 Hi, my name is Monty Johnson. I teach philosophy at the University of California in San Diego and this lectures on Aristotle's politics, book six on democracies and oligarchies and the kinds of offices in them. An outline of book six chapter one deals with the methodology of the combinatorial study of constitutions in general. In chapter two, Aristotle discusses basic principles and characteristics of democracies and in chapter three, he compares how equality is put into practice in democracies and oligarchies and shows how they put equality into practice differently. Chapters four to five discuss the kinds of democracies and how to preserve them while chapter six to seven discuss the kinds of oligarchies and how to preserve them. Finally chapter eight is about the different kinds of offices in democracies and oligarchies. And by the way I'm using the translation of Benjamin Jowett Oxford 1921, which is in the public domain. Now the first methodological chapter on the combinatorial study of constitutions in general. Aristotle introduces the chapter by stating that he's now considered the varieties of the deliberative or supreme power in states. And the various arrangements of law courts and state offices, and which of them are adapted to different forms of government. That's a reference to the discussions in both three and four, presumably where Aristotle distinguished that there is the assembly or the deliberative part of the Constitution, the judicial or court oriented part of the Constitution. And the assignment of the various other kinds of offices part of the Constitution. And he described how forms of government democracies oligarchies and so on, have different arrangements for these different elements. Then he says we've also spoken of the destruction and preservation of constitutions, how and from what causes they arise. This is clearly a reference to book five and the discussion there of the causes of stasis instability faction civil war, and also Aristotle's recommendations about how to preserve every kind of Constitution, including tyranny and kingship, but especially emphasizing democracies oligarchies and the most stable form polities or republics. Now here, Aristotle points out that of democracy and all other forms of government, there are many kinds, and it will be well to assign to them, separately, the modes of organization, which are proper and advantageous to each, adding what remains to be said about them. Moreover, we ought to consider the various combinations of these modes themselves for such combinations make constitutions overlap one another. So that, for example, aristocracies have an oligarchical character, and constitutional governments incline to democracies. But Aristotle shows ways that in fact, democracies can have aristocratic aspects or even elements of their Constitution and similarly, oligarchies can have democratic aspects of their constitutions. So for example, the deliberative part of the Constitution, and the election of officers might be oligarchical, but the law courts might be administered aristocratically, or the law courts and the deliberative part might be oligarchical, but the election of offices aristocratic. So this is the idea of a combinatorial study is that we look at the configurations of each element, and what modes each of those elements are on, and then how many different ways those can be combined, and then we would classify all of those and we would have a classification of all possible forms of constitution. Now, you might ask why there are differences between kinds of democracies at all. Is there just one form of democracy? No, there are several kinds of democracies. What is the cause of differences between them? Aristotle says there are basically two causes. First is differences in the population for the popular element may consist of husband men, you know, farmers, or of mechanics or of laborers. And if the first of these be added to the second or the third to the two others, not only does the democracy become better or worse, but it's very nature is changed. So if you have a democracy that consists only of farmers, that will be of one quality. If you have another kind of democracy that consists not only of farmers, but also artisans and manual laborers, then Aristotle says, what those two kinds of democracy could be compared, because they have different nature and one of them might be better and another worse. The second cause of differences in combination of democratic and non democratic characteristics and elements. So when you have these three elements, the, if we're talking about a democracy, then the deliberative part, which is supreme, must be democratic. But the other elements, the judiciary, the selection of offices could take other forms oligarchic, for example, or aristocratic. And so Aristotle says one democracy will have less and another will have more and another will have all of these characteristics. And there is an advantage in knowing them all whether one wishes to establish some new form of democracy or only to remodel an existing one. So you could remodel a democracy to make it say less radical by introducing some oligarchic elements, which would temper the radical democratic elements, or you could moderate an oligarchy by introducing some democratic aspects. So to make this method general, we distinguish three elements of any constitution, a deliberative part, a judicial part and an official part. And then we look at the way each of those can be in one of four modes, democratic, oligarchic, aristocratic or constitutional. Now, that means there will be 64 total possible combinations, four modes for each of three elements. Now, notice that those are only four of the six constitutional forms that we've distinguished. If we were to add the two other modes, kingship and tyranny, then there would be six total forms and six pure forms and 216 total mixed forms. But Aristotle prefers to discuss just these four modes, the democratic, oligarchic, aristocratic and constitutional. And in fact, he even tends to focus further on just the combination of democratic and oligarchic elements. That's because these are the most common, but his analysis is focused on the way those get combined. The other combinations are theoretical possibilities, but they may or may not actually have historical correlates that actually existed. They may be merely theoretical, but for almost all the ways to combine a democracy and oligarchy, we can find historical examples. Now, the table on this slide shows how you would have a pure version of each constitutional type. So if the deliberative judicial and official aspects were all democratic, then clearly you would have a democracy, a pure democracy. And so for an oligarchy and aristocracy or a constitutional government. But on this slide, there's chose ways that you could have a pure form of each of these, but then in each column, 15 other ways that you could have a kind of mixed form. So a pure democracy has all three elements democratic here abbreviated by D. So the deliberative judicial and official part of the Constitution, if it's a DDD is a pure democracy. But suppose we put an oligarchic element in for the selection of offices. So we have a democratic assembly, a democratic judiciary, but we have an oligarchic method of selecting offices, then we would have a DDO kind of Constitution. And then the 15 other variations there are all theoretical possibilities for how you could have democratic oligarchic aristocratic or constitutional combinations. And then we show the way that works for democracies, oligarchies, aristocracies, and policies in general. And we consider these variations of democracy, because all of the one through 16 in the first column, have a democratic assembly or deliberative element, which he says is supreme. So we kind of call the thing by what the supreme element is anything that has a democratic deliberative element is essentially democratic. But then, for example, if you have several aristocratic elements, even two more aristocratic elements like variation 11. Democratic DAA has a democratic assembly, but an aristocratic judiciary and an aristocratic official part of the Constitution. So that would be a kind of aristocratic democracy in theory that could exist. And again, you could have a kind of oligarchic democracy. And by the same token, if we looked at the variations and oligarchies, you could have various kind of democratic leaning oligarchies. And again, it would be an oligarch, these would all be oligarchies because the deliberative element in them is oligarchical. But even within that there are ways for having lots of different kinds of variations. Now, as I said, Aristotle is most interested in the variations that mix democratic and oligarchic parts. And that is in part because he believes that a polity or republic, which he thinks is the kind of Constitution best suited for most states, what that actually is is some combination of democratic and oligarchic elements. So we can look at all of the combinatorial possibilities of combining democratic and oligarchic types by simply listing them under each element. So again, a pure democracy has a democratic deliberative judicial and official part. But then we have mixtures that introduce more oligarchic elements, including the third mixture, which you notice two parts, two out of three parts of the Constitution are oligarchic. But we still call it democratic because the supreme deliberative power is democratic. But you could even have a majority of oligarchic elements and still call it a democracy. And similarly with an oligarchy, which is just a sort of mirror image of the combinatorial matrix for democracies, a pure oligarchy has an oligarchic aspect for each element. And then there are every other kind of mixture possible for the three elements, including one in which the judiciary and official branches of the Constitution are democratic. Nevertheless, it's a kind of democratic oligarchy. Now, after discussing those possibilities and the way these can be combined, we now want to know what the basic principle, and Aristotle goes on to discuss in chapter two, what the basic principle of democracy is. What it is that makes a democracy democratic? What is it that is common in all democracies? And the answer to that, he says, is liberty. So the basis of a democratic state is liberty or freedom. That's another way to translate the Greek term alliteria, which Aristotle says, according to the common opinion of people can only be enjoyed in such a state. So it's only in a democracy that people actually have liberty or freedom. And so everyone affirms this to be the great end of every democracy. Okay, but there are two different principles, Aristotle says, of liberty. One of them is the idea of numeric equality, which implies majority rule. But a totally different aspect of liberty is the idea of just living as one likes, having the freedom or license to do what you want. So let's go into a little more detail about each of these aspects of the basic principle of democracy. So first of all, one principle of liberty is for all to rule and be ruled in turn. And indeed, democratic justice is the application of numerical, not proportionate equality. Whence it follows that the majority must be supreme and that whatever the majority approve must be the end and the just. Every citizen, it is said, must have equality. And therefore in a democracy, the poor have more power than the rich because there are more of them and the will of the majority is supreme. This then is one note of liberty, which all Democrats affirm to be the principle of their state. So this is fairly profound from the democratic notion of equality. Each individual person is equal to each other individual citizen. Each citizen is equal to every other citizen. That means that whatever the majority of them decide must be supreme. The majority will carry because the majority of equal people agree to it. And that way everybody has an equal say and equal chance that their view will prevail. And so this is the core idea of majority rule. And this depends on the numeric or arithmetic conception of democratic equality. But there's another principle of liberty. Again, that's that a person should live as he likes. This they say is the privilege of a free man. Since on the other hand, not to live as a man likes is the mark of a slave. This is the second characteristic of democracy. Whence has arisen the claim of men to be ruled by none, if possible, or if this is impossible to rule and be ruled in terms. And so it contributes to freedom based on equality. So I should have the liberty to live as I like and nobody should be able to tell me to live as I like. That would be to live like a slave. But what is freedom but the opposite of the condition of slavery where you live according to your own views and your own principles. So these two aspects of liberty sum up the basic principle of democracy, liberty or freedom. And Aristotle says that democracy or demos in their truest form are based upon the recognized principle of democratic justice that all should count equally for equality implies that the poor should have no more share in the government than the rich, and should not be the only rulers, but that all should rule equally according to their numbers. And in this way, men think that they will secure equality and freedom in their state. So that's an interesting point that Aristotle thinks that if we really take seriously the notion of equality, then we have to think that the. Those who are in the minority are still in a sense equal to us. And so we should take their views into consideration as well, that majority should rule but majority isn't the only consideration if we have a legitimate form of this with there should be some way in which the majority rules in the interest of both the majority and the minority, as each of the rulers is exactly equal to every one of the ruled and every one of the ruled is equal exactly to one of the rulers. Now, Aristotle goes on in this chapter to list various other characteristics of democracy. First, in the cases where there's election of officers, the election would happen by all of the people voting and all of, and the candidates would come out of all of the people. So we wouldn't have, for example, a property restriction that meant the only people that could hold office or people that have a certain amount of money, or a certain amount of virtue or whatever. We would say anybody can be elected and hold the office. And then we say that everybody decides everybody gets to cast a vote as to who holds the office. So again, we don't have a property qualification that say only certain people will vote to decide from a from an even more select group of people who will be a candidate. There's a lot of democracy that all of the citizens can hold office and that all of the citizens should vote on which person in particular should hold it. Also, as we've already mentioned, all should rule over each and each in his turn over all. And so, again, to be a true democratic citizen means to take your turn in ruling over other people. And, of course, in being ruled. So that you should take your turn ruling means that you should actually pay attention to democratic politics and do things like vote and serve on jury duty. And taking your turn in being ruled means you don't take all of that power for yourself. But when you are being justly ruled by other people, you comply with that rule. Now, also characteristic of democracy is that appointment to offices should actually be made by lot, you know, at random by lottery. Since we're all equal, all the citizens are equal. We all ought to have an equal chance of being appointed to the office. Now, of course, that's not practicable in all cases. Some offices require much more experience and skill. For example, military offices, we don't want just any random person occupying those. So we might limit those offices to only people that have a certain amount of experience or skill in the relevant area. Now it is also characteristic of democracy to have no property qualification required for offices or to have an only a very low one. Also, term limits. A person shouldn't the tenure of offices should be brief and a person shouldn't hold the same office twice. Again, there may be exceptions for that in specific kinds of offices, but in general, should have very brief, limited and one time terms in office that will give more people an opportunity to take their turn at ruling and being ruled. Also, all men should sit in judgment on all matters or at least in the most and greatest and most important. And so not that we have a certain select group of people making the decisions on the main issues and then we just let other people have input on the ones that aren't that important. That would be anti democratic. Also, the assembly should be supreme over all causes so that you don't just have people that have been appointed to magistrates and very few people claiming that their views are more important or supreme, even over what the assembly of mass people decides and votes for. Also characteristic of democracy payment for services for showing up at the assembly for showing up for jury duty, since democracies involve a lot of poor people, they can't necessarily afford to take the time off of work so you have to pay them. You have to pay them to do jury duty, pay them to show up to the assembly, pay them for these offices so that they can afford to take time off of working on the farm or hire other hands to help on the farm while they are doing the necessary business and politics. And then Aristotle says, you know that characteristic of democracy is that you have a lot of citizens who have low birth poverty and mean employment, whereas an oligarchy is of course characterized by the opposite where you have relatively well born people who are rich and well educated and so on. Now chapter three is concerned with how equality is to put into practice. So how is this democratic conception of equality that's their basic principle, basic aspect of the principle of liberty and freedom itself, how is it to be obtained. So do we just assign to 1000 more people among the poor, the same property qualifications of 500 rich men, and shall we give the 1000 to power equal to that of the 500. So here Aristotle assumes that the situation is that we have, suppose we have a fairly narrow oligarchy that only has 500 rich men in government, and our population isn't that big but we're going to expand it, expand the citizenship hugely to include 1000 other poor people and we used to have a minimum property qualifications say we're earning 100,000 a year. Now we'll just say that the poor, although they don't, they earn considerably less than this we will include them by supposing that they meet the property qualification. So there's various reasons why this wouldn't be a good way to manage things. So perhaps we should retain the same ratio between them but take equal numbers from each among the rich and poor, and give them control of elections, or of the courts. So, for example, in an assembly you might have a sort of assembly of rich people and then another assembly of poor people, and then let the majorities in each of those decide cases somehow. But always keep them in some kind of ratio or proportion. Now, which of these alternatives would be more just from a democratic perspective, one based just on using absolute numbers or ones using proportionality. Well, in Aristotle's view, both democratic and oligarchic conceptions of justice involve some injustice and lead to some exclusion. So, Democrats, of course, say that justice is that to which the majority agree, you know, majority rules, and oligarchs say that justice is that to which the wealthier class agrees. And in the opinion of oligarchs, the decision should be made according to who has the highest amount of property. Now, Aristotle says in both of these principles, there's some inequality and injustice. One of them is unjust towards the majority. The other is unjust towards the minority. So if justice is the will of the few, any one person who has more wealth than all the rest of the rich put together ought upon the oligarchical principle to have soul power. But this would be a tyranny. So suppose that, you know, people who earned twice as much as the other citizens were allowed to form an oligarchy and that resulted only in 100 people. But then suppose you had somebody whose individual wealth was greater than that 100 people, then by the oligarchic principle that whoever has more wealth should rule, one person would be put in the position of a soul ruler, but this would result in a tyranny. That's exactly the definition of a tyranny, a soul ruler ruling in his own interest and not in the common interest. So there's a problem with the oligarchic principle based on proportionality because these proportions could could go so far as to transform that kind of constitution into another kind. Now, what about democracies? If justice is the will of the majority, they will unjustly confiscate the property of the wealthy minority. So there's not much the minority can do if the majority decides that they should confiscate their property, not just by taxes, but could actually literally seize and redistribute their property. And Aristotle gives plenty of historical examples of this happening. And he represents this as being a fundamentally unjust kind of action on the part of democracies. Remember that both democracies and oligarchies are unjust, deviant forms of constitution along with tyrannies. Now, Aristotle discusses weighted voting as a procedure that could perhaps allow us to balance democratic and oligarchic interests. Or at any rate, it shows us how democratic and oligarchic methods might sometimes coincide, but sometimes disagree. So I'm going to go into a little bit of detail. For the example, suppose you have 30 total citizens and they're divided into two assemblies. One assembly consists of 10 rich citizens. The other assembly consists of 20 poor citizens. And suppose that to be in the rich one, you have to meet a property qualification that's twice as high as the poor one. Now suppose the following voting on a measure. So in the rich assembly, six people are for it, four people are against it. In the poor assembly, five people are for it, 15 are against it. So we total these up, 11 total people are for it, 19 are against it. Now, using the democratic method, which observes numeric equality where all votes are counted exactly equally, the measure would fail. There are 11 votes for it, 19 against it, so it fails. Now suppose we apply the oligarchic method which uses proportional equality and we weight the results. So each vote in the rich assembly like the Senate will count for two votes since they meet a property qualification twice as high. And suppose the numbers look like this, six rich people and five poor people vote for the measure. Then since we double the six rich votes, you get 12 there, 12 plus five at 17 total against it are four rich people and 15 poor people. So eight plus 15 or 23, then the measure would fail because 17 people would vote for it and 23 people would vote against it. So the measure would again fail. In this case, both the democratic and oligarchic procedures yield exactly the same result. But suppose you had the following result. Suppose nine of the rich people voted for it. So by doubling their vote counts as 18 and five poor people were for it. That would be 23 total pro versus one rich person who's against it. So that counts as two plus the 15 poor people 15 plus two is 17 who are against it since 23 is greater than 17, although the numeric majority was against it. So 14 were for 16 against the weighted majority because we counted the votes of the rich for twice as much would be for the policy. And so it means that the oligarchic outcome of the decision making would be other than the democratic decision making. Now what the oligarch would say is, well, we did use a kind of equality. And so Democrats should be happy that we've at least employed that kind of equality, even if it's not the kind that they want in any way they count for their own in their own assembly and so on. But so perhaps if there's a difference you ought to consider the weighted result instead of the unweighted result. But Aristotle says that, you know, you could even reach an even division using such a weighted voting procedure. In that case, there's no greater difficulty because there's no greater difficulty than it present when if the assembly or the courts are divided, recourses had the lot or some similar expedient. So at that point you have to just flip a coin or perhaps you always favor the status quo instead of the reform proposal. Now, the last thing Aristotle says on this is that, you know, what we really have to do is focus on preventing the rich from encroaching on people because it's a much bigger problem in a way than the poor discriminating against the minority. So although it may be difficult in theory to know what exactly is just or equal, should I use numeric or proportional equality, the practical difficulty is of inducing those to forbear who can if they like encroach. That's far greater for the weaker. He means the poor are always asking for equality and justice but the stronger care for none of these things. So it's actually the poor who tend to emphasize the idea of equality. And of course they mean numeric equality, but the poor, the rich should at least be constrained by a method of proportional equality. Now in chapter four Aristotle discusses the different kinds of democracy and here he distinguishes four kinds, referring to his earlier discussion in book four chapter six. He also had a slightly different enumeration of kinds of democracy actually naming five I think in chapter four of book four but in four chapter six. He distinguishes these kinds the first an agrarian based democracy the mass of people live by agriculture and tending cattle. The people are poor and have little leisure and so they're willing to elect the best people among them to offices since they themselves can't afford to engage in politics too much. They will also conduct scrutiny's to make sure that the office holders are good. So then the notables within such a society are fine with the arrangement because they don't feel like they're being ruled by inferiors. And such a democracy Aristotle holds is the most stable because in it there is little inequality of wealth. It's not a big gap between rich and poor but there tends to be a large middle class of farmers. This he says is the best and most natural kind of democracy and is constituted out of what he calls a good class of people. Now after this he says we have thus explained how the first and best form of democracy should be constituted is clear that the other or inferior shorts will deviate in a regular order. And the population which is excluded will at each stage be of a lower kind. So the next kind of democracy discussed as a pastoral democracy where the massive people live by flocks. This would also include farmers and people who live by flocks. They're well trained for war and still superior to many lower classes for example of manual laborers. They are relatively more able than farmers to participate in politics because they can move around the country more easily. Finally the third kind of democracy kind of radical democracy. It's constituted by reducing citizenship qualifications to lower and lower classes usually at the instigation of demagogues. Aristotle says this he thinks is the most unstable kind of democracy because so many different classes are included in the decision making. You have not just the upper classes of course but also the middle class and even the lower classes. So that makes it very difficult to reach agreement on anything. And so the notables become discontent prone to stasis factionalism instability even civil war. This he thinks is the most unstable worst and most unnatural form of democracy. But it should be noted this is the democracy that includes all of the classes and includes the most actual people. Now if we look a little more in depth at ways that Aristotle distinguishes different kinds of democracies. According to what he's just said democracies are classified by the population of citizens and but we can also compare this with the proportion of democratic elements within a democratic constitution. So for kinds of democracies radical democracies pastoral democracies agrarian democracies and then there really isn't a technical name for a fourth kind. But the radical democracy has the widest citizenship farmers artisans traders and laborers. While the pastoral must have less you know just farmers artisans and traders or even just farmers and artisans where the agrarian just contains farmers so has the most restricted citizen class. But also the most radical democracy will have the most democratic elements of its constitution as can be seen by the second table. A pure democracy has every element of the constitution democratic whereas there are mixtures which we have less including mix three where the majority of elements are actually oligarchic. But since the deliberative and supreme element is democratic is still considered a kind of democracy. Now when we when we look at Aristotle's evaluations of these various kinds of democracy. He thinks that the democracy is most inclusive of citizenship so includes the most number of people farmers artisans traders even laborers are included. And that has the most number of democratic elements it's deliberative judicial and official sections are all democratic Aristotle thinks that's the worst and most unreasonable kind of democracy. What he considers to be the best kind of democracy is actually the one that has the most restricted citizen class so farmers only and has the least number of democratic elements. Definitely it's assembly is democratic but then you check the democratic impulses of that assembly by having oligarchic or other kinds of constitutional procedures in the judicial and official branches. In chapter five Aristotle discusses how to constitute and preserve a democracy democratic legislators are to be concerned not only with the establishment but the preservation of democracies. So it's much easier to set up a democracy than it is to continue to preserve one and Aristotle thinks that the true democratic legislator is one who can preserve that constitution the longest not just established the most radical version of it. Again he thinks the most radical version are actually the morally worst and the shortest lived. Now property confiscations and taxes state trials things like that although these are common in democracies Aristotle says should be discouraged since they're destabilizing when democracies lack revenue to pay for civic duties. Few assemblies he says should be hold should be held juror terms should be shortened to make sure that as many people can participate as possible. Offices may also be divided so that some are elected others are selected by lot or you divide the same offices. There's two classes of magistrate for one elected the other chosen by lots so you have kind of mixed democratic and oligarchic decision procedures or even division of one office to employ both decision procedures and then you would moderate the democracy more like an oligarchy and that would check its unstable unbalanced elements and thus be more relatively stable and would avoid and co-opt factions. Legislators he says should be careful to distribute surpluses to the poor in order to reduce poverty although these should be fairly limited because they tend to empower demagogues. And he discusses this strategy in some more detail so let's concentrate on it how distributions to the poor should happen in a democracy. The first thing to note is this caution that he has where there are revenues demagogues should not be allowed after their manner to distribute the surplus. The poor are always receiving and always wanting more and more for such help is like water poured into a leaky cask that is it's not preserved for very long and you have to find greater and greater ways to fill it up. Now he says the true friend of the people should see that they not be too poor for extreme poverty lowers the character of the democracy measures therefore should be taken which will give them lasting prosperity. And as this is equally the interest of all classes the proceeds of the public revenues should be accumulated and distributed among its poor if possible in such quantities as may enable them to purchase a small farm or at any rate make a beginning in trade or husbandry. Now this is really important Aristotle is saying if you know if anyone cares about democracy and you want to actually preserve a democracy and it is really important to eliminate extreme poverty and to redistribute wealth so that there is more equality and less inequality. Otherwise you will destabilize a democracy that greater this gap between the rich poor the more class warfare you will have. If distributions cannot be made to all of the poor he says then it should be distributed to tribes or other divisions and until there is an alleviation of poverty the rich should pay fees for the attendance of the poor at the necessary assemblies. In return they should be exclude excused from doing useless public services and make the poor do those perhaps but the rich should have to subsidize that the poor can participate in politics. Otherwise they won't have time and it won't be a true democracy and it will just slide into an oligarchy. He also says that offices can be divided so that some are elected others selected by lot or you could divide the same offices into two classes of magistrates again combining both democratic and oligarchy decision making procedures. So in Chapter 6 he turns to oligarchies distinguishing three grades of oligarchy. First the most moderate and hence best form would have two property qualifications a low one for indispensable offices and a high one for the superior offices but those who can meet the lower property qualification are made citizens and are included in the Constitution. The second more narrow oligarchy would be formed by tightening these property qualifications a little more. And the third grade in extreme oligarchy which is of course the worst kind needs to employ even more safeguards beyond tightening of property qualifications. As he says the most clickish and tyrannical of them all answering to the extreme democracy which being the worst requires vigilance in proportion to its badness. For as healthy bodies and ships well provided with sailors may undergo many mishaps and survive them whereas sickly constitutions and rotten ill man ships are ruined by the very least mistake so do the worst forms of government require the greatest care. Extraordinary passage because here he's comparing an extreme oligarchy to an extreme democracy they're both corrupt forms they're both vulnerable to stasis they're both unstable and they have to constantly be shored up by more and more safeguards. Here are the recommendations in chapter seven of how to preserve an oligarchy. Well, first of all, having just seen how to constitute and preserve a democracy, we can basically reason from opposites in order to see how to constitute and preserve an oligarchy. Another point is that law and order is crucial to preserving an oligarchy. Populousness of democracies generally preserves them for numbers to democracy in the place of justice based on proportion, whereas the preservation of an oligarchy clearly depends on an opposite principle that is good order. So populousness of democracies means it's very hard to change anything so they tend to be relatively more stable than oligarchies which can't depend on a high number so they it's more important for them to maintain good order so law and this is why we see oligarchic government forms emphasizing law and order. Oligarchies Aristotle says are best suited for countries which are adapted to cavalry, which is very expensive outfitting horse combat units and also heavy infantry, you know, heavily armored, armed and armored soldiers with bronze weapons and armor. This leaves oligarchies vulnerable to attacks, however, from lighter armed forces in the lower class. And so Aristotle recommends that oligarchs implement military countermeasures by creating their own light armed forces to protect the oligarchy within the city. This is why oligarchies tend to have, you know, private mercenary armies and things like that. Now, moderating an oligarchy by allowing lower property qualifications, at least for some offices can be stabilizing, as we've seen one way to preserve an oligarchy is to moderate it to be more like a democracy. Also, attaching expensive duties, like the financing of festivals or public buildings to high offices will make lower classes not desire those offices, since they won't be able to afford to perform those duties. But they also make the lower classes appreciate that these entertainments and civic improvements have been made available to them. So they will support the, you know, oligarchy occupation of those offices. So one way to entrench an oligarchy is to make it really expensive to serve and make the responsibilities more than the poor can bear. Now, the eighth chapter of book six is about different kinds of offices. Aristotle says, quote, next in order follows the right distribution of offices, their number, their nature, their duties, of which, indeed, we have already spoken, end of quote. Now, despite this claim that next in order follows and so on, the topic of offices does not actually follow on what has proceeded in book five, but actually picks up on where Aristotle left in politics book four chapter 15. Here Aristotle says that no state can exist without having the necessary offices and no state can be well administered, not having the offices which tend to preserve harmony and good order. So that basically is meant to be an exhaustive classification of offices necessary and non necessary ones the non necessary ones, not just for the existence of the state, but basically aimed at the good life harmony and good order. Necessary offices include what he calls indispensable offices and of course military offices. The indispensable offices should be ranked first next in order follow others, i.e. the military offices which are equally necessary but have a higher rank and requiring great experience and fidelity to the Constitution. It's likely that you use a more oligarchic method of election and out of a select group of people and even a select group of people making the decision when you're dealing with military offices because it requires a lot of experience. But this results in basically a three fold division of offices necessary non military offices necessary military offices and then non necessary offices which exist merely to enhance life preserve harmony and create a better order. Later Aristotle mentions a kind of alternative division of offices into basically a group that includes those concerned with God's war and finance those dealing with a certain region of the city and those connected with law courts and deliberation in a bully. But and so there may be other ways to classify other ways to classify these offices, but mostly in this chapter he sticks by the distinction into necessary and non necessary. Here's a list of the necessary offices in the order that he discusses them. You need market managers, town managers, country managers, revenue officers, sacred recorders, which are like accountants basically enforcement officers, auditors, the council or bully and religious officials. So all of those are necessary offices, any state regardless of what kind it is needs those functions preserved means somebody overseeing the market, somebody making sure the town and country is in good order, somebody making sure the taxes are being received. Somebody keeping track of everything that's going on, and then other people to go around and enforce it, people to keep track of accounts, and auditing to make sure the offices are executed in compliance with the law. A council of people to decide what's going to happen and then religious officials like priests and so forth, who are among other things preside in state sanctioned festivals and so on. In describing the necessary military offices Aristotle basically gives us the rank ordering of the Greek military at the highest level you have the generals or warlords under them the admirals, especially of the cavalry and light armed troops. And under that the captains of the cavalry and light armed troops and also naval captains and all of the naval units. Non necessary offices, again that exist. They aren't they aren't necessary for a state to exist, but they exist for the preservation of harmony and order in the state, include what he calls guardians of the law, you know who are being very careful to make sure the law is being observed and it's in good order and that it's understood, and so on. Also, guardians of women guardians of children that is looking into matters and affairs that technically have to do with the household or economic unit but spill over into the political sphere. Very intriguing aspect of politics there. Also the directors of gymnastics and kind of primary education primary basic military training and superintendents of the contest for example the gymnastic contest games, like the Olympic games things like that. Also, dramatic festivals or Dionysian contests and other similar spectacles. So, those are offices you don't need to have a state, but they help preserve its harmony and order, the other offices are necessary for any state. And again, the procedures for selecting those offices could be democratic could be oligarchical could be aristocratic or could be constitutional. And that is one part of one element out of three of a constitution that also includes a judicial element and deliberative element which were described in greater detail in book four. So that does it for book six. Thank you.