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Polybius and Animal Farm

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The theory of Polybius, which stated that descendants of the aristocrats had fallen into indulgence due to their greed of wealth and power and was what degenerated the society into oligarchy, shared some resemblance with the corruption and degeneration of Napoleon’s regime portrayed in Animal Farm. The government’s degeneration in Animal Farm and the relationship between society and humans reflected in Polybius’ theory of political cycle were similar. Polybius asserted that aristocracy turned into oligarchy when leaders fall into decadence and greed. The pigs shown in Animal Farm were degenerated and governed for the benefit of themselves rather than for the others. Therefore, degeneration of the society was due to the corruption of the aristocrats. The pigs that came up as leaders in Animal Farm paralleled the corruption and degenerations of aristocracy and oligarchy accounted by Polybius.  Polybius saw the cause of degeneration of aristocracy and oligarchy was because rulers ceased their responsibilities to rule the community with logic and reason. Such degeneration led aristocracies to turn into oligarchies. This only happened when the rulers stopped ruling for the benefit of the society and indulged convivial excess, “They abandon their responsibilities some to greed of gain and unscrupulous money making, others to indulgence in wine and the convivial excess which accompanies it” (Polybius, Hist. 6.8). Polybius believed that when rulers became corrupted, they took the idea of satisfying their own greed with entertainment, pleasure, and luxuries and gave up their responsibilities of ruling reasonably and logically. These types of rulers gained wealth immorally and lacked ethical reasoning, which Polybius stated were signs of corruption and degeneration of an aristocracy into oligarchy. Polybius strongly stated that the aristocracy was degenerated and corrupted into oligarchy when the descendants of the leaders put themselves on the higher position, above the law, in order to fulfill their own satisfactions. He said that rulers who had fallen out of being rational and into corruption with appetite of authority and hereditary succession, which was referred as superabundance, were no longer have equality with the citizens of the society; nor part of the community of law, “They should meet with no denial in the pursuit of their amours, however lawlessness” (Polybius, Hist. 6.7). Oligarchs were never denied in their desire to stand above the law for the benefit of themselves rather than including themselves under the law. As a result, the government with absence of law resort

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