Everywhere, inequality is a cause of revolution – Aristotle. Comment. (2017, 15 Marks)
The statement opens Book V of the Politics, the first systematic study of political instability, and its qualifier matters: inequality causes revolution, but an inequality in which there is no proportion. Revolution (metabole) here means any change of constitution, from a palace coup to a shift within a regime, and at its root lies a disputed sense of justice.
The Argument
- Justice as proportion. Justice is equality for equals and inequality for unequals. Distributive justice gives honour and office in proportion to worth; corrective justice restores the balance a wrong has upset. Revolt begins when shares seem out of proportion.
- Two partial truths. Democrats think equality in freedom means equality in everything; oligarchs think inequality in wealth means inequality in everything. Each is half right, so the quarrel is between rival conceptions of justice, not between justice and greed. Inferiors revolt in order that they may be equal, and equals that they may be superior.
- Perception. Always it is the desire of equality which rises in rebellion, whether the grievance is real or believed.
- General causes. Gain and honour, rulers’ insolence, fear, contempt and the disproportionate growth of one part of the state. Cause differs from occasion: the occasions may be trifling, but great interests are at stake.
- By regime. Monarchies fall to family plots and personal insult. Aristocracies fall when too few share honours. Oligarchies split as some grow richer, and democracies fall when demagogues harass the rich into conspiracy.
- Remedy. A large middle class, unprofitable office and education in the spirit of the constitution.
Its Continuing Force
- History and theory. The French Revolution’s assault on estate privilege fits the model. Ted Robert Gurr‘s relative deprivation (Why Men Rebel, 1970), the gap between expected and actual goods, restates his perceived disproportion.
- Evidence. Eli G. Rau and Susan Stokes (PNAS) find economic inequality among the strongest predictors of democratic erosion, even in wealthy, long-standing democracies. In Nepal, anger at corruption and flaunted privilege, the “Nepo Kids” trend, toppled Prime Minister Khadga Prasad Sharma Oli on 9 September 2025.
- India. Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar warned on 25 November 1949 that unless the contradiction between political equality and social inequality was removed, those who suffer from inequality will blow up the structure of political democracy. Reservations (Articles 15(4), 16(4)) apply proportionate equality to historic disadvantage.
Limits
- Marxist. Karl Marx shares the class insight but treats revolution as the progressive transformation of the mode of production. Aristotle treats it as a disease to prevent.
- Timing. Alexis de Tocqueville (The Old Regime and the Revolution, 1856) observed that revolt often comes as conditions improve.
- Structure. Theda Skocpol (States and Social Revolutions, 1979) stresses state breakdown; inequality is nearly universal, revolutions rare.
Conclusion
“Everywhere” overstates the case: inequality is a necessary grievance, not a sufficient cause. Aristotle’s refinement survives: what destabilises is disproportion that people perceive as unjust, and his remedy of a broad middle class remains sound constitutional advice.