Text 15: autocracy

Governments can be classified in many ways. The most time-honored system comes from the ideas of the ancient Greek philosopher, Aristotle*. It is based on a key question: Who governs the state? Under this system of classification, all governments belong to one of the three major groups: autocracy — rule by one person; oligarchy — rule by a few persons; or democracy — rule by many persons.

Any system of government in which the power and authority to rule are in the hands of a single individual is an autocracy. This is the oldest and one of the most common forms of government. Historically, most autocrats have maintained their positions of authority by inheritance or the ruthless use of military or police power. Several forms of autocracy exist. One is absolute or totalitarian dictatorship. In a totalitarian dictatorship, the ideas of a single leader or group of leaders are glorified. The government seeks to control all aspects of social and economic life. In such dictatorships, government is not responsible to the people, and the people lack the power to limit their rulers.

Monarchy is another form of autocratic government. In a monarchy a king or a queen or an emperor exercises the supreme powers of government. Monarchs usually inherit their position. Absolute monarchs have complete and unlimited power to rule their people. Absolute monarchs are rare today, but from the 1400s to the 1700s, kings or queens with absolute powers ruled most of Western Europe. These monarchs based their power on the idea of divine right. This view held that God granted those of royal birth the right to rule their people. Any challenge to or revolt against a monarch was regarded as a sin as well as treason. During the 17th and 18th centuries in Europe, the belief that the people were sovereign replaced this idea. The ruler's power came not from God but from the people.

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* Aristotle – Аристотель

Text 16: the american civil service

Many people think of a federal bureaucrat as a pencil pusher shuffling papers in Washington, D.C. This image, however, is not accurate. First of all, only 11 percent of all federal government employees work in Washington, D.C. Most of them work in regional and local offices scattered across the United States and the world. Second, FBI agents, forest rangers, and air-traffic controllers are as much part of the federal bureaucracy as are secretaries and file clerks. Their activities have little to do with bureaucratic paperwork.

Federal government employees play a vital role in assuring the smooth functioning of the United States government. Who are the people who work for the many departments and agencies that make up the federal bureaucracy? The typical man or woman in the federal service is about 43 years old and has worked for the government for a total of about 15 years. Federal workers are better educated than workers in the general population. More than a half of them have some college training, while a quarter have done graduate work at universities.

Federal workers hold a great variety of jobs. Besides administrative workers, the government also employs doctors, veterinarians, lawyers, cartographers, scientists, engineers, accountants, and many other professionals.

The way the civil servants get their offices is also important. During the first years of democracy, George Washington declared that he appointed government officials according to "fitness of character." Another president, Andrew Jackson argued that long service in the same jobs by any group of workers would only promote tyranny.