Comment: “The authority of the master and that of the statesman are different from one another.” (Aristotle) (1994)
The claim frames Book I of Aristotle’s Politics (chapters 1 and 7). Its target is Plato’s Statesman, where the Eleatic Stranger holds that a large household and a small city differ only in size and so need one science of rule. Aristotle replies that rule over slaves and rule over citizens differ in kind, not in number. That distinction founds the idea of political authority as rule among free equals, though his own exclusions narrow it.
The Argument
Breaking the polis into its parts, Aristotle finds three household relations: the master rules the slave despotically, the husband the wife constitutionally, the father the child royally. The household is a monarchy with one head. The polis is different: constitutional rule is a government of freemen and equals.
| Criterion | Master (despotikē archē) | Statesman (politikē archē) |
|---|---|---|
| Subject | the slave, held to lack deliberative reason | citizens, free and capable of deliberation |
| Whose interest | primarily … the interest of the master (III.6) | the common interest |
| Duration | permanent | ruling and being ruled in turn |
| Mode | command to be executed | deliberation through law |
| Knowledge | ordering tasks, which stewards can do for him | practical wisdom (phronesis), learned by obeying |
Hence constitutions that serve only their rulers are perversions because they are despotic, whereas a state is a community of freemen (III.6). Since citizens can reason, political authority must be limited and exercised through law, not by a father’s or owner’s word.
Significance
- Against paternalism. Sir Robert Filmer‘s Patriarcha (1680) derived kingly power from Adam’s fatherhood. John Locke‘s Second Treatise (1689, §2) answers in Aristotle’s manner: a magistrate’s power over a subject differs from a father’s, a master’s, a husband’s or a lord’s.
- Freedom as the political condition. Hannah Arendt (The Human Condition, 1958) built on the contrast: the household is the realm of necessity and inequality, the polis of freedom among equals, where to be free meant neither to rule nor to be ruled.
- India. John Stuart Mill (On Liberty, 1859) held despotism legitimate for “barbarians”, the logic of colonial rule. The Constitution replaced it with universal adult franchise and equality before law (Article 14), turning subjects into citizens. The mai-baap style of administration is a residue of the master’s authority.
Limits
- Who is free and equal? Aristotle left slaves, women and labourers outside political rule. Even the wife, ruled “constitutionally”, never takes her turn to rule.
- Feminist. Susan Moller Okin (Women in Western Political Thought, 1979) showed that the household–polis split puts domestic power beyond justice; hence the personal is political.
- Marxist. Karl Marx (On the Jewish Question, 1843) argued that political equality coexists with domination in civil society. Capital (1867) calls the capitalist’s control of the workplace despotic in form. The master’s authority has moved from the household to the factory.
Conclusion
The distinction is Aristotle’s lasting contribution: authority over equals capable of reason must be shared, rotated, limited and justified by the common good. Its weakness was the boundary he drew around the equals. Democracy keeps his principle, extends it to all, and must still guard against despotic power in workplaces and homes.