>>>>The great Greek political philosopher Aristotle, whose "Politics" and "Ethics" two
of his most important works we've been discussing, was in some sense the founder of constitutional
analysis. He analyzes the nature of political societies and provides a scientific basis
for the consideration of constitutions. The Greek world is politeia. It means way of life
almost, constitution, set of laws, set of orders, way of, way of ordering political
life. And one way to think of the nature of constitutions is this: think of there being
two levels, two orders of law. There are the set of laws that govern a society, the rules
which are enforced by the state, but there are a second order of laws. These are rules
for making the rules. That second order of lawmaking, those are constitutional laws.
And in our own society, in the United States, our constitution is the governing document
that constitutes the federal government in it's various branches, limits its power say,
in the Bill of Rights, and those are rules for making rules. And the federal government
through its various mechanisms then makes the rules that we consider our laws. Now Aristotle
is the first thinker to provide an insightful analysis of the nature of constitutional law,
the nature of laws which govern how laws are made. And Aristotle's constitutional analysis
is fundamental and it's worth exploring in a little detail. Aristotle says that there
are basically three ways of organizing power. Now these aren't ideal types, they're not
perfect models, but they're three fundamentally different ways to think about how power is
organized in a society. He says there's rule by one, there's rule by a few, and there's
rule by many. And it's kind of simple, but it's a powerful and insightful way of thinking
about analyzing the nature of political institutions. Rule by one, Aristotle says, has two forms:
it can either by correct or it can be deviant. And Aristotle says this is true of each of
these three kinds of constitution, that there's a correct form and a deviant form. And when
he says it's a correct form, he means that it's the rule for the interests of the public,
that it's rule for the common good. And when it's a deviant form that it's a rule for one's
narrow interest, that it's a rule for the governing's interest - whoever that is. And
so Aristotle says when there's rule by one and that is for the common good, that's called
a monarchy. It's a monarchical institution, which invests primary executive and legislative
and even judicial authority in a single individual: a monarch, which means "rule by one" in Greek.
When there's a deviant rule by one, it's called a tyranny. And again that's a Greek word and
it fundamentally reflects the long influence of Greek thought on political science. And
so Aristotle says rule by many can-- rule by one can be monarchy or it can be tyranny.
Rule by the few, Aristotle says, can either be correct, in which case it's an aristocracy,
which means in Greek "rule by the best". And when it's a deviant rule by the few that's
called an oligarchy, a rule by the few in their own interests. And so the rule by the
few can either be the rule by those who are best and will guide the state wisely in the
common interest or deviant, those who rule for their own gain. Finally, he says constitutions
can be organized so that the rule is held by many. And when this works well, when it's
a correct constitution, it's called a polity, Aristotle says. And when it's deviant, when
you have a deviant set of rule by the many, Aristotle says that is called democracy. And
in fact in Aristotle's schema the word democracy has negative connotations, and in fact through
much of human history democracy has negative connotations. And it's interesting to read
Aristotle's analysis and to realize that a deviant form of rule by the many is called
democracy. This is when the people, the common people, rule in their own interest. That is,
they try to transfer the property from the wealthy to themselves, not in the common interest
but in their own interest. But Aristotle does allow that there can be a good form of rule
by the many, he just calls it polity. Now, these political categories, these kinds of
constitutions, are outlined by Aristotle and we'll see in future lessons that he's one
of the first great political scientists, that is that he's an empirical scientist. He studies
the actual practices and institutions of the Greek world. And in fact it's thanks to Aristotle's
empirical study that we know so much about one of the principle exemplars of ancient
democracy, the city of Athens. Because either Aristotle or one of his students wrote a work
called "The Constitution of the Athenians", which described in detail the nature of their
democratic organization of power.