It is something of a cliché that western political thought is rooted in the Classical world of Greece and Rome. Allusions to Greek city-state democracy and the Roman Republic are common in this discourse. But there are two authors that stand out in laying out what might be termed the “problem of government” that existed in ancient times, and is still with us today.
Aristotle's Notions of the "Virtuous" or "Corrupt" State
Discussion of politics in the western world invariable proceeds from the writings of the Greek philosopher, Aristotle (fl. 300 BCE). His articulation of the “three forms of government”: Rule by One, Rule by the Few, Rule by the Many, Aristotle provided the groundwork for nearly all subsequent discussion of constitutional political systems in the so-called western tradition.
In this formulation, governments invariably exist on a continuum from a benevolent to a malevolent manifestation of one of these three forms – a “virtuous” or “corrupt” form of each. In this political discourse, it is useful to define these two terms as political terms to help underscore this “problem of government.” Virtue, in this sense, is the willingness by those acting as the governmental entity to put the welfare of the polity – be it a “realm,” a nation-state, a city, or a neighborhood – ahead of their own interests. Corrupt, on the other hand, specifically refers to these same persons using their positions of power in the government to pursue their own interests.
The terms given to these “Virtuous” and “Corrupt” manifestations are, respectively, Rule by One: “monarchy” and “tyranny”; for Rule by the Few: “aristocracy” and “oligarchy”; Rule by the Many: “polity” and “mob rule.” For the latter, these terms may be made more familiar by substituting “democracy” and “tyranny of the majority,” a concern some of the founders of the United States expressed in the 1780s. Governments that employ a combination of the One, Few, and Many are called “mixed” governments.
Political Views of Greek Writer Polybius
Polybius, another Greek who wrote about the Roman system around 100 BCE, mentioned three things that also helped shape the historical discourse of the western world and define the problem of government. First, he described the Roman Senate, where representatives elected by the citizenry, (adult white male property owners), to deal with affairs important to the public as a whole. In Latin, the term for these affairs is “res publica,” literally translated as, “things public,” from whence is derived the word “republic.”
Second, he wrote about the Roman legal system and the rule of law, (Latin ius, iuris) where disputes were settled in courts instead of by violence. This notion of a legal process impacted the all the nation-states that emerged out of the Roman Empire – particularly those that developed an empire of their own like Spain, France, and England. It is from this idea that we get experts in “jurisprudence,” i.e., “lawyers,” who argue one’s case before an (ideally) impartial judge and/or jury.
Thirdly, Polybius put his finger on the central problem inherent to western style governments and implied in Aristotle’s Three Forms. Polybius wrote that there are “Cycles of Government,” where governments seem to cycle through the three forms outlined by Aristotle. Governments, he said, seem to always be moving toward the corrupt side of the ledger, ever turning towards tyranny and collapse.
A new form of government is then formed which, again, invariably moves toward corruption. This problem seems incurable, he wrote, and the inherently corrupting force of power must be checked systematically because people will always yield to its temptations.
Classical Influences on Modern Western Democracy
This essentially states the problem of government that has faced any group of people attempting to form a government in this western paradigm. Non-western traditions have some of the same issues of course, but in the discourse that can be traced back to the Classical Age, this states quite succinctly the problem of government. It is the problem that faced Aristotle’s contemporaries, the Italian city-states of the Renaissance, the English during their period of civil unrest in the 1640s and ‘50s, colonial revolutionaries in the 1770s, the Founders of the US Constitution in 1787, and the French Revolutionaries of 1789.
For that matter any group of people trying to create a systemic governing body for themselves is confronted with the problem of concentrated power wielded by fallible humans. There have been some successes to be sure, but the prospect of the shift from the Virtuous to the Corrupt is ever-present and as yet, that problem is yet to be reliably remedied.
References:
- Aristotle, Politics
- Polybius, General History of Polybius
- Walbank, F.W., Polybius, Rome, and the Hellenistic World: Essays and Reflections (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002).
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