Aristotle's Views on the Middle Class
Aristotle, an ancient Greek philosopher, and historian was a supporter of politics and democratic forms of government. He had long considered the middle class to be the class that could both decide and has true leadership. He assumed that the middle class should dominate without benefiting either the poor or the wealthy in society ("Aristotle-and-the-middle-class").
According to Aristotle
According to Aristotle, once the middle class disappears, the poor class would become the majority. The poor are less educated than the rich, and they fail to make ends meet. If the poor are the majority, then in a democracy they will vote to take away money from the rich (“Aristotle-and-the-middle-class”).
Middle Class Is Best Suited To Be Ruled And To Rule
As a result of such case where the poor vote to take away money from the wealthy, the poor may also retaliate and do away with the democracy of course! Democracy, at that point, becomes too much of a threat to the elite, and the elite start taking steps to limit the power of government, and therefore as the middle class disappears, democracy goes with it (“aristotle-and-the-middle-class”).
Aristotle believed that when the majority of the society is from the middle class, democracy is much useful because the middle-class people seem educated and have enough prosperity in that member of the middle class believe that they ill get rich some day thus they have compassion for the poor and do not punish the wealthy (“aristotle-and-the-middle-class”).
Community With A Large Middle Class Is Well Administered
Aristotle argues that those who are born extremely wealthy, healthy or beautiful find it hard to follow reason because they are naturally insolent and somehow wicked while those who are poor and extremely weak tend to become villains and develop some form of wickedness too.
The middle class is full of humble people who are polite to draw up any insolence and too well off to breed villainy. For the reason that most injustices usually arise from villainy and insolence then the middle class is more likely to be just in delivering leadership (“aristotle-and-the-middle-class”).
Middle-Class People Promote Freedom
Aristotle argued that without a middle class, a city of slaves and masters would arise and freedom would be snatched from the poor. The society will be made of people of distinct groups where the first comprising the rich is full of envy while the second made of the poor is full of contempt and bitterness.
Such a city is viewed to be at the furthest remove from friendship and political community and stability. The presence of a strong middle class, however, helps bind the city into a whole, limiting the behavior of the rich to tyranny and the poor to slavishness, creating a city of the free (“aristotle-and-the-middle-class”).
Middle-Class Citizens Enjoy Safe And Stable Lives
Aristotle argues that those in the middle class are the most likely to survive in times of turmoil when the poor starve, and the rich become targets of the poor citizens. They are sufficiently contented with what they have and do not envy the possessions of the rich. They are also not so wealthy to be envied by the poor. They neither plot against the rich nor are plotted against by the poor hence they are happy, safe and stable (“aristotle-and-the-middle-class”).
Criticisms Of Aristotle’s Views
Although Aristotle's ideas and suggestions about the middle class have received criticisms including for the fact that recent scholars have proved that the middle class is the ones who are more likely to oppress the poor and steal from them for the greed of wanting to rise up the rank into the high/wealthy class (Davidoff, Leonore and Hall).
As much as Aristotle says the middle class cannot be plotted for by the poor, this is wrong as the poor people mostly still from the middle class as they border each other even geographically in estates and for the fact that the wealthy class always have security measures that the poor may not bypass (Davidoff, Leonore and Hall).
Why Aristotle Was Correct
As much as criticisms have been brought forward towards Aristotle’s idea on the impacts of middle-class citizens, the fact that the critics are not based on concrete evidence and study gives Aristotle a win as his views are evident even in today's society. It is clear that the middle-class helps prevent society freedom by eradicating the large gap that would exist between the haves and the have-nots (Davidoff, Leonore and Hall).
The rich would act as masters and would treat the poor as their slaves and treat them with all manner of oppression tendencies. The excuse that the middle class is plotted for by the poor and the idea that the middle-class oppress the poor are tendencies based on one’s character and may not be evident in every society as the practical effect seen to be played by the middle class in promoting freedom in the community (Davidoff, Leonore and Hall).
In conclusion, I would conclude that Aristotle’s views are more concrete and still evident in today’s society and thus his ideas should be borrowed in trying to build and promote democracy and leadership even in today’s world.
Works Cited
Davidoff, Leonore, and Catherine Hall. Family fortunes: Men and women of the English middle class 1780–1850. Routledge, 2013.
