Timocracy - Timocracy and Honor

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.