Philosophy of mixed government
This is attached to the Classical definition of republic
Trifunctionality
The Cretans and Spartans, being the most warlike of the tribes of the Greeks and very family oriented, seem to base their idea of mixed government on the tripartite form exhibited in both military and family institutions. Both of these institutions are of one body but composed of three different classes or persons. Hierarchy is throughout nature; to the classical mind, societies are no different.
Aristocracy is an important element for mixed government. The word aristocracy is the combination of two Greek words: 'Aristos' means "the best" and 'kratos' means "power". Kratos is the same ending as in the word "democracy". Aristocracy or mid-level management is needed and present in every human institution. An example of this is the military; between the top commander and the regular soldier is an intermediate body called the non-commissioned officers. The non-commissioned officers are soldiers who are given positions of leadership due to merit and worth; in other words, an aristocracy. Intermediate bodies are necessary in every human institution such as already mentioned; the armies; factories, foremen; hospitals, nurses; churches, priests and deacons; etc. The aristocracy is the seat of wisdom, prudence and experience.
Golden Mean
Plato argued that "Persia and Athens show the fundamental elements of all political life exaggerated as far as possible in one direction and the other (the one monarchical, the other democratic)...the merit of Sparta is that she has been trying to blend them, and has therefore maintained herself for a long time." 30 A republic is really the Golden Mean between the extremes of democracy and Asian monarchical despotism. Consequently, a republic is basically formed around the middle class in cooperation with the upper classes. Again, the middle class is the "golden mean" between the lower and upper classes.
Mentality between republic and democracy
Aristotle does not use the word democracy and republic interchangeably; neither does Socrates in Plato's Republic.
Aristotle defines a republic as the rule of law. "...it is preferable for the law to rule rather than any one of the citizens, and according to this same principle, even if it be better for certain men to govern, they must be appointed as guardians of the laws and in subordination to them;... the law shall govern seems to recommend that God and reason alone shall govern..." 21 Thomas Jefferson beseeched his countrymen to "bind men down from mischief by the chains of the constitution". 61
A democracy's mentality is that the people are sovereign and have become a law unto themselves wherefore the phrase vox populi, vox dei. The mentality of Despotism, as it can be seen in the Asian kings of the Pharoahs, Babylonians and Persians, Alexander the Great, his successors and the Roman Emperors starting with Julius Caesar, is that the king or Emperor makes the law so he is God. For the Spartan mindset, the Law, the golden mean, is to rule not men collectively or singly as the Spartan King advises Xerxes at the Battle of Thermopylae, to wit, "The point is that although they're free, they're not entirely free; their master is the law, and they're far more afraid of this than your men are of you. At any rate, they do whatever the law commands...". 38 A man's obedience, loyalty, and fidelity lie in the law and not in persons; the Spartan mindset being, "I'm obedient to the law but under no man". 64
Aristotle notices that a democracy puts the people above the law: "men ambitious of office by acting as popular leaders bring things to the point of the people's being sovereign even over the laws." 22
When the law loses respect, Aristotle says in V vii 7 that "constitutional government turns into a democracy". And in that situation, Socrates, Plato and Aristotle fear the possibility that "Tyranny, then arises from no other form of government than democracy." Then, democracies are no more than ochlocracies. In more recent times, Huey Long said that when fascism came to the United States it would call itself "democracy". 23 See The Kyklos.
Culture of virtue
Werner Jaeger argues that Socrates and Plato believed that "A state is never power alone, but the spiritual structure of the man whom it represents". 31 The forms of government are physical manifestations of the spiritual condition of the state, which Socrates and Plato saw through the principle of Macrocosm/microcosm. Socrates observed that the "character of the individual passes into the state". 65 As a republic is the golden mean, so it is that it's individuals must also be in possession of the golden mean; ones that have balance, harmony and symmetry. It is virtuous individuals that make up a republic; virtue being, as Aristotle describes it, as the "golden mean" between the extremes of excess and deficiency in character. Virtue along with religion and piety was the paramount characteristics of Doric Crete, Sparta, Early Republican Rome, Victorian England and Colonial America. In the understanding of this principle, the Spartans endeavored greatly in the education of youth because the virtue of obedience (in Greek, dikaiosyne) and other virtues is only gained in the habitual practice thereof. Like the iron they beat into their weapons, they beat their boys into manhood in order to perpetrate their government by law.
Love of Money
(leave open for future development)
Pastoralism
(leave open for future development)
|
