Greek cities experienced all kinds of different constitutions, from the democracy of Athens (where all male citizens were expected to participate in public life–the word “idiot” literally means a private citizen in Greek, i.e. one who doesn’t participate in government) to the despotism in Syracuse, with all kinds of constitutions in between.

Aristotle wrote an entire book, called the Politics (meaning things relating to the ‘polis’ or city or state) which discusses many of the options. He looked at how many people ran the state, and whether they administered the state for their own personal benefit or for the benefit of the state as a whole. This leads to six forms of government:

Kings – One man rules for the benefit of the entire state.

Tyrants – One man rules for his own benefit

Aristocracy – A few men rule for the benefit of the state.

Oligarchy – A few men (usually the wealthy) rule for their own benefit.

Polity – Many men rule for the benefit of the state.

Democracy – Many men (usually the poor) rule for their own benefit.

Note that Aristotle considered democracy to be a “deviant” form of government.

Aristotle considers that the end of government is NOT to promote commerce and build wealth for its citizens (which is a feature of oligarchy) NOR is it to promote liberty and equality, since men are inherently unequal (this is a feature of democracy).

Rather, the best form of government will promote a “good” life for its citizens (note that this has very little to do with material happiness and a great deal to do with personal virtue). Thus the best form of government is one where power is in the hands of the “best” citizens (best in terms of virtue). The literal translation of “rule by the best” is aristocracy.

The best of the US founding fathers would have been very well read on their Aristotle, and this may be one reason why they took so many steps to limit direct democracy. There are many reasons why democracies are problematic, including the issue of the tyranny of the majority, how easily people can be swayed by demagogues, etc.

The other model they followed was the Roman Republic. This constitution was an oligarchy in most respects, with power concentrated in the hands of the wealthiest citizens, the men of the senatorial class. They reserved all of the important magistracies (like the offices of consul, praetor, etc.) to themselves, but kept power carefully distributed to prevent any one of their number from becoming a tyrant.

We too have a republican system (complete with a senate), where power is supposed to be kept in the hands of the “best” citizens. Instead of relying on birth and wealth to directly determine membership in the ruling class, all of our important offices are elected by all of the citizenry.

However, at the time of the founding fathers, there were severe limits on how many representatives were chosen. Only representatives were directly elected. Senators were chosen by their state’s legislature, not directly elected. Likewise, the president to this day is not directly elected by the people, but is instead chosen by the electoral college, which was supposed to be a group of “wise men” who would meet for the purpose of choosing the president.

Likewise, not everyone could automatically vote. For most of the country’s history only men could vote, and initially there were property qualifications as well. Early on, many states had religious tests for statewide office. Later on, there were literacy and other tests that had to be passed in order to gain the right to vote (which disenfranchised the poor and uneducated). So even under our constitution, power was deliberately kept out of the hands of the common people.

The idea that every adult citizen should be able to fully participate in government is actually fairly new and slowly evolved over the course of the 19th and early 20th century.

Ironically, Plato and Aristotle both would probably have not approved of our current form of government. Reading Plato’s Republic brings one to the conclusion that his preferred form of government would actually have its closest modern analogue in the form of some hybrid of fascism, communism and aristocracy. Plato (and many of his associates) didn’t think much of Athenian democracy, and several, like Xenophon, openly preferred the Spartan system of government.