Chapter 6. On the Three Approved Forms of Government, and the Three Corrupted Forms

¹ Come, then, and learn the pattern of kingship as briefly as it can be told. There are three more universal constitutions of states: the first, in which one man alone rules by law, is called monarchy or kingship, being the base and support of a people, in accordance with the true meaning of the word. The second is composed of many rulers, all most law-abiding—this is called aristocracy. The third is a coming-together of the whole populace to manage the state’s affairs, which men have named democracy. Opposed to these stand three other forms, each having wrenched itself away from what is right by force. Tyranny lies in ambush against kingship; oligarchy shoots its arrows at aristocracy, arising whenever certain wealthy and violent men rule while pretending to be the best; and mob-rule faces democracy as its opposite—an unlawful and wholly disordered confusion once the multitude has fallen into chaos. Of these other forms, however, I shall say nothing further.