politics

Chapter 12 Volume (B) II (4)
The Dialogues of Socrates (Plato's essays) are elegant, fresh and original in their entirety, with a calm and brilliant research spirit.But everything is always not perfect, and it also has shortcomings.For example, the 15 idlers it created, this number needs to be carefully estimated.Such a large number of people needs to be supported by others in order to maintain the leisure time of serving in politics and the army. 5000 Adding women, servants and other dependents who are suitable for it, it is equivalent to several times 1270 people.To support such a large number of people, the land area of ​​the city-state would have to be as large as Babylon or its equivalent.When it comes to ideals, although everyone can express their own opinions, ideals that cannot be realized at all are almost absurd. Aristotle's national concept is similar to Plato's, limited to Greek city-states.The territory of the Greek peninsula is mountainous and surrounded by the sea, and the area of ​​each city-state is generally about 32 square miles.Athens is the largest city-state, with an area of ​​only 1325 square miles (about a county in China with a length and width of 38 miles).Corinth is the next largest, about four thousand square miles.The states operate farmland in the valleys, which can support a limited number of people.As far as the Greek mainland and the colonial city-states in the Mediterranean are concerned, none of them can maintain a standing army of [-] (see chapter [-], [-]a[-] note, volume [-], [-]b[-]). .

"Laws" once said that 20 legislators should pay attention to the size of the residents in the territory and the size of the border when formulating laws. See Plato: "Laws" Volume IV 704-709, Volume V 747D.these two elements.However, the political life of a city-state cannot be isolated from its neighbors, and it is impossible for legislators to forget the issue of the relationship between neighbors.For example, the armed forces prepared by a city-state should not only ensure the safety of the territory, but also use force abroad as the basis of international relations or diplomacy in some periods. The city-state should have both a fleet and an army (see volume 1327, 41a18-b25). .Although this kind of military and practical life is not enough for individuals or the general cause of the state, a city-state must always maintain enough strength to make the enemy state fearful no matter whether it is attacking or retreating.

At the same time, the amount of property and the actual needs of armaments must also be taken into account.Socrates believes that the amount of personal property should be "enough to maintain a simple (temperance) life." Plato: "Laws" Volume 737 30D. .For this quantity, we can study whether it can make a clearer statement?Such a description is a bit vague, just like people casually saying "life is comfortable", it is just a general language with no margins. 1326 The so-called "plain life" may actually be a life of poverty.A clearer description (definition) should be "enough to maintain a simple (temperance) and affluent (free) life" as the use of property, treat others generously, and be frugal with oneself; .See Vol. VII, Chapter 30, 35b[-]. .Combining these two words, we can arrive at the margin of application of wealth - if the two are separated, abundance (liberty) may become luxury, and simplicity (temperance) may become shabby.When dealing with wealth, it is inappropriate for [-] people to show an attitude of being too weak (stingy) or too strong (indulging). Only simplicity and affluence are suitable qualities.

Another question is that since he stipulated that the entire city-state should be divided into a certain number of acres, and then distributed equally, he did not make corresponding restrictions on the total population of citizens. Plato: "Laws" Volume 740 741B— 40A, the number of citizens in the ideal city-state is proposed to be 40, and it is indicated that the number of children in each family should be adjusted with each other, and the excess population must make a living by themselves, such as opening up overseas colonial cities. He also did not set limits on the number of babies born. He believed that some families with many children gave birth to other families with no children. 1265 could balance the population so as not to exceed the original quota; in his opinion , the natural conditions of the populations of several city-states have not undergone major changes in spite of several generations.But in this imaginary city-state, the population should be maintained more stably.

In the current city-states, property can be divided and transferred freely, and the multiplied population will not be short of food, but in that imagined city-state, the various industries have been demarcated and cannot be divided. Plato: "Laws" (740B) stipulates that the divided lands cannot be further divided by will after they belong to each household; (741B) cannot be sold; (742C) cannot be divided by other means; (855A etc.) Nor is the government allowed to use political power to subsequently divide the various estates. , 5 Regardless of the number of excess children, they cannot obtain additional property.Therefore, to limit the number of shares in the industry, it is necessary to try to limit the population and prevent the number of births from exceeding the required number to achieve a balance; then calculate the probability of infant death and infertility after marriage according to the original text. The number of times)", that is, "calculate the probability rate". , the reproductive rate data can be calculated.Unrestricted reproduction would inevitably lead to poverty,10 which is precisely what is being neglected in many city-states at present;

The ancient legislator Phaedon the Corinthian advocated that when the country was founded, the number of shares in the property should be equal to the number of citizens, and these amounts should be customised, without any increase or decrease; however, whether each property was large or small at the beginning does not matter.But in the "Laws", the policy is just the opposite. The Corinthian Phaedon (different from the Argos tyrant Phaedon in Volume 1310 26b15) created legislation for the city of Corinth to determine the quotas for the number of citizens and property shares. After that, the country All calculations of political and military affairs use this data as the calculation standard. At the beginning, the land (industry) of each household was not adjusted to be equal whether it was large or small, and there was no restriction on the transfer or sale of part of its property by each household afterwards.Although the rich and the poor are uneven in this kind of city-state, because the number of people and the number of households are limited, each household will not have no property and no food.Plato: "Laws" focuses on the equalization of the rich and the poor, and stipulates that the size of each household in the allotment is equal, and it cannot be divided or transferred afterwards.According to Plato's regulations, the excess children must be childless and hungry.But Phaeden's population limit was also difficult to enforce.The Corinthians established many colonies throughout the Mediterranean, showing that their population multiplied beyond the initial limit. . 1326 How can this aspect be improved? We will discuss this appointment later, and will not discuss it in a separate chapter. It is only occasionally involved in the self-described political ideals in Volume 2632 (1330b9, 18a1335-9, 26bl[-]-[-]). .

There is another omission in the Laws.It fails to make clear the difference between rulers and ruled.He only made an analogy: the relationship between the two should be like warp and weft, and different wools are used to spin Plato: "Laws" Volume 734 735E, 20A. . 744 Another omission is that he allowed people's property to increase to five times the original amount, which is the same as saying "four times" in Volume 745 1330E. , but he did not explain why a corresponding increase in real estate was not allowed.Also, the arrangement of his proposed farmhouse is suspicious.He stipulated that each citizen has two separate houses on his own land.Aristotle in this volume VII 9a18-25 stipulates that each person shall be granted two lands. , but in practice living in two houses is generally of little benefit to the management of the acreage and the household. [-]
The regime he imagined is neither a democracy (civilians) nor an oligarchy as a whole, but tends to be called a republic Polydia (πολιεα, republic). For an explanation, see Volume 1279, Chapter 39, 4a1261— b6, and Note 1265a18 of Chapter 1266 of Volume 22.Volume 30, Chapters 35-[-], [-]-[-] describe the republic in detail, and Aristotle praised it as a good form of government that ordinary city-states can implement.Different points of view are listed here to criticize Plato's political thought.Buckle's translation notes collectively refer to the verses [-]b[-]-[-]a[-] as Aristotle's "gulu" for "Laws".An intermediate form of the polity, in which citizens are restricted to heavily armed armored soldiers.There is nothing wrong with this form of government if it is regarded as the system that most city-states can adopt,[-] but it is not appropriate for him to regard it as the ideal city-state second only to his initial conception.If legislation is still from the noble ideal, perhaps people would prefer to adopt the constitution of Ragenni (Sparta) or other forms closer to aristocracy.Some thinkers did think that the ideal form of government would be a mixed form of government,[-] and so they favored Spartan institutions.

These thinkers all believe that the Spartan regime is a mixed organization of democracy (majority system), monarchy (monarchy) and oligarchy (minority) regime. Da political system has both character and numbers. It is a mixed political system of "democracy" (civilians) and "nobility". , but their interpretations of the three vary.Some people believe that Sparta's Eivor (inspection) "Eivor" (Εφορο) was a Spartan censor, a total of five people, beginning in the Lycagus period.By virtue of their power to judge and supervise the rulers of the city-state (including the royal family), the censors gradually overcame the various administrative agencies. By the fifth and fourth centuries BC, five censors had de facto been in charge. state affairs.Since they were elected by the people, the Supervisory Council represented a democratic government, while the two kings of Sparta represented a monarchy, and its council of elders represented an oligarchy.Others, however, held that the Council of Supervisors actually appeared as a tyranny,1293 and only in the Spartan system of banquets and daily habits did their government appear democratic. Plato: Laws III 16C- 1294E, 18D. .

1266ɑIn the "Laws", the main purpose of the debate is to propose that the dual organization of tyrants and democracies Plato: "The mixed regimes" mentioned in the "Laws", Volume 701 710E, Volume 693 756, as the main political and extreme civilian regimes The neutralization of volume three, 1265D, and volume six, 29E, is also considered to be the neutralization of the one-man monarchy and the majority democracy.The example of democracy is Athens, and the example of monarchy is Persia; what Plato takes from democracy is not mob rule, and what he takes from monarchy is not autocracy.This excerpt calls it the "two unions" and then accuses it of taking advantage of its disadvantages and discarding its strengths. It is considered to be the worst political system, and the reasons are not sufficient.From 1266b6 to 1294a10 Susmeer suspects that these are not Aristotle's original works.It is the best form of government.Such a system, it may be preferred to rank among the worst forms of government, or not to be considered a form of government at all.Any form of government that can contain more elements is always more complete, so those ideas that mix multiple forms of government should be more reasonable. According to [-]a[-], the elements of a form of government are "freedom" (actually the "number" of free citizens), "talent Virtue" and "Wealth".Aristotle valued the mixture of the two elements of numbers (freedom) and talent, which can be found in the combination of the three.

The second edition of "Su School" believes that this sentence was not written by Aristotle.of.Moreover, the regime stated in 5 "Laws" actually lacks the elements of monarchy. He focuses on the two elements of democracy and oligarchy, and is biased towards the aspect of oligarchy.This can be seen in Plato's method of selecting and appointing administrators: "Law" Volume VI 756, 763E, 765.It's obvious.The election of administrative personnel is to select several times the list of personnel by ballot first, and then draw lots to make the final decision. This is indeed a democratic system with an oligarchy.But the other two methods are oligarchic (plutocratic) in nature: 10 First, the law compels richer citizens to attend the citizens' assembly, which is the same as 764A.See also Volume 1294, 37a1298, 16b763a of this book. , Participate in the election of executives, and assume other political rights and obligations, but leave it to other citizens; second, from the details of the election regulations, we can see his intentions. Plato: "Laws" Volume VI 15DE.It is to allow the richer classes to have more administrative positions, and the most senior officials are held by the wealthiest people.The method of electing deliberative officers is also oligarchic in nature.

It is true that all citizens must participate in elections, but in the pre-election process, general mandatory regulations are only partially implemented: when electing a number of candidates for the first-class wealth class, all citizens are required to participate, and the election of the same number of second-class wealth class candidates is mandatory. 20 But in the primaries of the third estate, the citizens of the fourth estate were not compelled to attend the elections, and in the primaries of the fourth estate, neither the citizens of the third nor the fourth estates were compelled. : "Laws" Volume 756 360B-E: The quota of members of the council is 90, consisting of 180 people selected from each of the four wealth levels of the city-state.The election procedure is divided into three steps: (90) The pre-selection is divided into four days. On the first day, the first-level pre-selectors are selected by all citizens (the original text does not say the exact number), and the remaining levels are held successively day by day. . (360) On the fifth day, the qualified list of pre-selectors will be announced, among which [-] deputies for each financial level will be selected by all citizens. ([-]) Finally, draw lots to determine [-] people from each level, a total of [-] people, to form the council of the year.In the primary selection, Plato's arrangement is as described in this section of Aristotle, focusing on the first and second levels of abundance.In re-election, all citizens are forced to participate in the election.join.Plato, therefore, required all citizens to elect an equal number of deputies for each class of wealth from the general list of pre-selectors.Many civilians do not participate in elections in order to save trouble, and finally the wealthiest and higher-ranking electors become the majority in the council.

These debates and my subsequent examination of the best regimes in various states can be found in Juan IV, Chapters 1296-34, and Chapter 38, 1297b7-13, 25a753-300.Various examples will be discussed to prove that:100 ideal good governance is not a mixture of democracy (majority) and monarchy (monarchy).The dual procedures of pre-selection and re-election for the election of executives Plato: "Laws" Volume VI 100, drafting the election procedures for executives (ruling): 37 pre-selectors are all male citizens who have served infantry or cavalry military service after reaching the appropriate age Elections are by registered ballot.After the pre-selected list is announced for one month, 281 people will be re-elected by all citizens. These 30 people will be announced again, and then re-elected, and [-] people will be elected as the ruling party.There is also a shortcoming: Some people, even if they are not many, can manipulate elections if they band together.In terms of government, we can see the shortcomings of the "Laws" Plato: There are many laws and regulations drafted in the "Laws", and Aristotle did not comment.This chapter specifically enumerates the disadvantages of the political system; Newman said that Aristotle’s original intention was to explain that the ideal city-state made by the predecessors was not good, and future generations can devote themselves to this type of research ("New School" II [-]). , that's all. [-]
Chapter Seven
(End of this chapter)