Classical political thought is the political thought of the Classical or ancient Western world. This usually means the Golden Age of Greece (Athens) 400-300 B.C. and Rome (200 B.C.-A.D. 200). Among the major classical Greek political philosophers are Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. The leading Roman or Latin political thinkers are Cato, Posidonius, Cicero, Tacitus, and Marcus Aurelius.

Although important differences exist among different classical thinkers, they are considered similar in their concerns for justice, virtue, devotion to the common good, and citizen participation in rule through rational deliberation. Aristotle is the fullest expression of classical political thought. His belief that people are naturally "social and political animals" who require training and experience in governing to be fully human forms the basis of much classical thought. This active citizenship requires educational, economic, and cultural preparation to form the independent, reasonable, ethical, just citizen. Politics is a high occupation to the gentleman who is freed from economic concerns by wealth and is happy to exercise his reason and ethics in rule. Consequently, those social conditions that harm such personal and political fulfillment are dangerous. The main threat to civic virtue and the just republic is tyranny, or the concentration of political and economic power in the hands of a few people who use government to further their own interests. This is the classical definition of corruption: rulers who govern for their own interest rather than for the common good. Provisions should be made in the just republic to prevent the concentration of power and wealth and corruption.

This "classical republicanism" affects Western political thought through the Renaissance, the Middle Ages (St. Thomas Aquinas), and modern Anglo-American thinking (James Harrington, Thomas Jefferson).

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