by C.G. Masi
8 October 2025 – Aristotle, in his encyclopedic work on ethics entitled The Nicomachean Ethics, opined that monarchy was the best form of government, but always ran the risk of degenerating into tyranny (dictatorship), which he called the perversion of monarchy. This is not surprising, since Aristotle had strong family ties to the Macedonian royal family. In fact, the ambitious Macedonian king Philip II had invited him to tutor his son, Alexander III of Macedon, aka Alexander the Great. It is always difficult and dangerous to openly criticize the government of a living autocratic sovereign, and Aristotle’s friendship with Macedonian royalty may have clouded his judgment in this case.
In chapter 10 of book 8 of his ethics masterwork, Aristotle listed three forms of government in decending order of desirability (in his personal judgement):
- Monarchy – One-man rule by an autocrat whose highest interest is the welfare of his subjects;
- Aristocracy – Collective rule by the best-qualified citizens;
- Polity – Collective rule by property owners.
He went on to list three “perversions” of those recommended government forms:
- Tyranny – The perversion of monarchy when the autocrat pursues his own self-interest instead of that of his subjects;
- Timocracy – The perversion of aristocracy due to rampant corruption;
- Democracy – The perversion of polity when suffrage is extended to everyone.
Aristotle rates the perversions as the diametric opposites of the three recommended forms. Since he considered monarchy the best form of government, its perversion, tyranny, he rated as the worst of the perversions. Since he rated polity to be the worst of the three recommended forms, he rated democracy as the best of the three perversions.
Monarchy, Aristotle’s favorite form of government, and its perversion, tyranny both feature one-man rule (autocracy). Unfortunately, this feature makes the fate of the nation dependent on the decision-making prowess of one individual human being: the autocrat. If that person is a wise and benevolent individual, the monarchy is secure. If that person is a less-than-admirable individual, Aristotle was quick to point out, the result is a national disaster.
The problem is that even a wise and noble sovereign is likely to crack under the strain of making decisions for everyone in a heterogeneous national population. They often suffer from what I like to call the Dictator’s Disease. This syndrome combines paranoid personality disorder with narcissistic personality disorder. I chose those terms because they are detailed in the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5). More informally, we would call such a person a paranoid megalomanic psychopath.
This syndrome produces a personality that combines a psychopathic lack of empathy with a grandiose self-image and a pervasive sense of persecution. The paranoia arises from constant fear of losing power to political opposition. The megalomania arises from fawning attention from sycophants, leading the sovereign to overly identify themself with the nation. The psychopathy arises from a lack of empathy with the sovereign’s subjects (this may be an innate personality trait, or a learned behavior).
Aristotle’s error was not taking into account malleability of an individual human psyche. He assumed that if you take what seems like a perfectly healthy human and subject them to a stressful environment, they will continue to act like a healthy human. That ain’t necessarily so!
Many monarchs have had long and successful careers, while many have not. Examples of successful monarchs were Alexander III’s father Philip II, who ruled successfully for 23 years and bequeathed to Alexander a healthy thriving state that the son expanded into one of the greatest empires in history. Ramesses II of Egypt ruled for 66 years and left a stable nation to his son, Merneptah, who ruled it until his own death. Elizabeth I of England ruled for 45 years and is still considered by many to be the greatest English monarch. On the other hand, Vladimir Putin of Russia is currently the poster child for tyranny and shows many signs of Dictator’s Disease. Muammar Gaddafi of Lybia ruled for 42 years while showing signs of mental instability. He was assassinated by Lybian revolutionaries.
I have not compiled statistics for the mental health of autocratic leaders. It’s somewhere down on the list of research projects I’d like to take up–whenever. I have, however, compared GDP per capita across the autocracy vs. democracy spectrum.
The Economist Intelligence Unit annually publishes an index (Democracy Index, or DI) showing nations’ positions on the autocracy-democracy spectrum. It turns out that for democracies with DI above 5.28, GDP per capita correlates closely with DI. That is, more democratic states fare better economically. The correlation breaks down, however, for nations on the autocracy side of the spectrum (DI less than 5.28).
One explanation for this phenomenon is that, while democracies can be relied on to improve the welfare of their citizens, autocracies may be monarchies or tyrannies on a haphazard basis. If one chooses an autocratic form of government, it is uncertain what the result may be, and a revered king may degenerate into a psychotic monster later on. This is why the framers of the U.S. Constitution adamantly rejected autocracy for the form of their new government.
