This chapter covers, primarily the rise of Greece, from Homer to high classical Greece.
1. Perhaps the most suitable way of understanding the ruling class is to look at the various ways in which human societies "have constituted themselves and have functioned."
The anatomical differences... that we find in such societies and the types into which the differences can be grouped correspond to the differing formations and the differing manners of functioning of their ruling classes.
This kind of analysis was started by Spencer and his school, that divided political organisms into two types, the militant (i.e, military) and the industrial. Mosca finds this approach "sterile."
He proposes instead an evolutionary approach, starting with the "small horde of savages" whose political structure will depend on the "strongest, most intelligent and shrewdest male" plus the experience of some old man or woman held in high esteem. "But it seems impossible that distinctions of class could exist in primitive social organisms of this type."
When "the subsistence of the horde is based on pastoral pursuits" or "rudimentary agriculture" it may consist of "various groups of huts, or even a town or group of villages." Specialization of function begins, and "a certain order of social ranking."
[I]t will always have a chief who is supreme judge, military leader and priest... But in all questions of importance this chief must consult a council of elders, and he makes no decisions without their consent.
This is the form described in Homer; it is how the German tribes appeared to Tacitus; and the form of the Arabo-Berber tribes of North Africa. In these tribes there is a "rudimentary differentiation of classes... based on inheritance of economic and political position." "Often two families of influence are rivals for first place," inaugurating party politics.
2. But a moment came "when one tribe was able to absorb or subject enough neighboring tribes to develop into a nation." It created a civilization and develops a political organization to coordinate individual efforts towards common ends in war and peace. And it had an army, built buildings and maybe developed irrigation systems. And these first states would have been preceded by development in agriculture, arts, rudimentary capital and writing.
The first empire, for Mosca, is that of Sargon, king of Akkad in Chaldea in about 3000 BC followed in due course by the Babylonian empire. Already, of course, Menes, the founder of the first Egyptian dynasty had welded the little states along the Nile into a single empire.
In these states a sovereign stood at the apex, assisted by a large body of officials, usually from the race that had founded the empire. Subject peoples often kept their local leaders; sometimes they were wholly absorbed by the conquerors. The ruling class was made up of generals and priests, and the priests were the repository of all learning, and alone knew the law and administered it. Sometimes the priests replaced the "secular powers and exercised royal authority." Knowledge of writing opened the doors to high offices, and the social hierarchy was stable, because status was passed down from father to son. The upper class lived in luxury and the lowly were made to work hard.
In the Middle Ages the Mohammedan empire modeled itself on Byzantium, but suffered from the rigidity of the Koran. States within the empire often broke away because of the practice of "allowing governors of separate provinces to conscript troops, and the collect directly the taxes that paid for them."
China brought its governance to "a level of perfection that it attained nowhere else.
This was due to the fact that Chinese civilization was based on a nonreligious, positive morality, the the great unity of culture that the Chinese peoples achieved over many centuries of common history, and finally, to the democratic system of recruiting officials, who were appointed and promoted by competitive examination.
But China's system was not strong enough to resist modern European states. Conversely, Japan rapidly overhauled its political, administrative, and military organization when it came in contact with European civilization.
The model of the ancient empires of the Near East seem awkward and antiquated to moderns. But they were the first to fuse scattered tribes for the first time, and organized real ruling classes which had a chance to conceive and develop the idea that there were great interests that could be common to millions of human beings. They developed the Code of Hammurabi and the Egyptian Book of the Dead.
The texts formulated for the first time a number of moral precepts and rules of brotherly consideration that later became universal in the great universal religions -- for example: "Feed the hungry," "Give the thirsty to drink"... In those empires, finally, the first trials were made in the difficult art of public administration.
That art is what makes it possible for a great society to create the environment to allow each individual to live spontaneously for his own advantage and yet also useful for the group as a whole.
3. If Europe's system is different from the old Near Eastern empires, the credit goes to Greece and Rome. It was the classical thinkers who wrote about the political institutions they experienced that inspired the Europeans and enabled them to colonize the world.
Greece borrowed many elements from the nearest Asiatic empires and Egypt, and later from the Phoenicians. In Homeric times, the organization was semi-tribal.
The Homeric king['s]... authority was primarily moral and had a religious aspect. He governed with the aid of a council of elders and, in weightier crises, summoned his warriors, or the freemen who belong to the tribe, to an assembly.
Yet within three hundred years, this system "transformed into the... Greek city of the classical era." Helping its pioneering role was the mountainous topography, which kept Greek cities apart. But the cities with the biggest arable hinterland became the largest cities: Athens, Syracuse, and Sparta.
Within a century of Homer's time kingship lost ground, so that Hesiod speak less respectfully of kings than Homer. The cities came to be governed by the oldest and most influential families that owned the best lands. So the council of elders became the "senate." Progress in agriculture and commerce raised up resident aliens who longed to become citizens, and they were supported by the lesser old families that had an interest in diluting the influence of the illustrious families.
There was also a change in armaments. War chariots, affordable only by the rich, were replaced by cavalry and the hoplites, heavily armed infantry, whose arms would be afforded by a man of moderate income. Periods of civil conflict ensued, broken at times by dictators, or "tyrants." The conflicts were usually ended by compromises, that eventually resulted in the Greek city-state constitution of the classical age.
These compromises usually involved "an admission to citizenship of some descendants of old resident aliens or emancipated slaves." However, this admission was a one-time-only affair. Also, the compromise recognized that sovereign power rested with the assembly of all the citizens, and this assembly slowly absorbed the prerogatives of the aristocratic families. The old council of elders became a senate, often appointed by the assembly.
Although not practicing modern separation of power, classical Greece put legislative power
almost exclusively in an assembly of citizens, while what we would call executive and judiciary functions were delegated to bodies, or individuals, that were almost always elected by all the citizens, or chosen by lot from among all citizens or specified classes of citizens.
Incumbents in office typically served a year or less, and very often more than one was appointed, so that the power of each incumbent was controlled and limited by another. There was almost no equivalent of "salaried officeholders."
The assembly almost always retained the right to declare war, to make peace and to apply the heavier penalties -- death or exile.
There was no standing army. Instead all male citizens -- ephebi -- at eighteen "served a year in military training and then two more years as an armed guard on the coast" or elsewhere. There was no permanent corps of officers, but the people chose five honorable citizens to supervise military training and the commissary.
4. All classical Greek writers recognized three forms of government: monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy. But the states fluctuated between aristocracy and democracy, the tendencies in perpetual conflict.
[One] may say that the Greek state had an aristocratic system whenever wealth succeeded in prevailing over number among the citizens and a democratic system whenever number prevailed over wealth.
For Greeks, the aristocracy "meant simply that offices were entrusted... to mean who stood out... through wealth or exceptional merit."
Typically, under aristocracy public offices paid no salaries, and typically meetings were attended by the rich and their clients. Under democracy, "public offices were remunerative, and attendance at the assembly entitled one to a counter, which could be cashed."
Under aristocratic regimes, "public offices were almost always elective." That's because the rich could turn out their clients and outhustle the competition. Under democratic regimes, "public offices were generally distributed by lot among the citizens."
Abuses under aristocratic government included limiting office-holders to members of a closed clique, and using government power for "protecting and increasing the private fortunes of the governing group and of their associates and clients" and for making sure that judgements in civil and criminal cases were handled by affiliates of the clique.
Abuses under democratic government typically involved having too many people getting remuneration from the state, which would lead to onerous taxation of the rich. Sometimes they would use contributions from allies to pay their salaries; sometimes a demagogue would kill off the rich or banish them, and divide the spoils among their pals.
In its heyday, the Greek state relied on economic prosperity and a "high grade of intelligence and moral integrity" from its citizens. There was no bureaucracy and no permanent police, so its people had to be exceptional to "sacrifice their individual interests to the public interest." And there needed to be a balance between citizens and slaves: too few citizens and the slaves might rebel; too many citizens and a majority of them became paupers.
Governed by an assembly of citizens, Greek government was designed to be small, and Greeks could not conceive of a larger state. At its largest, Athens probably had no more than 45,000 citizens. Instead of forming a large state, the larger cities dominated over the smaller ones.
Ancient Greece developed the extraordinary idea that a "people was regarded as politically free which was subject to laws that the majority of its citizens had approved, and to magistrates to whom the majority itself had delegated fixed powers for fixed periods." Other ancient states had an idea of liberty, but it meant that "one people should not be subject to another of a different race, religion, and civilization."
Hellenic civilization was the first to assert, as against the divine right of kings, the human right of peoples to govern themselves... The authority that the Greek state wielded over its citizens was great... But authority always had to be exercised in accord with norms which a majority had accepted.
In the eighteenth century these concepts were applied to European societies, and through intellectual contacts with the East, "they are reverberating in Japan and China" and others.
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