A great realist, as Aristotle was realized limitation of his ideal state. This leads him to outline a best attainable state. It avoids the extremes of democracy and oligarchy, described as Polity. It represents the “golden mean”.
According to Aristotle, there are mainly two kinds of state, viz., Democracy and Oligarchy that are in operation. But, they are themselves plagued by certain drawbacks. While, in oligarchy power is either concentrated in few hand or a single person, democratic rule is marked by rule of money.
The real problem is that the oligarchs oppress the majority and democratic means fail to provide intelligible administration. This leads Aristotle to favour a middle class rule.
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Aristotle’s favour for polity is based on following assumptions:
1. Neither extremely rich nor extremely poor persons are competent to rule. While the former only knows how to rule, the latter do not know how to rule.
2. A middle class knows how to rule and be ruled in turn. It is an embodiment of attributes that shed the attributes of extremely rich and extremely poor.
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3. The middle class should at least be larger than either the extremely rich or the extremely poor.
4. A state with predominant middle class population remains safe from revolutions.
5. Polity is a golden mean, a mixed constitution that combines the elements of both; democracy and oligarchy avoiding their extremes.
Aristotle’s foresight to visualize the role of the middle class has stood the test of time. Actual political experiences confirm Aristotle’s contention that most of the stable, durable and well administered states have been under the control of middle class. If anything, this trend has strengthened all over the world.