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Editor's Introduction To:
The Aristocrat

Chan Davis

It is well known that I uphold a radically aristrocratic interpretation of history. Radically, because I have never said that human society ought to be aristocratic, but a great deal more than that. What I have said, and still believe with ever-increasing conviction, is that human society is always, whether it will or no, aristocratic by its very essence, to the extreme that it is a society in the measure that it is aristrocratic, and ceases to be such when it ceases to be aristocratic. Of course I am speaking now of society and not the State.

Jose Ortega y Gasset,
The Revolt of the Masses

 

Aristocracy literally means "rule of the best." Plato and Aristotle classed states as "aristocratic" if the most powerful offices were elective and unpaid. There was a considerable "aristocratic" element in the governments of the original founding states of the U.S.; it is only in very recent times that all property, educational, and literacy requirements were removed from electoral qualification.

A poll tax is "aristocratic" in that it imposes a duty and burden on those who wish to vote. Poll taxes were used as a means of excluding blacks from voting in the old south, and have thus acquired a terrible reputation; but anything can be abused. I have often wondered: just what is so horrified about charging, say, fifty dollars a year for the privilege of voting? And why shouldn't literacy, and residence in the community be required? For that matter, is it so evil that only taxpayers be allowed to vote in property tax elections?

John Stuart Mill certainly thought that no recipient of unearned public funds should be allowed the franchise. Republics, we are told, last until the voters realize they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury; after which the many despoil the few; the indolent plunder the industrious; and the state begins to dissolve.

Indeed: that kind of dissolution very often generates an emperor. Those who come after generally long for the older days of aristocracy and republic. It is easy enough to idealize aristocracy. After all: don't we want the best to rule? And certainly the achievements of aristocratic states have been great indeed.

The Roman Republic was nakedly an aristocracy long after all offices were thrown open to patrician and plebian alike. Most public offices were not paid; and to hold the highest office, one had to enter the "cursus honorum," a series of positions which had the effect of allowing only the experienced in the highest positions of the state—but allowed only those who had private means to get that experience.

C. Northcote Parkinson tells us:

"Viewed as a structure or mechanism, the Roman constitution seems complex, confused, and unworkable. It had, to all appearances, too many legislatures, too many independent officials, too many elections, and too many rules. No distinction was ever made between legislative, executive, and judicial functions, nor even between military and civil. It worked, nevertheless, to some purpose. Rome was governed, in effect, by a class of men of similar birth, similar training, similar experience, and (one might add) similar limitations. They all understood each other very well and probably reached agreement privately before Senate even met. The magistrates could have nullified the powers of Senate. But why should they? They were magistrates only for a time, and thereafter Senators for life. The Senators might have obstructed the work of those in office. But why should they? They had all been in office themselves. Senators might have become dangerously divorced from the people at large. But it was not altogether closed to talent, not entirely insensitive to upper middle class opinion. The people, finally, might have found some means to demand a share in government. But the Roman ruling class was a true aristocracy. Its members were respected for their courage and ability, not merely envied for their wealth. Of the aristocrats, every one had served in the field without disgrace, every one had legal and administrative training, every one had served as executive and judge. They affected, moreover, a Spartan simplicity in dress and manner, resting their influence merely on birth, reputation, and known achievement. They were able, between them, to conquer the known world."

(The Evolution of Political Thought, Viking Press, 1964).

The Roman model has been consciously copied: in Britain during the period of the Napoleonic wars; and to a lesser extent in the infant United States.

That is one remembered aristocracy. We have, buried within western history, another: the memory of Arthur and the Round Table; Charlemagne and his paladins; the valiant fight of civilization against a long night of barbarism and decay.

Rank Hath Its Privileges; but how great should those privileges be? What price aristocracy?

I first read this story in high school. It disturbed me a lot, for it presents the clash of two valid ideas. I have remembered this story for thirty years; certainly reason enough to include it here.

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