Democracy's Great Opponent, the Problem of Oligarchy in Ancient and Modern Political Thought Book Details:
Author : Jeffrey Sikkenga
Publisher :
Release : 2000
ISBN-13 :
Page : 0 pages
Rating : 4.5/5 from voters
This work seeks to address and clarify the problem of oligarchy. Despite the diversity of authors, there is a clear path in this work from Plato to ' The Federalist.' In chapter one, we introduce the subject of oligarchy in greater detail by examining its contemporary study, especially as rooted in the work of Robert Michels. Chapter two begins our study of the great texts of political philosophy. In this chapter, we examine Plato's account of a conversation in which Socrates, the founder of political philosophy, discusses the oligarchic soul. Chapter three investigates Aristotle's critique of oligarchy, which enlarges and refines Socrates' discussion by applying his treatment of the oligarchic soul to the world of actual regimes. With Plato and Aristotle we have, as Sir Ronald Syme notes, the two ancient treatments of oligarchy that served as authoritative models for many subsequent thinkers, including the most important medievals such as St. Thomas (Syme 1988, 56). Chapter four starts our section on the moderns. We begin with Machiavelli, the author of the modern break with the ancient and medieval political tradition. We turn next in the chapter to Hobbes and Locke. Working within the modern intellectual framework created by Machiavelli, Hobbes articulates a new and decisively different understanding of the political psychology of acquisition, one explicitly based on a rejection of Aristotelian and Scholastic political science. Locke refines Hobbes' political psychology in order to transform the Hobbesian power seeker into the "industrious and rational" person who is the foundation of liberal democratic politics and the antithesis of the old-fashioned oligarch. In chapter five, we analyze the thought of Montesquieu, who modifies and applies Locke's teaching on the acquisitive psychology to produce a liberal political science that can guide legislators in their study and reform of oligarchies as well as their establishment of new liberal republics. Chapter six is an analysis of 'The Federalist, ' where we find the first and most important application of the liberal principles of Locke and Montesquieu to the actual founding of a new system of republican government that claims to have overcome the theoretical problem of oligarchy. 'The Federalist'''s' presentation of the American regime is, in this respect, the "case study" in our examination of the problem of oligarchy in ancient and modern political thought. Chapter seven concludes with a discussion of whether the ancients or moderns provide more insight into the problem of oligarchy. (Abstract shortened by UMI.).
