Aristocracy
Aristocracy
1. In its original and etymological meaning (Greekaristos-best, kratos-power), the government by the best; and by extension, the class of the chief persons in a country. As the standards by which the best can be determined and selected may vary, it is difficult to give a general definition of this term (Cf. C. Lewis, Political Terms, X. 73). But in particular, the implications of aristocracy may be rational, historical, political, pragmatic or analogical.
2. In its rational aspect, as developed especially by Plato and Aristotle, aristocracy is the rule of the best few, in a true, purposeful, law-abiding and constitutional sense. As a political ideal, it is a form of government by morally and intellectually superior men for the common good or in the general interests of the governed, but without participation of the latter. Owing to the difficulty of distinguishing the best men for directing the life of the community, and of setting in motion the process of training and selecting such models of human perfection, aristocracy becomes practically the rule of those who are thought to be the best. [Plato himself proposed his ideal State as “a model fixed in the heavens” for human imitation but not attainment; and in the Laws he offered a combination of monarchy and democracy as the best working form of government.] Though aristocracy is a type of government external to the governed, it is opposed to oligarchy (despotic) and to timocracy (militaristic). With monarchy and democracy, it exhausts the classification of the main forms of rational government.
3. In its historical aspect, aristocracy is a definite class or order known as hereditary nobility, which possesses prescriptive rank and privileges. This group developed from primitive monarchy, by the gradual limitation of the regal authority by those who formed the council of the king. The defense of their prerogatives led them naturally to consider themselves as a separate class fitted by birthright to monopolize government. But at the same time, they assumed a number of corresponding obligations (hence the aphorism noblesse oblige) particularly for maintaining justice, peace and security. [The characteristics of hereditary aristocracy are
descent and birthright,
breeding and education,
power to command,
administrative and military capacities,
readiness to fulfill personal and national obligations,
interest in field sports,
social equality of its members,
aloofness and exclusiveness,
moral security in the possession of real values regardless of criticism, competition or advancement.]
In certain societies as in Great Britain, birth-right is not an exclusive factorexceptional men are admitted by recognition into the aristocratic circle (circulation of the elite), after a tincture of breeding satisfying its external standards. The decline of hereditary nobility was due to economic rather than to social or political changes. Now aristocracy can claim only a social influence.
4. In its political aspect, aristocracy is a form of government in which the sovereign power resides actually in a council composed of select persons (usually patricians), without a monarch, and exclusive of the common people (e.g. the Italian republics). It rules by decisions of the group arrived at by discussion; and tends to be absolute and oppressive.
5. In its pragmatic aspect, aristocracy is synonymous with the elite or the ruling class, and denotes those who hold active power in a totalitarian State. Their selection is by reference to some narrow and pragmatic principles of effective service to the State, of hierarchized leadership, or of training in accordance with the doctrines of the State.
6. In its analogical aspect, the term aristocracy if applied to the leading persons in a profession (intellectual or manual), who assume an attitude of exclusiveness or superiority on the strength of simply professional, religious or social motives, — T.G.