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Democracy, for Aristotle, was an inherently unstable and even corrupt form of government. When he uses the word, he probably means something more like “mob rule” for us, comparing to the more favorable “polity”, which was a virtuous democratic rule for all citizens. The biggest problem he saw is that if pure democracy was implemented is that it was obvious that the poor would simple immediately vote away the property of the rich. Keep in mind Aristotle lives in a time of more or less feudalism, where a very small number of men would own estates, and the large majority of uneducated, illiterate “masses” worked for them. It seemed obvious that if one man owns an estate, and a hundred men work for him, if they are all given equal vote, the masses will simply vote to divide the property among themselves. Aristotle viewed this as bad, both probably because he was in the upper class himself, and because it would cause mass social upheaval and instability.

Aristotle’s solution to make democracy work was more or less reduce wealth inequality. He noted that democracy worked fine in the country where everyone was a farmer, and owned their own land, because no one would vote to take anyone’s property. He thought this could be replicated in the cities if the middle class was the strongest force, and voted for the good of everyone. Essentially, if the rich and poor were at war with each other, with extreme wealth stratification, democracy couldn’t work because the poor would outnumber and dominate the rich.

The strange thing is, of course, that this has never happened in a democracy. America has always had extreme wealth stratification, and the poor have never voted away the property of the rich. The founding fathers, of course, read Aristotle significantly. They had another solution in mind however, which was to limit democracy’s power via “checks and balances”, which are set up largely to prevent the poor from voting in their own class interest, as Aristotle thought they would. For example, in America, if the poor masses voted to seize the property of the rich and distribute it among them, the Supreme Court would simple say, “nah you can’t do that.”

Even more striking however, is that in recent times the “mob rule” that Aristotle feared, is actually in favor of taking money from themselves and giving it to the rich! Aristotle, believing that men are the “rational animal” above all else, would probably be in disbelief at how it turned out.