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A timocracy (''timē'', "price, worth" and -κρατία ''-kratia'', "rule") is a state where only property owners may participate in government. The more extreme forms of timocracy, where power derives entirely from wealth with no regard for social or civic responsibility, may shift in their form and become a plutocracy where the wealthy and powerful use their power to entrench their wealth. ==Timocracy and property== Solon introduced the ideas of ''timokratia'' as a graded oligarchy in his Solonian Constitution for Athens in the early 6th century BCE. His was the first known deliberately implemented form of timocracy, allocating political rights and economic responsibility depending on membership of one of four tiers of the population. Solon defined these tiers by measuring how many bushels of produce each man could produce in a year, namely: * Pentacosiomedimni – "Men of the 500 bushel", those who produced 500 bushels of produce per year, could serve as generals in the army * Hippeis – Knights, those who could equip themselves and one cavalry horse for war, valued at 300 bushels per year * Zeugitae – Tillers, owners of at least one pair of beasts of burden, valued at 200 bushels per year, could serve as Hoplites * Thetes – Manual laborers N. G. L. Hammond supposes that Solon instituted a graduated tax upon the upper classes, levied in a ratio of 6:3:1, with the lowest class of thetes paying nothing in taxes but remaining ineligible for elected office. Aristotle later wrote in his ''Nicomachean Ethics'' ((Book 8, Chapter 10 )) about three "true political forms" for a state, each of which could appear in corrupt form, becoming one of three negative forms. Aristotle describes timocracy in the sense of rule by property-owners: it comprised one of his true political forms. Aristotelian timocracy approximated to the constitution of Athens, although Athens exemplified the corrupted version of this form, described as democracy. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Timocracy」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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