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In his dialogue "De re publica," Marcus Tullius Cicero explained, through the fictionalized voice of Scipio Africanus, that there are three basic types of government. The first is the monarchy, in which the king rules. The second is the aristocracy, in which a select class of privileged delegates rules. The third is the democracy, in which the people rule themselves. Each type of government has its strengths and weaknesses, and through those weaknesses, a cyclical process occurs in which one type of government devolves into the next...
Having explained the futility of choosing between the three forms of government due to their cyclical relationship, Cicero then has Scipio suggest that a fourth kind of government is ideal. This is "that mixed and moderate government which is composed of the three particular forms" which he has already described. It is not hard to see how Cicero's concept of this judiciously blended republican government influenced America's Founding Fathers, as the three branches of the U.S. government clearly echo the three Ciceronian forms.
The problem that America faces today is one that Cicero did not describe in his dialogue. While he believed the fourth government would provide the optimal blend of stability and equality, he failed to consider that it might also combine to simultaneously offer the worst of each of the three cardinal forms. It is not only the evils of the democratic form quoted above that will be disturbingly familiar to Americans today; the tyrannical aspects of the monarchical form and the corrupt aspects of the aristocratic form are visible as well....
Read the whole thing here.
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