; or if
the words are taken in the other sense [i.e. the sense which distinguishes
‘all’ from ‘each’], such a unity in no way conduces to harmony.
And there is
another objection to the proposal. For that which is common to the greatest
number has the least care bestowed upon it. Every one thinks chiefly of his
own, hardly at all of the common interest; and only when he is himself
concerned as an individual.
For besides
other considerations, everybody is more inclined to neglect the duty which he
expects another to fulfil; as in families many attendants are often less useful
than a few. Each citizen will have a thousand sons who will not be his sons
individually, but anybody will be equally the son of anybody, and will
therefore be neglected by all alike. Further, upon this principle, every one
will call another ‘mine’ or ‘not mine’ according as he is prosperous or the
reverse ; — however small a fraction he may be of the whole number, he will say
of every individual of the thousand, or whatever be the number of the city,
‘such a one is mine,’ ‘such a one his’; and even about this he will not be
positive; for it is impossible to know who chanced to have a child, or whether,
if one came into existence, it has survived.
But which is
better—to be able to say ‘mine’ about every one of the two thousand or the ten
thousand citizens, or to use the word ‘mine’ in the ordinary and more
restricted sense? For usually the same person is called by one man his son whom
another calls his brother or cousin or kinsman or blood-relation or connexion
by marriage either of himself or of some relation of his, and these
relationships he distinguishes from the tie which binds him to his tribe or
ward ; and how much better is it to be the real cousin of somebody than to be a
son after Plato’s fashion!
Nor is there
any way of preventing brothers and children and fathers and mothers from
sometimes recognizing one another; for children are born like their parents,
and they will necessarily be finding indications of their relationship to one
another.
Geographers
declare such to be the fact; they say that in Upper Libya, where the women are
common, nevertheless the children who are born are assigned to their respective
fathers on the ground of their likeness (Ηρόδοτος,
iv. 180).
And some
women, like the females of other animals — for example mares and cows — have a
strong tendency to produce offspring resembling their parents, as was the case
with the Pharsalian mare called Dicaea (the Just).
Other evils,
against which it is not easy for the authors of such a community to guard, will
be assaults and homicides, voluntary as well as involuntary, quarrels and
slanders, all which are most unholy acts when committed against fathers — and
mothers and near relations, but not equally unholy when there is no
relationship.
Moreover,
they are much more likely to occur if the relationship is unknown, and, when
they have occurred, the customary expiations of them cannot be made. Again, how
strange it is that Socrates, after having made the children common, should
hinder lovers from carnal intercourse only, but should permit familiarities
between father and son or between brother and brother, than which nothing can
be more unseemly, since even without them, love of this sort is improper. How
strange, too, to forbid intercourse for no other reason than the violence of
the pleasure, as though the relationship of father and son or of brothers with
one another made no difference.
This
community of wives and children seems better suited to the husbandmen than to
the guardians, for if they have wives and children in common, they will be
bound to one another by weaker ties, as a subject class should be, and they
will remain obedient and not rebel. In a word, the result of such a law would
be just the opposite of that which good laws ought to have, and the intention
of Socrates in making these regulations about women and children would defeat
itself.
For
friendship (φιλία)
we believe to be the greatest good of states and the preservative of them
against revolutions (στάσις);
neither is there anything which Socrates so greatly lauds as the unity of the
state which he and all the world declare to be created by friendship.
But the unity
which he commends would be like that of
the lovers in the Symposium, who, as
Aristophanes says, desire to grow together in the excess of their affection,
and from being two to become one, in which case one or both would certainly
perish.
Whereas [the
very opposite will really happen;] in a state having women and children common,
love will be watery; and the father will certainly not say ‘my son,’ or the son
‘my father’.
As a little
sweet wine mingled with a great deal of water is imperceptible in the mixture,
so, in this sort of community, the idea of relationship which is based upon
these names will be lost; there is no reason why the so-called father should
care about the son, or the son about the father, or brothers about one another.
Of the two qualities which chiefly inspire regard and affection —that a thing is
your own and that you love it — neither can exist in such a state as this.
Again, the
transfer of children as soon as they are born from the rank of husbandmen (γεωργοί) or of
artisans (δημιουργοί) to that of guardians (φύλακες),
and from the rank of guardians into a lower rank, will be very difficult to
arrange; the givers or transferrers cannot but know whom they are giving and
transferring, and to whom.
And the
previously mentioned evils, such as assaults, unlawful loves, homicides, will
happen more often amongst those who are transferred to the lower classes, or
who have a place assigned to them among the guardians ; for they will no longer
call the members of any other class brothers, and children, and fathers, and
mothers, and will not, therefore, be afraid of committing any crimes by reason
of consanguinity. Touching the community of wives and children, let this be our
conclusion.
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.
/ - (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.
/ - (3), the soil and the produce may be alike —
common.
When the
husbandmen (γεωργοί)
are not the citizens, the case will be different and easier to deal with; but
when the citizens till the ground themselves the question of ownership will
give a world of trouble. If they do not share equally in enjoyments and toils,
those who labour much and get little will necessarily complain of those who
labour little and receive or consume much.
There is
always a difficulty in men living together and having things 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 by the way and quarrel about any trifle which turns up. So
with servants: we are most liable 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 every
one has a distinct interest, men will not complain of one another, and they
will make more progress, because every one will be attending to his own
business. And yet among the good, 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 (Λακεδαιμόνιοι), for example, use one another’s slaves (είλωτες), and horses and dogs, as
if they were their own; and when they happen to be in the country, they
appropriate in the fields whatever provisions they want. 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 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. The advantage is lost by the excessive unification of the state.
Two virtues are
annihilated in such a state: first, temperance towards women (for it is an
honourable action to abstain from another’s wife for temperance 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, where by the
legislator has to a certain degree 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 the citizens into associations for common meals, and into phratries and tribes. But all this legislation ends only in forbidding agriculture to the guardians, a prohibition which the Lacedaemonians try to enforce already.
Again,
Socrates has not said, nor is it easy to decide, what in such a community will
be the general form of the state. The citizens who are not guardians are the
majority, and about them nothing has been determined: are the husbandmen (γεωργοί),
too, to have their property in common? Or, besides the common land which he
tills, is each individual to have his own? and are their wives and children to
be individual or common? If, like the guardians, they are to have all things in
common, in what do they differ from them, or what will they gain by submitting
to their government ?
Or, upon what
principle would they submit, unless indeed the governing class adopt the
ingenious policy of the Cretans, who give their slaves the same institutions as
their own, but forbid them gymnastic exercises and the possession of arms.
If, on the
other hand, the inferior classes are too like other cities in respect of
marriage and property, what will be the form of the community? Must it not
contain two states in one, each hostile to the other? One class will consist of
the guardians (φύλακες),
who are a sort of watchmen; another, of the husbandmen (γεωργοί),
and there will be the artisans (δημιουργοί)
and the other citizens.
But [if so]
the suits and quarrels, and all the evils which Socrates affirms to exist in
other states, will exist equally among them. He says indeed that, having so
good an education, the citizens will not need many laws, for example, laws
about the city or about the markets; but then he confines his education to the
guardians.
Again, he
makes the husbandmen owners of the land upon condition of their paying a
tribute. But in that case they are likely to be much more unmanageable and
conceited than the Helots (είλωτες
– στη Σπάρτη),
or Penestae (πενέσται
- στη Θεσσαλία),
or slaves (δούλοι)
in general.
And whether
community of wives and property be necessary for the lower equally with the
higher class or not, and the questions akin to this, what will be the
education, form of government, laws of the lower class, Socrates has nowhere
determined : neither is it easy, though very important, to discover what should
be the character of the inferior classes, if the common life of the guardians
is to be maintained.
Again, if
Socrates makes the women common, and retains private property, the men will see
to the fields, but who will see to the house? And what will happen if the
agricultural class have both their property and their wives in common?
Once more; it
is absurd to argue, from the analogy of the animals, that men and women should
follow the same pursuits; for animals have not to manage household.
The
government, too, as constituted by Socrates, contains elements of danger ; for
he makes the same persons always rule. And if this is often a cause of
disturbance among the meaner sort, how much more among high spirited warriors?
But that the persons whom he makes rulers must be the same is evident; for the
gold which the God mingles in the souls of men is not at one time given to one,
at another time to another, but always to the same: as he says, ‘God mingles
gold in some, and silver in others, from their very birth; but brass and iron
in those who are meant to be artisans
and husbandmen.’
Again, he
deprives the guardians of happiness, and says that the legislator ought to make
the whole state happy. But the whole cannot be happy unless most, or all, or
some of its parts enjoy happiness (ευδαιμονία).
In this respect happiness is not like the even principle in numbers, which may
exist only in the whole, but in none of the parts; not so happiness.
And if the
guardians are not happy, who are? Surely not the artisans, or the common
people. The Republic of which
Socrates discourses has all these difficulties, and others quite as great.
κριτική στους «Νόμους» του Πλάτωνος
«Νόμοι»
The same, or
nearly the same, objections apply to Plato’s later work, the Laws («Νόμοι»),
and therefore we had better examine briefly the constitution which is therein
described. In the Republic («Πολιτεία»),
Socrates has definitely settled in all a few questions only; such as the
community of women and children, the community of property, and the
constitution of the state.
The
population is divided into two classes—one of husbandmen, and the other of
warriors; from this latter is taken a third class of counsellors and rulers of
the state (παντελείς).
But Socrates has not determined whether
the husbandmen and artisans are to have a share in the government, and whether
they, too, are to carry arms and share in military service, or not.
He certainly
thinks that the women ought to share in the education of the guardians, and to
fight by their side.
The remainder
of the work is filled up with digressions foreign to the main subject, and with
discussions about the education of the guardians.
In the Laws there is hardly anything but laws;
not much is said about the constitution. This, which he had intended to make
more of the ordinary type, he gradually brings round to the other or ideal
form.
For with the
exception of the community of women and property, he supposes everything to be
the same in both states; there is to be the same education; the citizens of
both are to live free from servile occupations, and there are to be common
meals in both.
The only
difference is that in the Laws, the
common meals are extended to women, and the warriors number about 5000, but in
the Republic only 1000.
The
discourses of Socrates are never commonplace; they always exhibit grace and
originality and thought; but perfection in everything can hardly be expected.
We must not overlook the fact that the number of 5000 citizens, just now
mentioned, will require a territory as large as Babylonia, or some other huge
country, if so many persons are to be supported in idleness, together with
their women and attendants, who will be a multitude many times as great. [In
framing an ideal] we may assume what we wish, but should avoid impossibilities.
It is said
[in the Laws] that the legislator ought to have his eye directed to two
points,—the people and the country. But neighbouring countries also must not be
forgotten by him, if the state for which he legislates is to have a true
political life. For a state must have such a military force as will be
serviceable against her neighbours, and not merely useful at home. Even if the
life of action is not admitted to be the best, either for individuals or
states, still a city should be formidable to enemies, whether invading or
retreating.
There is
another point: Should not the amount of property be defined in some clearer
way? For Socrates says that a man should have so much property as will enable
him to live temperately, which is only a way of saying ‘to live well’; this
would be the higher or more general conception.
But a man may
live temperately and yet miserably. A better definition would be that a man
must have so much property as will enable him to live not only temperately but
liberally ; if the two are parted, liberality will combine with luxury; toil
will be associated with temperance.
For
liberality and temperance are the only virtues which have to do with the use of
property. A man cannot use property with mildness or courage, but temperately
and liberally he may; and therefore the practice of these virtues is
inseparable from property.
There is an
inconsistency, too, in equalizing the property and not regulating the number of
the citizens; the population is to remain unlimited, and he thinks that it will
be sufficiently equalized by a certain number of marriages being unfruitful,
however many are born to others, because he finds this to be the case in
existing states. But [in Plato’s imaginary state] greater care will be required than now; for
among ourselves, whatever may be the number of citizens, the property is always
distributed among them, and therefore no one is in want; but, if the property
were incapable of division [as in the Laws], the supernumeraries, whether few
or many, would get nothing.
One would
have thought that it was even more necessary to limit population than property;
and that the limit should be fixed by calculating the chances of mortality in
the children, and of sterility in married persons.
The neglect
of this subject, which in existing states is so common, is a never-failing
cause of poverty among the citizens; and poverty is the parent of revolution
and crime.
Pheidon the
Corinthian (Φείδων ο Κορίνθιος
– 9ος αι. π.Χ.), who was one of the most
ancient legislators, thought that the families and the number of citizens ought
to remain the same, although originally all the lots may have been of different
sizes; but in the Laws, the opposite
principle is maintained. What in our opinion is the right arrangement will have
to be explained hereafter.
There is
another omission in the Laws;
Socrates does not tell us how the rulers differ from their subjects; he only
says that they should be related as the warp and the woof, which are made out
of different wools.
He allows
that a man’s whole property may be increased fivefold, but why should not his
land also increase to a certain extent? Again, will the good management of a
household be promoted by his arrangement of homesteads? for he assigns to each
individual two homesteads in separate places, and it is difficult to live in
two houses.
The whole
system of government tends to be neither democracy nor oligarchy, but something
in a mean between them, which is usually called a polity, and is composed of
the heavy armed soldiers. Now, if he intended to frame a constitution which
would suit the greatest number of states, he was very likely right, but not if
he meant to say that this constitutional form came nearest to his first or
ideal state; for many would prefer the Lacedaemonian, or, possibly, some other
more aristocratic government. Some, indeed, say that the best constitution is a
combination of all existing forms, and they praise the Lacedaemonian because it
is made up of oligarchy, monarchy, democracy, the king forming the monarchy,
and the council of elders the oligarchy, while the democratic element is
represented by the Ephors; for the Ephors are selected from the people. Others,
however, declare the Ephoralty to be a tyranny, and find the element of
democracy in the common meals and in the habits of daily life.
In the Laws, it is maintained that the best
state is made up of democracy and tyranny, which are either not constitutions
at all, or are the worst of all. But they are nearer the truth who combine many
forms; for the state is better which is made up of more numerous elements.
The
constitution proposed in the Laws has
no element of monarchy at all; it is nothing but oligarchy and democracy,
leaning rather to oligarchy. This is seen in the mode of appointing magistrates;
for although the appointment of them by lot from among those who have been
already selected combines both elements, the way in which the rich are
compelled by law to attend the assembly and vote for magistrates or discharge other
political duties, while the rest may do as they like, and the endeavour to have
the greater number of the magistrates appointed out of the richest classes and
the highest officers selected from those who have the greatest incomes, both
these are oligarchical features.
The
oligarchical principle prevails also in the choice of the council; for all are
compelled to choose, but the compulsion extends only to the choice out of the
first class, and of an equal number out of the second class and out of the
third class, but not in this latter case to all the voters of the third and
forth class ; and the selection of candidates out of the fourth class is only
compulsory on the first and second.
Then, he says
that there ought to be an equal number of each class selected. Thus a
preponderance will be given to the better sort of people, who have the larger
incomes, because many of the lower classes, not being compelled, will not vote.
These
considerations, and others which will be adduced when the time comes for
examining similar polities, tend to show that states like Plato’s should not be
composed of democracy and monarchy. There is also a danger in electing the
magistrates out of a body who are themselves elected ; for, if but a small
number choose to combine, the elections will always go as they desire. Such is
the constitution which is described in the Laws.
Other
constitutions have been proposed; some by private persons, others by
philosophers and statesmen, which all come nearer to established or existing
ones than either of Plato’s. No one else has introduced such novelties as the
community of women and children, or public tables for women ; other legislators
begin with what is necessary.
In the opinion
of some, the regulation of property is the chief point of all, that being the
question upon which all revolutions turn.
αποσπάσματα από το
βιβλίο:
Aristotle’s Politics
Translated by Benjamin Jowett
Introduction by H.W.C. Davis M.A.
Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1908.
ΕΛΕΥΘΕΡΟΓΡΑΦΟΣ
[ ανάρτηση 14 Δεκεμβρίου 2024 :
Αριστοτέλης
Πολιτικά βιβλίο ΙΙ
κριτική στην Πολιτεία του Πλάτωνος
κριτική στους Νόμους του Πλάτωνος
Translated by Benjamin Jowett
Introduction by H.W.C. Davis M.A.
Oxford
1908
ΚΟΙΝΩΝΙΚΗ ΣΚΕΨΗ ]
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