ARISTOTLE’S POLITICAL SCIENCE AND PROPAGANDA

Aristotle’s Politica can be reduced to a single meaningful sentence: It’s good to be rich and to have slaves, then you can be noble, good, and big-souled.

But should we write more than one sentence about it, we ought to start with the famous one-liner: “Man is by nature a political animal,” and move on from there. The transition from ethics to politics has occurred already, as we may rest assured that in the absence of perfect contemplation, the political good becomes its worthy substitute.

The following paragraph is a summary of Aristotle’s positive political theory by Bertrand Russell. (The red font indicates my textual comments.) I call it “positive” in the sense that it can be easily mistaken for such if separated from its negative component, which shows us that in Aristotle’s State the notion of citizenship is by no means enlightened.

Aristotle’s Politics begins by pointing out the importance of the State: it is the highest kind of community, and aims at the highest good. In order of time family comes first, built on the two fundamental relations of man and woman, master and slave, both of which are natural. (Here is already the kernel of the ‘negative’ part of the theory, remaining ‘inactive’ only by this far remaining unexplained) Several families combined make a village; several villages, a State, provided the combination is large enough to be self-sufficing. The State, though later in time than the family, is prior to it and even to the individual; for “what each thing is when fully developed we call its nature,” and human society, fully developed, is a State,-- and the whole is prior to the part. The conception involved here is that of organism: a hand, when the body is destroyed, is no longer a hand. The implication is that a hand is to be defined by its purpose--that of grasping--which it can only perform when joined to a living body. (The parallel to Hobbes is striking. Apparently with all his “anti-Aristotelity,” our Hobbes finds nothing wrong in borrowing the great Greek’s imagery and logic.) In like manner an individual cannot fulfill his purpose, unless he is part of a State. He who founded the State, Aristotle says, was the greatest of benefactors; for, without law, man is the worst of animals (and under the law, Aristotle says, man is the best of animals), and law depends, for its existence, on the State. The State is not a mere society for exchange and the prevention of crime: “The end of the State is the good life; the State is a union of families and villages in a perfect and self-sufficing life, by which we mean a happy and honorable life. A political society exist for the sake of noble actions, not of mere companionship.”

Despite all its visible shortcomings and apparent naïvetés, Aristotle’s political theory is an important and thought-provoking probe into the nature of Hobbes’s Leviathan (if I am permitted this awful anachronism), particularly fascinating considering the fact that Hobbes’s earth-shaking masterpiece written two thousand years later is in large measure a mere restatement of its glorious distant predecessor. It is therefore right to say that Plato’s Politeia and Aristotle’s Politica are the first two giant milestones of political science, and, as such, no matter how many shortcomings these two works may have, their world-historical philosophical worth can by no means be overrated.

It is entirely logical for us to talk in one breath about Plato’s Politeia and Aristotle’s Politica, because they ought to be contrasted in their differences, which may not be as obvious to us (except for Politeia’s utopian nature and Politica’s practicality) without taking note of Aristotle’s criticism of Plato, which puts them in sharp focus. To use modern language here, Plato comes out as a communist, whereas Aristotle is a staunch anti-communist, almost a social-capitalist. Unlike Plato, Aristotle supports private property, separateness and privacy of each family, limited involvement of the State in family matters, etc. He believes rather in the voluntary charity practice than in an obligatory sharing of wealth. This contrast is particularly significant to me, as I have insisted throughout the relevant sections of this book on the legitimacy of both of these social structures: totalitarianism-socialism-communism à la Plato, and proto-capitalist mentality, as represented by Aristotle.

But it would be a big error to call Aristotle a pro-capitalist in the modern sense of the word. His theory of trade is as anti-capitalist as they come. Take this passage, for instance:

There are two sorts of wealth-getting, as I have said; one is a part of household management, the other is retail trade: the former necessary and honorable, while that which consists in exchange is justly censured; for, it is unnatural, and it is a mode, by which men gain from one another. The most hated sort, and with the greatest reason, is usury, which makes a gain out of money itself, and not from the natural object of it. For, money was intended to be used in exchange, but not to increase at interest… Of all modes of getting wealth this is the most unnatural. (Politics: Book One; Part X-- 1257-1258.)

Why do I say, then, that, as opposed to Plato, Aristotle is a proto-capitalist? There is a peculiar reason that I shall seek to develop in the future, which, in its present crude form, can be summarized like this:

I am by no means talking about the economic principles of modern capitalism, which are, indeed, founded on trade, money, and such. (Although certain ugly excesses of financial capitalism, which can be described as usury running amok, are, arguably, a perversion of healthy capitalism, plunging society into the mire of unregulated greed and selfish antisocial profiteering.) What I am talking about, is a special mental attitude directly opposed to totalitarian collectivism, namely, individualism, which has evolved throughout history in the economic circumstances of modern capitalism. It is this anti-communistic, individualistic attitude, I find in Aristotle, which I am calling, rather paradoxically, I admit, his proto-capitalistic disposition.

And now, having said this, let us quickly consider the utterly negative side of Aristotle’s political theory. I am particularly opposed to his rationalization of the concept of slavery, as in the following excerpt:

We may infer that after the birth of animals, plants exist for their sake, and that the other animals exist for the sake of man, the tame, for use and food, the wild-- if not all, at least, the greater part of them-- for food and for the provision of clothing and of various instruments. Now, if nature makes nothing incomplete and nothing in vain, the inference must be that she has made all animals for the sake of man. And thus, in one point of view, the art of war is a natural art of acquisition, for the art of acquisition includes hunting, an art which we ought to practice against wild beasts and against men who, though intended by nature to be governed, will not submit; for war of such a kind is naturally just. (Politics: Book One; Part VIII-- 1256.)

I understand that in this excerpt Aristotle merely rationalizes the practice of slave ownership by his fellow Greeks. (As I have stated his political philosophy at the beginning of this entry, It’s good to be rich and to have slaves, then you can be noble, good, and big-souled. Without his rationalization and necessitation of slavery, the whole edifice of his political theory falls apart. Therefore I have suggested that when the fatal flaw of his philosophical necessitation of slavery had crumbled, his negative view of trade, and other such natural principles of healthy capitalism, became the obvious casualties, but his overall individualistic social attitude was transformed into the capitalistic attitude, hence I have called Aristotle’s social attitude “proto-capitalistic.”) I wonder how he would have adhered to this untenable position when the tables were turned, and the Greeks became the slaves of the Romans? But as for the ridiculous downside of his political theory, I think that enough disparagement has been given to it already, as nothing that could be added can top the philosophical absurdity of his treatment of the institution of slavery, where the great Aristotle had willingly become a mere political propagandist and happily for him did not live long enough for the chicken to come home to roost.