Timocracy and Honor
Plato produced the earliest surviving text using the term in the rule-by-honor sense. In The Republic, he describes four forms of unjust state, with timocracy as the second-most preferable of the four and closest to the ideal society. The city-state of Sparta provided Plato with a real-world model for this form of government. Modern observers might describe Sparta as a totalitarian or one-party state, although the details we know of its society come almost exclusively from Sparta's enemies. The idea of militarism often attaches to the honor-oriented timocracy.
This form of timocracy is very similar to meritocracy, in the sense that individuals of outstanding character or faculty are placed in the seat of power.
Read more about this topic: Timocracy
Famous quotes containing the word honor:
“... until both employers’ and workers’ groups assume responsibility for chastising their own recalcitrant children, they can vainly bay the moon about “ignorant” and “unfair” public criticism. Moreover, their failure to impose voluntarily upon their own groups codes of decency and honor will result in more and more necessity for government control.”
—Mary Barnett Gilson (1877–?)