Oligarchy, Democracy, & the Decline of the West
“Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal…” (Matthew 6:19) I. Introduction Book VIII of Plato’s Republic presents a genealogy of political constitutions, outlining the process by which the ideal city, namely, aristocracy or kingship, degenerates first into timocracy, then into oligarchy,…