This chapter is a fascinating discussion of the democratic concept of equality, and makes various practical suggestions for reconciling the democratic demand for arithmetical equality (i.e. equality of voting power for each individual), and for majority rule, with the oligarchic demand for that kind of ‘proportionate’ equality that gives greater power to greater wealth. (For Aristotle’s discussion of these two ‘equalities’, see III ix, xii, and V i.) Each side wants power to lie in something ‘greater’: numbers and property respectively. The system Aristotle describes in the second paragraph ensures that on at least some occasions both the greater numbers of persons and the greater amount of property will be on the winning side (as explained in note 5). But because of the ‘weighting’ given to the rich in terms of votes (as for example in note 1), there could also be occasions when the numerical majority consisting largely of poor persons could be outvoted by the numerical minority consisting largely of the rich. One wonders if the compromise Aristotle puts forward would have satisfied either party.
The technicalities of the first two sentences are a little tricky, and I have attempted to elucidate them in Liverpool Classical Monthly, 4 (1979), pp. 98–9; cf. also Rackham’s notes in the Loeb edition.
1318a11 The next question is, how will they obtain equality? Ought the property-qualifications to be divided,1 those of 500 persons for the benefit of a 1,000, so that the 1,000 have the same power as the 500? Or should one refuse to establish equality on these lines, and make the division as before, but then from the 500 take the same number of persons as from the 1,000, and give to these supreme control of elections and law-courts?2 Will this constitution then be most just in accordance with the democratic conception of justice, or will one based on the majority? For the champions of democracy say that what the majority decide is just, while the partisans of oligarchy say that it is whatever is decided upon by those with greater possessions, asserting that size of fortune is the proper criterion to use. But both these views involve inequality and injustice. If we take the view that justice is what the few decide, we have a tyranny; for if one man has property greater than all the other wealthy persons, according to oligarchic justice he alone has a just title to rule. If we take justice to be what is decided by a numerical majority, they will act unjustly, confiscating the property of the rich and less numerous, as has been said before.3
1318a27 In order to ascertain what an equality might be upon which both parties will agree, we must start by examining the definitions of justice from which they severally begin. Thus it is said that whatever seems right to the majority of the citizens ought to be binding. So be it – but not universally or in every case. Since it happens that the state is made up of two parts, the rich and the poor, we grant that whatever seems good to both groups, or to a majority in each, shall be binding. But if their decisions disagree, the answer should be whatever is decided by the majority, i.e. by those of the higher total property-assessment.4 Suppose for example that there are ten of one group and twenty of the other, and a resolution has been supported by (A) six of the rich and five of the poor and opposed by (B) the four remaining rich and the fifteen remaining poor, then whichever have the highest total property-assessment, the property of both rich and poor being reckoned in each set, their decision is to be binding.5 If they turn out to be equal, that should not be regarded as a difficulty any different from that posed by an equality of votes in an assembly or law-court: the matter must be decided by lot or in some other recognized manner.
1318b1 And however difficult it may be to find out the truth about equality and justice, yet it is easier than to get men’s agreement when you are trying to persuade them to forgo some greater share that lies within their grasp. It is always the weaker who go in search of justice and equality; the strong reck nothing of them.