Meaning of Aristocracy by Andrew O. Eze

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ARISTOCRACY

     Aristocracy is a system of government under the few privileged citizens who rule for the interest of all.  It is a government of nobility, a privileged and good form of government according to Aristotle. According to Appadorai (1968:134), “it is government by the best citizens.”  In other words, under this regime, power belongs to the nobles. Unlike democracy that is based on the principle of equality of all, aristocracy espouses qualitative not quantitative governance.

     Aristotle was one of the advocates of aristocracy when he did a systematic comparative analysis of the constitution of the city-states of Athens in which he classified the forms of rule or regime and those who ruled. On the part of forms of rule or government, he noted that some were good while others were bad. On the side of those who rule, he identifies one-person rule, two-person rule, and many-person rule. Based on the relationship between the forms of rule and the number of persons who constitute this rule, he identified six political systems.

      The first he called monarchy or kingship which he considered as one person’s rule which was good. The second he called Aristocracy which he regarded as few person’s rule which is also good. The third he called polity or many person’s rule which was also good.

      Hence, among the bad ones are: tyranny, oligarchy and democracy or mob rule.  Among the bad forms of government as explained by Aristotle, is Oligarchy which is the one that is by few persons and democracy or mobocracy which is used to describe the one carried out by many. Therefore, for Aristotle, democracy is a bad form of government because it causes political instability (Umezurike, 2012).

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