Aristotle’s ancient guide to tyranny reads like a modern manual

In “Politics,” Aristotle explains that political rule comes in three basic forms: rule of one, rule of the few, and rule of the many. Each form has a healthy and a degenerate expression. Monarchy and tyranny describe rule by one. Aristocracy and oligarchy describe rule by the few. Polity and democracy describe rule by the many.

What separates the good from the bad in each category is not structure but motive. A king governs for the common good. A tyrant governs for himself.

Despite the millennia that separate us from Aristotle, the philosopher’s portrait of tyranny feels uncomfortably contemporary.

Aristotle does more than classify regimes. He explains, in cold and unsentimental terms, how tyrants preserve power once they seize it. His warnings, written more than 2,000 years ago, read less like ancient theory and more like a field manual.

The tyrant begins by eliminating rivals. He fears competition, especially from men of spirit and competence. Anyone admired for virtue, courage, or leadership poses a danger because excellence inspires imitation. Such men are removed through exile, execution, or disgrace.

Next the tyrant attacks institutions that allow citizens to form bonds. Aristotle lists common meals, clubs, educational gatherings, literary societies, and discussion groups. Any shared practice that fosters trust, loyalty, or independent thought threatens despotic rule. Organization creates solidarity, and solidarity creates resistance.

The tyrant also forces citizens to live publicly. Privacy breeds conspiracy. Public life enables surveillance. Aristotle describes rulers who compel their subjects to remain visible so that dissent never escapes notice. Long before Bentham’s panopticon, Aristotle understood that constant observation disciplines behavior.

Surveillance alone does not suffice. Tyrants cultivate networks of informers to uncover thoughts that cannot be seen. Citizens learn to treat one another as potential threats. Suspicion replaces trust. Speech becomes guarded. Silence becomes safety.

Aristotle could not have imagined digital surveillance, but he would have recognized its function. Technology merely perfects a strategy the ancients already understood.

Social bonds must then be weakened. The tyrant sows discord between neighbors, friends, and families. These relationships form the first line of resistance to centralized power. When trust dissolves at the most intimate level, organized opposition becomes nearly impossible.

Poverty also serves the tyrant. Aristotle observes that despots deliberately exhaust their populations with endless labor. The goal is not productivity but distraction. Citizens too busy to rest or reflect lack the energy to conspire.

He cites the construction of the Egyptian pyramids as an example of forced labor designed less to achieve a purpose than to consume a people’s strength. The task glorifies the ruler while leaving the population depleted.

War further strengthens despotism. Constant external threat convinces citizens that they need a strong ruler to survive. Crisis suspends normal limits. Emergency justifies control. Under perpetual conflict, organization becomes treason.

Aristotle claims that tyranny, the degenerated rule of one, borrows from the worst features of democracy. Despots empower groups unlikely to organize independently against them. He mentions women and slaves not as moral judgments but as political calculations within the ancient world.

The logic remains familiar. Tyrants elevate those dependent on the regime and hostile to existing social hierarchies. Dependence fosters loyalty. Resentment supplies enforcement.

Flattery plays a crucial role. Tyrants surround themselves with sycophants who inflate their ego and confirm their righteousness. Men willing to abase themselves rise quickly. Men of honor refuse to flatter and therefore remain dangerous.

Flattery becomes a sorting mechanism. Those who value dignity exclude themselves. Those who crave favor advance.

Aristotle adds that tyrants prefer foreigners to citizens. Citizens possess memory, tradition, and moral expectation. They know how things once were and how they ought to be. Foreigners lack these attachments, and they are happy to flatter the ruler who elevated them.

This arrangement benefits both sides. The tyrant gains enforcers without local allegiance. The foreigner gains status, wealth, and protection. Without the ruler, he has nothing.

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Despite the millennia that separate us from Aristotle, his description of tyranny feels uncomfortably contemporary. Surveillance now operates through algorithms and cellphone cameras rather than forcing everyone to live at the city gates, but the purpose remains unchanged. Security replaces liberty. Total observation replaces trust.

Our institutions remove ambitious and virtuous individuals while elevating compliant managerial drones. Debt binds the population to endless labor. Work consumes life without building independence. Citizens remain busy, anxious, poor, and isolated.

Cultural and political authorities weaken family, denigrate religion, and discourage independent association. Community dissolves into administration. Loyalty transfers from neighbors to systems.

Ruling classes increasingly rely on populations with little connection to national history or tradition. These groups have no reason to defend inherited norms and every incentive to please those who grant them status.

Some details differ but the formula for tyranny does not. Aristotle understood tyranny because he understood human nature. His analysis endures because the same impulses govern power in every age.

There is nothing new under the sun.