Aristotle took it for granted that a democracy should be fully participatory (with some notable exceptions, like women and slaves) and that it should aim for the common good. In order to achieve that, it has to ensure relative equality, “moderate and sufficient property” and “lasting prosperity” for everyone.

In other words, Aristotle felt that if you have extremes of poor and rich, you can’t talk seriously about democracy. Any true democracy has to be what we call today a welfare state—actually, an extreme form of one, far beyond anything envisioned in this century. (When I pointed this out at a press conference in Majorca, the
headlines in the Spanish papers read something like, If Aristotle were alive today, he’d be denounced as a dangerous radical. That’s probably true.)


https://1motorcyclist.files.wordpres...orld-works.pdf