Read and ponder Aristotle's warning, written 2,465 years ago, as to what happens when the Rule of Law is displaced by demagogues and decrees.
Of forms
of democracy first comes that which is said to be based strictly
on equality. In such a democracy the law says that it is just for
the poor to have no more advantage than the rich; and that neither should be masters, but both equal. For if liberty and equality, as
is thought by some, are chiefly to be found in democracy,
they will be best attained when all persons alike share in
the government to the utmost. And since the people are the
majority, and the opinion of the majority is decisive, such
a government must necessarily be a democracy. Here then is one sort of democracy. There is another, in which the magistrates are
elected according to a certain property qualification, but
a low one; he who has the required amount of property has
a share in the government, but he who loses his property
loses his rights. Another kind is that in which all the citizens who are under no disqualification share in the government, but
still the law is supreme. In another, everybody, if he be
only a citizen, is admitted to the government, but the law
is supreme as before. A fifth form of
democracy, in other respects the same, is that in which,
not the law, but the multitude, have the supreme power,
and supersede the law by their decrees. This is a state of
affairs brought about by the demagogues. For in democracies which are subject to the law the best citizens hold the first
place, and there are no demagogues; but where the laws are
not supreme, there demagogues spring up. For the people
becomes a monarch, and is many in one; and the many have
the power in their hands, not as individuals, but collectively. Homer says that 'it is not good to have a rule of many,' but
whether he means this corporate rule, or the rule of many
individuals, is uncertain. At all events this sort of
democracy, which is now a monarch, and no longer under the
control of law, seeks to exercise monarchical sway, and grows into
a despot; the flatterer is held in honor; this sort of democracy being relatively to other democracies what tyranny is to other forms of
monarchy. The spirit of both is the same, and they alike
exercise a despotic rule over the better citizens. The
decrees of the demos correspond to the edicts of the
tyrant; and the demagogue is to the one what the flatterer is to the other. Both have great power; the flatterer with the tyrant,
the demagogue with democracies of the kind which we are
describing.
(Source: Aristotle,
Politics, Book Four, Part IV, Translated by Benjamin Jowett, Internet Classics
Archive)
