In antiquity, the source of all wealth was the land. Those who owned land (or controlled it, nobody can legitimately own land, any more than they can own the sea, or the atmosphere) controlled the source of all wealth. And those who control land were the aristocracy. After a while, only the aristocracy was permitted to own land. Its a chicken and egg situation. Owning land was the prerequisite for being an aristocrat, and once you owned land, and either owned or controlled those who provided the physical labor that made it productive, you could see to it that the ownership could be inherited by your children and that inheritance guaranteed by law and custom. This kept wealth and power in the family.

As civilization arose and became more complex, specialization of labor further elaborated the old peasant/lord duality. The society required priests, craftsmen, scribes, merchants, warriors, moneylenders, a whole collection of intermediate individuals merely to administer the increasingly complicated cities and states which arose as a consequence of modernity. Eventually, a middle class arose, at first just a few clever and ambitious individuals, and eventually a social stratum of powerful commoners, people who achieved wealth and influence through commerce, finance, manufacturing, civic administration, even agriculture itself.

This led inevitably to conflict between the bourgeoisie and the aristocracy, and in some places, open warfare. Great revolutions in Britain, America and France marked the ascendancy of the town-folk over the landed aristocracy in the 17th and 18th century. Things didn’t change overnight, or completely, but the handwriting was on the wall. The hereditary aristocracy was on the decline, the middle class (also practically, although not legally, hereditary) was replacing it. In England the monarchy was overthrown and the power of parliament, (and eventually a military strongman, Cromwell) took over. The monarchy was soon restored, but in a more advisory and ceremonial role. In France, much the same happened, with Bonaparte taking the Cromwell role. After the fall of Napoleon, France briefly experimented with monarchy, but it more or less followed the British model.

America was more fortunate, military dictatorship never really developed here. America was more rural, its wealth based more on plantation agriculture and slavery, and its population more experienced with self-government because of its geographical isolation from Europe. The American colonies had their own landed aristocracy, one based on great plantations and slave labor in the South, and in the the North on manufacturing, shipbuilding, naval stores and commerce. But America did not have a hereditary aristocracy supported by law and church. It had property, the Gentlemen of Property had the power, they were the ones who voted and served in colonial legislatures, and later in the new Republic. Aristocracy was determined and defined by land ownership, and to a lesser extent, by commercial power. And this aristocracy was in no mood to pay the taxes or fight the wars of another one a month’s voyage by sail away.

The circle was complete. The rising aristocracy of commoners defeated the declining nobility and rising commercial aristocracy of the mother country, possibly because the English were in a state of almost constant warfare with their own commercial bourgeois rivals in France and Holland. Why America never went through the intermediate stage of a dictatorial strongman is anyone’s guess. It may have been solely because of the personal integrity of George Washington; or perhaps its because the nation was so rich, and so vast, and so secure from foreign threats that there was a safety valve to absorb the natural pressures of economic stratification and monopolization of resources. If you were desperate in America, you didn’t revolt. You moved West.

But what about today? The times have continued to change. The old landed aristocracy, the nobility, has practically vanished. And the new commercial aristocracy is now diluted and dispersed. We no longer have fabulously rich individuals owning a preponderance of wealth. Ownership is now shared, through stocks and investments, and those who run the great commercial houses are now hired employees, professional managers who answer to elected boards interested in only one thing, maximizing the short-term growth of profits. Even the much-maligned “one-percent” who control half the wealth of the nation are so few in number it is getting increasingly difficult to think of them as a separate class, acting monolithicaly and cooperatively to further their own interests at the expense of everyone elses.

I see the birth of a new class. One not based on ownership and property, but on knowledge and credentials. These are the technicians and specialists the propertied aristocracy needs to administer their enterprises; the scientists, engineers, managers, bureaucrats, both public and private. These people may own little in the way of property, but they have already monopolized many of the key management functions of the society through their possession of diplomas and other documents of professional certification. Already you can see conflict and competition between these new commoners and the existing commercial aristocracy. Free enterprise vs the bureaucratic elite.

Use this insight to re-read some of the political arguments we have here on the Zone, and you may just see them in a different light altogether.