The Discussion Of Aristotle' Polity With Middle Class In Power

Aristotle lived in such a period of Greek city states which gradually tended to collapse and social conflicts became more and more acute. As a responsible thinker,in order to restore the prosperity of the city state, he tried his best to seek the way to save city state crisis. By analysis and comparison,he strongly advocated implementing polity where power was vested in middle-class so that city states can free themselvesfrom the predicament. In his representative work------The Politics,according todifferent standards,Aristotle elucidated the idea of his regimes detailedly and systematically,then he clasified government as two kinds and six types,of which, polity is considered as the best form of regimes. He comprehensively introduced the polity of middle-class, which was mainly consisted of the following aspects: polity' political structure,class constitution and the composition principles of society;middle-class composition and the reasons for his ruling; the reasons for its unrealization;goverment impacts and the evaluations of government.Polity which was maintained by Aristotle produced an extensive and far-reaching impact. It has two obvious features: First, it is a mixed form of government, because the essence of polity is that it is a mixture of democracy and oligarchy, which inclined more towards democracy. As far as Mixed form of government is concerned, it is more conducive to social harmony and stable development than a single type of regime . So political thoughts of Roman and medieval thinkers do not consciously conceive his mark. Second, the reasons for Aristotle held in esteem middle-class in power and appreciated middle-class not only concerned with that he was the spokesman for small and medium-sized master class, but also incomparable superiority of middle-class than other classes. Middle-class is the midstream of society for stability and harmony, but in ancient Greece or contemporary society, the number of the middle class is less often, if there are great numbers of middle-class or they are in large proportion in a society, then this society is more inclined to forge ahead steadily. Nowdays, our country is in a key period ,which is full of " strategic opportunity" and " prominent contradictions", so the polity vested by middle-class that Aristotle admires has an important enlightenment and reference for building our harmonious society.