A tyranny then is, as has been said, a monarchy,
where one person has an absolute and despotic power over the whole
community and every member therein: an oligarchy, where the supreme
power of the state is lodged with the rich: a democracy, on the
contrary, is where those have it who are worth little or nothing. But
the first difficulty that arises from the distinctions which we have
laid down is this, should it happen that the majority of the
inhabitants who possess the power of the state (for this is a
democracy) should be rich, the question is, how does this agree with
what we have said? The same difficulty occurs, should it ever happen
that the poor compose a smaller part of the people than the rich, but
from their superior abilities acquire the supreme power; for this is
what they call an oligarchy; it should seem then that our definition
of the different states was not correct: nay, moreover, could any one
suppose that the majority of the people were poor, and the minority
rich, and then describe the state in this manner, that an oligarchy
was a government in which the rich, being few in number, possessed the
supreme power, and that a democracy was a state in which the poor,
being many in number, possessed it, still there will be another
difficulty; for what name shall we give to those states we have been
describing? I mean, that b which the greater number are rich, and that
in which the lesser number are poor (where each of these possess the
supreme power), if there are no other states than those we have
described.
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