Aristotle's Economic Inequality Is Bad

In many ways, the way political economists, and by extension, many of the rest of us, think about economic inequality today is influenced by what Aristotle wrote about economic inequality almost two and half millenia ago. In and of itself, this is somewhat remarkable. But more importantly, Aristotle’s idea that the problem with economic inequality is that the poor, if they gain power, will soak the rich remains both pervasive and persuasive. On this reading of Aristotle, economic inequality is ‘bad’ because it provides an incentive for the poor to upset the equilibrium of a political community. While this line of thought can certainly be found in the Politics, in the next section I argue that it represents only a part of Aristotle’s thinking.22
The argument can be summarized as follows. A democracy exists to maximize political freedom. The best way to maximize the freedom of all citizens is for each citizen to take turns ruling and being ruled. Because those who rule have the capacity to threaten political freedom of those not ruling, only citizens who will not act in such a manner can rule. These citizens are “those in the middle” who are “similar and equal.” This group does not compromise the political freedom of those not ruling because they rule with “an eye towards the common benefit” instead of ruling with their particular interests in mind. In contrast, both the very rich and the very poor rule out of self-interest and ultimately infringe upon the political freedom of those being ruled. Thus, economic inequality is ‘bad’ in so far as it divides the political community into groups where some are very rich, others are very poor, and few are left in the middle. In such circumstances, there are not enough of “those in the middle;” as a result, the democratic political community will be ruled by citizens who establish a new constitution where they are masters and everyone else is a