igarchical, where wealth rules; the democratic; and the arbitrary rule
of the individual, which we call tyranny. The comparison of this
last--the supremely unjust--with our own--the supremely just--will show
whether justice or injustice be the more desirable.

The perfect state degenerates to timocracy when the state's numerical
law of generation [an unsolved riddle] has not been properly observed,
and inferior offspring have entered in consequence into the ruling body.
The introduction of private property will cause them to assume towards
the commonalty the attitude, not of guardians, but of masters, and to be
at odds among themselves; also, in their education gymnastic will
acquire predominance over music. Ambition and party spirit become the
characteristic features. When, in an ill-ordered state a great man
withdraws from the corruption of politics into private life, we see the
corresponding individual type in the son of such a one, egged on by his
mother and flattering companions, to win back for himself at all costs
the prestige which his father had resigned; personal ambition becomes
his dominant characteristic.

Oligarchy is the next outcome of the introduction of private property;
riches outweigh virtue, love of money the love of honour, and the rich
procure for themselves the legal monopoly of political power. Here the
state becomes divided against itself--there is one state of the rich and
another of the poor--and the poor will be divided into the merely
incompetent and the actively dangerous or predatory. And your
corresponding individual is he whose father had won honours which had
not saved him from ultimate ruin; so that the son rejects ambition and
makes money his goal, till, for the sake of money, he will compass any
baseness, though still only under a cloak of respectability.

In the oligarchy the avaricious encourage and foster extravagance in
their neighbours. Men, ruined by money-lenders, turn on their moneyed
rulers, overthrow them, and give everyone a share in the government. The
result is that the state is not one, nor two, but diverse. Folk say what
they like and do what they like, and anyone is a statesman who will wave
the national flag. That is democracy. Such is the son of your miserly
oligarch; deprived of unnecessary pleasures, he is tempted to wild
dissipation. He has no education to help him to distinguish, and the
vices of dissipation assume the aspect and titles of virtue. He
fluctuat