If primitive society is understood in the light of the state, the state is understood in the light of its most perfect form, when the good after which all societies are seeking is realised in its perfection.

Hence for Aristotle as for Plato, the natural state or the state as such is the ideal state, and the ideal state is the starting-point of political inquiry.
In accordance with the same line of thought, imperfect states, although called perversions, are regarded by Aristotle as the result rather of misconception and ignorance than of perverse will.

They all represent, he says, some kind of justice.

Oligarchs and democrats go wrong in their conception of the good.

They have come short of the perfect state through misunderstanding of the end or through ignorance of the proper means to the end.