Although I do remember reading something by somebody about Madison along the same lines you wrote.
Here's the url for Aristotle's Politics.http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/politics.html
Tom
Brad De Long wrote:
> >Here's a quote a friend sent to me that is attributed to Dr. Chomsky. I
> >thought it was kind of interesting so I'll pass it along.
> >
> >"... A couple of thousand years later, when our Founding Fathers were writing
> >
> >the Constitution, James Madison noticed the same problem, but whereas
> Aristotle's preferred solution had been to reduce poverty..."
>
> This is totally and profoundly dorky.
>
> Aristotle's preferred regime was *not* a democracy with a limited
> degree of inequality--that's Rousseau. Aristotle's preferred regime
> was an oligarchy in which the narrow elite had the leisure to engage
> in philosophy and rule justly...
>
> Madison believed that improvements in the science of government since
> Aristotle's time allowed a representative democracy to function
> without running into the insoluble problems pointed out by
> Aristotle...
>
> Jeez. Let's have at least *some* actual contact with the doctrines
> advocated by the ancient sources...
>
> Brad DeLong