| 7361 | Men of the highest calibre avoid political life completely [Kongzi (Confucius)] |
| Full Idea: Men of the highest calibre avoid political life completely. | |
| From: Kongzi (Confucius) (The Analects (Lunyu) [c.511 BCE], XIV.37) | |
| A reaction: Plato notes that such people tend to avoid political life (and a left sheltering, as if from a wild storm!), but he thinks they should be dragged into the political arena for the common good. Confucius seems to approve of the avoidance. Plato is right. |
| 2132 | Only rule by philosophers of integrity can keep a community healthy [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Unless communities have philosophers as kings, or the people who are currently called kings and rulers practise philosophy with enough integrity, there can be no end to political troubles. | |
| From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 473d) |
| 2149 | Reluctant rulers make a better and more unified administration [Plato] |
| Full Idea: The less keen the would-be rulers of a community are to rule, the better and less divided the administration of that community are bound to be. | |
| From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 520d) |
| 22542 | People who buy public office will probably expect to profit from it [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: It is reasonable to expect that those who have bought office, that is, when they rule by having spent money, will become habituated to making a profit from it. | |
| From: Aristotle (Politics [c.332 BCE], 1273b01) | |
| A reaction: Probably true, though money-grubbers are even happier if they can achieve office without expenditure. |
| 2819 | The only virtue special to a ruler is practical wisdom [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: The only virtue special to a ruler is practical wisdom. | |
| From: Aristotle (Politics [c.332 BCE], 1277b27) | |
| A reaction: If a person with wide social powers is to have practical wisdom, that will require extensive knowledge, in a way that local practical wisdom does not. |
| 22552 | The rich can claim to rule, because of land ownership, and being more trustworthy [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: The rich have a claim because they own a larger share of the land, and the land is something communal, and furthermore because they are for the most part more trustworthy when it comes to treaties. | |
| From: Aristotle (Politics [c.332 BCE], 1283a32) | |
| A reaction: It seems right that the rich give a stability and hence reliability to a society, which the more mobile poor cannot offer. But it is a minor point. |
| 22583 | The guardians should not be harsh to strangers, as no one should behave like that [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: It is not correct to claim that guardians are to be harsh to those they do not know, since one should not treat anyone in this way. | |
| From: Aristotle (Politics [c.332 BCE], 1328a07) | |
| A reaction: This seems to be a criticism of Plato. Aristotle thinks people should be nice to one another! The ancient tradition of hospitality to strangers. |
| 19970 | If the nobility is numerous, the senate is the artistocracy, and the nobles are a democracy [Montesquieu] |
| Full Idea: When the nobility is numerous, there must be a senate to regulate those matters which the body of nobles is incapable of deciding. Thus aristocracy of a kind resides in the senate, democracy in the body of nobles, while the people is nothing. | |
| From: Baron de Montesquieu (The Spirit of the Laws (rev. 1757) [1748], 02.03) | |
| A reaction: This presumes that the body of nobles elects the senate. |
| 19971 | Aristocracy is democratic if they resemble the people, but not if they resemble the monarch [Montesquieu] |
| Full Idea: Aristocratic families ought to be, as much as possible, members of the people. The more an aristocracy resembles a democracy, the more perfect it is; the more it resembles a monarchy, the more imperfect. | |
| From: Baron de Montesquieu (The Spirit of the Laws (rev. 1757) [1748], 02.03) | |
| A reaction: Aristocrats far from the big cities seem remarkably like the rest of the people. As soon as they approach the monarch's court, they aspire to dignity and power, and begin to spurn the citizens. |
| 19984 | Great inequality between aristocrats and the rest is bad - and also among aristocrats themselves [Montesquieu] |
| Full Idea: In aristocratic state there are two main sources of disorders: excessive inequality between those who govern and those who are governed, and the same degree of inequality among the different members of the ruling group [corps]. | |
| From: Baron de Montesquieu (The Spirit of the Laws (rev. 1757) [1748], 05.08) | |
| A reaction: This sounds like a very historically accurate observation, since aristocrats are always at one another's throats. But maybe junior aristocrats just need to be kept more firmly in their place. |
| 21092 | Nobility either share in the power of the whole, or they compose the power of the whole [Hume] |
| Full Idea: A nobility may possess power in two different ways. Either every nobleman shares the power as part of the whole body, or the whole body enjoys the power as composed of parts, which each have a distinct power and authority. | |
| From: David Hume (That Politics may be reduced to a Science [1750], p.15) | |
| A reaction: He says the first type is found in Venice, and is preferable to the second type, which is found in Poland. Presumably in the shared version there is some restraint on depraved nobles. The danger is each noble being an autocrat. |
| 19829 | Natural aristocracy is primitive, and hereditary is dreadful, but elective aristocracy is best [Rousseau] |
| Full Idea: There are three sorts of aristocracy: natural, elective, and hereditary. The first is suited only to simple people; the third is the worst of any government. The second is the best; it is aristocracy properly so-called. | |
| From: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (The Social Contract (tr Cress) [1762], III.05) | |
| A reaction: This seems like the modern idea of 'meritocracy'. The Chinese civil service exams, introduced into Europe in the nineteenth century. |
| 7249 | Natural aristocracy is primitive, hereditary is bad, and elective aristocracy is the best [Rousseau] |
| Full Idea: There are three types of aristocracy, natural, elective and hereditary. The first is suited only to primitive peoples; the third is the worst of all governments; the second is the best, and this is aristocracy in the true sense of the word. | |
| From: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (The Social Contract (tr Cress) [1762], III.05) | |
| A reaction: Presumably he means what we call 'meritocracy', and it seems a bit optimistic to hope that democracy will deliver that. I don't think Plato would expect a democracy to elect his Guardians. |
| 19830 | Large states need a nobility to fill the gap between a single prince and the people [Rousseau] |
| Full Idea: With a large state in the hands of one man there is too great a distance between the prince and the people, and the state lacks cohesiveness. This requires intermediate orders of nobility to fill them. A small state is ruined by all these social levels. | |
| From: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (The Social Contract (tr Cress) [1762], III.06) | |
| A reaction: [compressed] This seems to be a justification for the French ancien regime. Presumably this bit was not quoted much in 1789. Why must the gap be filled by 'nobility'? What about an elected house of lords? |
| 21086 | Hereditary nobility has not been earned, and probably won't be earned [Kant] |
| Full Idea: A hereditary nobility is a distinction bestowed before it is earned, and since it gives no ground for hoping that it will be earned, it is wholly unreal and fanciful. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Metaphysics of Morals I: Doctrine of Right [1797], §49 Gen D) | |
| A reaction: As the controller of the region of a country, a hereditary noble is the embodiment of a ruling family, which is a well established way of running things. Daft, perhaps, but there are probably worse ways of doing it. Single combat, for example. |
| 22669 | Aristocracy is constituted by inherited landed property [Tocqueville] |
| Full Idea: Land is the basis of an aristocracy; …it is by landed property handed down from generation to generation that an aristocracy is constituted. | |
| From: Alexis de Tocqueville (Democracy in America (abr Renshaw) [1840], 1.01) | |
| A reaction: Presumably there can be aristocrats by mere royal patronage, who have perhaps gambled away their land. They need protection by the other aristocrats. |
| 20139 | Only aristocratic societies can elevate the human species [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Every elevation of the type 'man' has thitherto been the work of an aristocratic society - and so it will always be: a society which believes in a long scale of orders of rank and differences of worth between man and man, and needs slavery in some sense. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Beyond Good and Evil [1886], §257) | |
| A reaction: The aim of 'elevating the type "man"' does not figure in works of political philosophy very much! I doubt whether one could base a political party on the idea, and win a general election. Could the people still be sold the idea of aristocracy? |
| 20373 | A healthy aristocracy has no qualms about using multitudes of men as instruments [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: A good and healthy aristocracy ...accepts with a good conscience the sacrifice of innumerable men who for its sake have to be suppressed and reduced to imperfect men, to slaves and instruments. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Beyond Good and Evil [1886], §258) | |
| A reaction: Something similar might be said of a democracy - that a slavelike workforce is needed to create the great universal goods we all want and need. Do the aristocrats want sacrifices for great art, or for wild parties and fox hunting? |
| 23200 | The controlling morality of aristocracy is the desire to resemble their ancestors [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: The foundation of all aristocracies …is to resemble the ancestors as much as possible, which serves as the controlling morality: mourning at the thought of change and variation. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Unpublished Notebooks 1885-86 [1886], 35[22]) | |
| A reaction: This makes sense of the permanent residence of the family, full of portraits and family trees. Aristocrats preserve records of their predecessors, in a way that most of us don't, going back before grandparents. |
| 20089 | Technocrats may be efficient, but they lose legitimacy as soon as they do unpopular things [Reybrouck] |
| Full Idea: Efficiency does not automatically generate legitimacy, and faith in the technocrat melts away as soon as spending cuts are implemented. | |
| From: David van Reybrouck (Against Elections [2013], 2 'democracy') | |
| A reaction: They can hang on to legitimacy if they can come up with some technical mumbo-jumbo like 'monetarism' which the people will swallow. |
| 20088 | Technocrats are expert managers, who replace politicians, and can be long-term and unpopular [Reybrouck] |
| Full Idea: Technocracy is a system where experts are charged with looking after the public interest. ...Technocrats are managers who replace politicians, so they can concentrate on long-term solutions and announce unpopular measures. | |
| From: David van Reybrouck (Against Elections [2013], 2 'technocracy') | |
| A reaction: I like technocrats. They just need to be accountable. In the UK we have far more respect for the governor of the Bank of England than for any politician. |
| 20597 | If winning elections depends on wealth, we have plutocracy instead of democracy [Tuckness/Wolf] |
| Full Idea: If we let people's influence on election outcomes depend on their wealth, then we don't have a democracy any more. We have a plutocracy, where the people who have all the wealth have all the political power too. | |
| From: Tuckness,A/Wolf,C (This is Political Philosophy [2017], 5 'Intro') | |
| A reaction: [see Michael Walzer on 'complex equality'] This is startling true in the United States, but still somewhat true elsewhere. Being wealthy enough to control the media is the key in modern democracies. |
| 12405 | 'If you're aristocratic,' said Nietzsche... [Sommers,W] |
| Full Idea: 'If you're aristocratic,' said Nietzsche,/ 'It's thumbs up, you're OK. Pleased to mietzsche./ If you're working-class bores,/ It's thumbs down and up yours!/ If you don't know your place, then I'll tietzsche.' [Gerry Hamill] | |
| From: Will Sommers (talk [2019]) |