After the digression in the second part of IV v, Aristotle now gives a list of four kinds of democracy and then four of oligarchy; this latter list reads like an expansion of the first part of IV v, and the chapter as a whole has many points of affinity with IV iv and IV xiii.
The classification of democracies and oligarchies in this chapter is made in terms of what Aristotle sees as an inverse ratio between the amount of property possessed by the politically dominant part of the state, and the rule of law: the greater the property, the greater the opportunity for that part to seize the reins of power for itself, and the less willingness to let law rule. Aristotle thinks this analysis holds good both for oligarchy and for democracy; in the latter case, it was notoriously a mark of extreme democracy actually to pay holders of office a kind of salary out of state revenues, a practice which facilitated control of government by the poorer sections of the population. Connections between wealth and political power fascinated Plato too (see e.g. Republic VIII–IX and Laws 756b–e, 758b).
On payments to office-holders, cf. II xi, V viii, and M. H. Hansen, ‘Misthos [pay] for magistrates in classical Athens’, Symbolae Osloenses, 54 (1979), pp. 5–22.
1292b21 The statements already made have listed clearly enough the forms of democracy and oligarchy. For either all the aforementioned parts of the people must have a share in the constitution, or only some and not others. When the farming element, and the element in possession of a moderate amount of property, is the sovereign in the constitution, the constitution is operated in accordance with the laws, because so long as they work they have enough to live on; but they cannot afford to take time off,1 so they put the law in charge and attend only the necessary meetings of the Assembly. But the rest of the population, as soon as they acquire enough property to qualify them according to the law, also have the right to participate. Thus all who have acquired it have that right. For where some do not enjoy the right to participate on any terms, that is a mark of oligarchy. But to have the right to take time off is not possible without revenue.2 This then is one form of democracy, and these are its causes.
1292b34 Another form of democracy is based on the next distinction: birth. Here office is open to all about whose birth there is no question,3 but only those participate who can take time off. In such a democracy the laws rule because there is no revenue. A third form of democracy allows participation to all who are free, although they do not in fact participate for the reason already stated; so here too the law inevitably rules. The fourth type of democracy is in point of time the last to develop in states. The reason for this lies in their growth. Not only are they much larger than they originally were, but they have much larger revenues. Thus all participate, because the mass of the people preponderates; and even the poor, being able to have time off, take part in the administration of the constitution, receiving pay for doing so. In fact, the mass of the poor take the most time off: they have no encumbrances, while the wealthy, who have private affairs to look after, often do not take part in the Assembly and courts of law. Thus in this fourth kind of democracy it is not the laws that are sovereign in the constitution, but the mass of the poor.
1293a10 So much for the list of kinds of democracy and their characteristics, and the constraints that produce them. Here is the succession of types that can be observed in oligarchies. First, where those who own possessions are many but the amount that they own is on the small side and not too much, they allow participation in government to everyone who acquires possessions; and because of the large numbers who thus become members of the citizen-body, the laws and not the men are necessarily sovereign. This is because the further they are removed from the exercise of rule by a single person,4 and possess neither so much that they can afford to neglect it and take time off, nor so little that they are maintained by the state, the more they are bound to think it best that the laws should rule for them, and not they themselves.
1293a21 Next, when the owners are fewer than in the previous case and their possessions larger, we have the second type of oligarchy. Having more power, they expect to make their position more profitable. So they restrict entry into the citizen-body from outside their number to those of their own choosing; but because they are not yet sufficiently powerful to rule without law, they lay down a law to fit the case;5 if they intensify the process, and become fewer in number and greater in possessions, the third stage of oligarchy is reached. In this they keep offices in their own hands, but do so in accordance with a law which provides for sons succeeding their fathers at their death.
1293a30 The final stage is reached when they overtop all the rest in possessions and in numbers of friends; this kind of power-group is near to single rule,4 the men being sovereign and not the law. This is the fourth form of oligarchy, corresponding to the last form of democracy.