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Oligarchy by Jeffrey A. Winters

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 March 2012

John P. McCormick
Affiliation:
University of Chicago

Extract

In democracies, the rich protect their freedom with wealth, and the people protect theirs with laws. This notion, associated with Demosthenes in classical Athens, and revived by Leonardo Bruni in republican Florence, imputes a roughly fair equilibrium to popular government: Private wealth and public institutions, so the truism goes, combine in democracies to ensure that both wealthy and common citizens live with fewer arbitrary restrictions on their behavior than in any other kind of regime.

Type
Critical Dialogue
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 2012

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