Aristotle: Good And Bad Forms Of Government

Aristotle explained that there are three kinds of “good” governments: monarchy, aristocracy and polity and three kinds of “bad” governments: tyranny, oligarchy and democracy. Though Aristotle stated that there are “good” and “bad” kinds of government it is not applicable to every situation there are times that the best form of government for a certain group of people is under the “bad” forms. It is also important to note that the Greek view of democracy at the time was different to what modern democracy is.

This paper aims to explore the “best” form of government by explaining Aristotle’s view of “good” and “bad” forms of governments. The paper will begin with providing a description and the pros of monarchy, aristocracy, polity and the cons

In a tyrannical form of government the ruler would only seek to benefit himself without thinking of the conditions of the citizens he rules. For Aristotle, this is the worst form of government as the ruler becomes corrupt and would not work or rule for the good of the people. Tyranny throws freedom out of the door, and uses cruel and oppressive means to achieve its end goal which is to benefit a single person: the tyrant.

Second, oligarchy is a form of government ruled by a few. In this form of government citizens are not able to vote thus there is a possibility that the rulers do not reflect the reflect the wishes of the people. In modern times, aristocracy is ruled by a aristocratic family, basically a wealthy family, which strays from the aristocracy that Aristotle has deemed to be the “ideal” form of government, as these aristocratic family appoint their own heirs to rule disregarding the merits and qualifications to be able to properly rule. Oligarchy promotes political exclusions, as this form of government is ruled by only a select few, these oligarchs would create and pass laws that would benefit only themselves and would not have any positive effect on the masses. Economic dominance is also a possibility as the oligarchs would compete with one another and thus they control virtually all the businesses and industries in the society and

A democratic form of government caters to the majority and thus minorities could be ignored or maybe even exploited and thus would create a large gap between the two. Democracy is basically a contest of popularity in which even if the candidate is not qualified so long as they have enough money/influence on the people they would get the vote. In a democratic form of government mob mentality is also evident, mobs could still influence a voter’s decisions, people would influence other people so if the information is false, the voters could possibly elect a unqualified