Topic summary
Democratic theory
Extracted from the Wikipedia article Democracy.
Early theory
Aristotle's democratic theory contrasted rule by the many (democracy/timocracy), with rule by the few (oligarchy/aristocracy/elitism), and with rule by a single person (tyranny/autocracy/absolute monarchy). He also thought that there was a good and a bad variant of each system (he considered democracy to be the degenerate counterpart to timocracy).