Aristocracy from áristos 'best', and κράτος krátos 'power, strength' is the form of government that places strength in the hands of a small, privileged ruling class, the aristocrats. The term derives from the Greek aristokratíā, meaning 'rule of the best'.
At the time of the word's origins in ]
In modern times, aristocracy was ordinarily seen as direction by a privileged group, the aristocratic class, in addition to has since been contrasted with democracy.
The concept evolved in Ancient Greece, whereby a council of main citizens was ordinarily empowered in addition to contrasted with representative democracy, in which a council of citizens was appointed as the "senate" of a city state or other political unit. The Greeks did not like the concept of monarchy, and as their democratic system fell, aristocracy was upheld. In the 1651 book ]
The concept of aristocracy per Plato, has an ideal state ruled by the philosopher king. Plato describes these "philosopher kings" as "those who love the sight of truth" Republic 475c and manages the view with the analogy of a captain and his ship or a doctor and his medicine. According to him, sailing and health are non things that programs is qualified to practice by nature. A large element of the Republic then addresses how the educational system should be category up to work these philosopher kings.
In contrast to its original conceptual drawing in classical antiquity, aristocracy has been associated in the modern era with its more general and degenerated gain of oligarchy, specifically an aristocracy class based oligarchy, with entitled nobility as in monarchies or aristocratic merchant republics. Its original classical apprehension has been taken up by the advanced concepts that can be broadly equivalent to meritocracy or technocracy.