Democracy and Oligarchy

Paper Summary:

This paper examines the debate between Pericles and the Old Oligarch about the relative merits of democracy and oligarchy as a form of government. It analyzes both theories of democracy. Pericles believed in administration in the hands of the many and not of the few while Oligarchy, put governance in the hands of the few. It looks at how Aristotle would accept these views through analysis of his theory of citizenship as defined in his work "Politics".

From the Paper:

"Oligarchy, of course, puts governance in the hands of the few, or as the Old Oligarch has it, in the hands of the "better class" (Old Oligarch 133). An oligarchy's elite rulers, being few in number, are more accountable for their actions than the numberless many in a democracy: "a bad man is better able to go unnoticed in a democratic city than in an oligarchic one" (Old Oligarch 141). Democratic public officials can hide behind the will of the majority, he says, pretending to have opposed bad policy or concealing their incompetence. The Old Oligarch sees the Athenian constitution as one that privileges of lower-class and penalizing upper-class well-being, which has the effect of "preserv[ing] democracy" (Old Oligarch 134). Connected to this is the inefficiency of democracy, political action being constantly delayed by endless discourse (Old Oligarch 141-2)."

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