Plato and Aristotle both criticized democracy as a poor form of government. Plato’s thoughts on democracy were that it causes the corruption of people through public opinion and creates rulers who do not actually know how to rule but only know how to influence the “beast” which is the Demos, the public. Aristotle’s views about democracy hold that democratic office will cause corruption in the people, if the people choose to redistribute the wealth of the rich they will end up destroying the state and since the people have no knowledge about governance when they elect rulers they will err.
In the Republic Plato criticizes the direct and unchecked democracy of his time because of its leading features of freedom and equality. According to Plato, although freedom is incredibly valuable, democracy involves the danger of excessive freedom, causing citizens to do things as they like, breaking the law and practising injustice, and thus paving the way to anarchy. Secondly, equality, related to the belief that everyone has the right and equal capacity to rule, brings to politics to power-seeking individuals, motivated by personal gain rather than public good. It thus seems that democracy is thus highly corruptible, and it paves the way to demagogues, potential dictators, and can thus lead to tyranny.
Plato postulates that Democracy is rule by ignorance, since all citizens are free to serve as public officers, politicians will have no knowledge of what is good for the state as a whole. He further goes on to describe Democracy as a “supermarket of constitutions”, where rulers can free to choose and enact laws that benefit them, leading to an anarchic society where there is no protection of people’s basic rights and complete chaos ensues. Because the democratic man forfeits the leadership of both reason and soul, he decision making lies at the fancy of his appetites, and there is no stable object of desire. Since laws are not enforced, because citizens have full autonomy, such a society will be rampant with crime, and untried criminals. With the absence of law and order, violence would undoubtedly lead to despotism, tyranny and oppression.
Aristotle’s comments on democracy need to be understood against the foregoing background and also to be considered in the context of his general description of “correct” and “perverted” constitutions. A constitution (politeia), to him is a way of organizing the offices of the city-state and defining the governing body. The difference between correct forms of governments and perverted ones is that in the former, the end (telos) of government is to rule for the common good of the citizens, whereas in a perverted form of government, the telos is to enable the governors to benefit from the governance. He lists three “correct” constitutions: kingship, aristocracy and polity, which encompass the rule of the one, a few and many for the good of the public. Conversely, there are three “perverted” constitutions which deviate from these: tyranny arises when the monarch rules for his own benefit; oligarchy results from aristocracy when the men of means rule for their own advantage; and democracy arises from polity when the poor rule in their own interests. Out of these perverted forms of government, tyranny is the worst, then oligarchy followed by democracy, which is the least bad because it is the most moderate. Aristotle saw democracy as denoting the rule of the demos or common people in their own interests. Another point on which Aristotle realistically insists is that the true distinction, found in fact, between oligarchy and democracy is not that between rule of the few and rule of the many but between sovereignty of the rich and sovereignty of the poor .
With equal realism, he implicitly rejects Plato’s actualization of an ideal democracy or any other form of government and argues that there are several kinds of democracy and oligarchy to be found in practice. The first form of democracy is based on the principle of equality, where the rich and poor have the same advantages. The second form stipulates a modest property-qualification for the holding of office. In the third and fourth forms, which are described rather vaguely, all of the citizens rule provided they pass scrutiny, but they all uphold the higher rule of law. In the final and most extreme form of democracy, it is not the law which is sovereign but the multitude of people: through the influence of demagogues who curry their favour against the nobles and rule popular opinion, the people itself becomes a monarch, one person composed of many. Aristotle, in fact, urges that such a democracy rests on no real constitution since the law does not hold sway (1291a-IV- iv).
Aristotle conceives all things, including governments, in terms of telos; an end, a purpose, the way a thing is supposed to be. For Aristotle, if something achieves its telos then it is virtuous. Aristotle believes that the telos of a government, a constitution, should be the good life – it should lead to the happy and good life of its citizens. It is true that, like Plato, Aristotle sees many actual or potential evils in democracy. The two hallmarks of democracy he cites as the sovereignty of the majority and liberty. Like Plato, he is wary of the possibly inordinate extension of liberty to mean living as one likes. He considered democracy a despotic form of government because he felt that it caused competition between the classes, and it was vulnerable to leaders ruling by emotion rather than strict adherence to the law. He also reiterates Plato’s charges that democracy may be marked by a general disorder and disrespect for the law, lack of control over slaves, women and children. However, it is vital to note that Aristotle’s criticisms are directed primarily at what he sees as the most extreme democracy, where all of the citizens share and deliberate (1321a-VI-iv). Moreover, the constitution which Aristotle himself advocates, called polity, is offered as a mixture of oligarchy and democracy, a mixture which can lean in either direction (1293a-IV- vi).