Activity 3

Authoritarian—The government is the authority. The individual obeys. This is the opposite of a libertarian philosophy, in which the government leaves the individual alone as much as possible.

Totalitarian—In totalitarian rule, the government tries to control every aspect of the lives of its citizens, including their thoughts and beliefs, by any means possible.

Oligarchical Collectivism—Aristotle defines three types of government, each with a good form in which the ruler or rulers have the good of the state in mind and a bad form in which the rulers govern by self-interest.

Aristotle’s Three Forms of Government
Type	Good Form	Bad Form
One Ruler	Monarchy: rule by one wise person	Tyranny: rule by one bad person
Small Group Rule	Aristocracy: rule by a few wise people	Oligarchy: rule by a few bad people
Mass Rule	Polity or “constitutional government”: rule by the people for the good of the whole	Democracy: rule by the people for individual self-interest

Utopia—A perfect, happy society in which all of humanities problems have been solved.

Anti-Utopia or Dystopia—A nightmare society in which life is as difficult and unhappy as it could be; often the result of trying to create a utopia. 

These forms of politics are seen in countries in the world today.  At one point Iraq was ruled by a Tyrant by the name of Saddam Hussein.  He was a very oppressive ruler.  Today the US is ruled by "Mass Rule" because it is ruled by the people for the people.  In my opinion this type of rule is the best type of rule.