Ancient & modern
LADY THATCHER has been arguing that a Labour landslide would lead to an 'elective dictatorship', a term she seemed to imply originated with Lord Hailsham some 25 years ago. If so, she was out by a factor of 93: the term is Aristotle's (384-322 BC), occurring in his Politics (1285b20).
Aristotle is discussing a limited form of monarchy — limited in order to distinguish monarchy from tyranny — and examines the distinctions in the light of four main criteria: whether these monarchs (a) are subject to the law, (b) hold office for ever, or merely for a set term, (c) are elected or not, and (d) rule willing subjects. First, there is the type of monarchy found in Sparta, where the monarch is a sort of military general holding office for life, either by birth or by election. His sovereignty, however, extends only to military and religious matters.
Second, there are kingships that have powers approximating to tyrannies, but are 'legally established and ancestral'. As a result, they rule over willing citizens, according to the law. This makes them 'safe', says Aristotle, and that is why the bodyguards for such monarchs are composed of free citizens carrying arms. Tyrants' bodyguards are foreigners, used against citizens.
Third, there is the Hailsham variety of monarch, 'in rough terms an elective dictator/tyrant', called the aisurnnetes. He is subject to the law, but the position is not ancestral: he is elected and rules over willing subjects. Such monarchs hold office 'sometimes for life, sometimes for a stated period, or until certain things should be accomplished'.
Finally, Aristotle identifies the 'heroic' monarch — again subject to the law and willingly accepted by the people, but ancestral and with wide though not unlimited powers. He came to power in the first place because of the benefits he was able to deliver to the people in terms of war and peace, social cohesion or land distribution (since the land was virtually the sole means of generating wealth, that meant 'job creation').
Aristotle concludes by pointing out that these monarchs differ only in the extent to which they are sovereign. None, in fact, has unlimited powers (and he goes on to discuss what should be done about a monarch who does have such powers and, even more enigmatically, one of such excellence as to be worthy of such powers). It is, however, an agreeable paradox that, of the four monarchies Aristotle discusses, the elective dictator most closely approximates to our prime minister, with or without a landslide.
Peter Jones
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