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1. Give the idea of the theory of ‘recurrent cycles’.
Greek political science studied constitutions and generalized the relation between human nature and political associations. Perhaps its most powerful instrument was the theory of recurrent cycles. Monarchies tend to degenerate into tyranny, tyrannies are overthrown by aristocracies, which degenerate into oligarchies exploiting the population, which are overthrown by democracies, which in turn degenerate into the intolerable instability of mob rule, whereupon some powerful leader establishes himself as a monarch and the cycle begins all over again. This version of political science we find influentially expounded by a later Greek called Polybius whose main concern was to explain the character of Roman politics to his fellow Greeks; other versions of a political cycle are to be found in Plato and Aristotle." Kenneth Minogue, Politics: A Very Short
2. Give different typologies of ‘class’.
Human nature does not automatically lead to class behaviour with necessary hierarchy. Class - a term used to indicate an economic, social, or political group. Plato’s Republic divides society into three natural classes conforming to individuals’ natural dispositions: (1) rulers; (2) soldiers; and (3) workers. The rulers, for Plato, are distinguished by the virtue of wisdom (Philosopher-Kings); the soldiers have the virtue of courage; and the workers or business people have the virtue of moderation. St. Thomas Aquinas’s conception of classes reflects the social structure of the European Middle Ages: Monarchy (royalty), Aristocracy, Peasants, and churchmen or priests. According to Aquinas each class is important to the functioning of the whole society, but each is different and requires distinct sets of laws to govern it. Materialist perspective of the origins of Class Economic system provides class division, the relations of production provide the appropriate distribution of power - Who gets what, when and how?
In Classical antiquity (ancient Greece and Rome) a slightly more-advanced agricultural economy divides society into master and slave classes. In the Middle Ages (A.D.500–1500), Marxism says that the economic classes are landlords and peasants. During industrial capitalism, classes are bourgeoisie (capitalists) and proletariat (workers). Political conditions for emergence of class relations The new methods required some people to be freed from the burden of working in the fields to coordinate the activities of the group, and to ensure that some of the surplus was not immediately consumed but set aside for the future in storehouses. But natural catastrophes, exhaustion of the land and wars could create conditions of acute (difficult and undesirable effect) crisis, making it difficult to organise the sustainable distribution and consumption, and survival of the society itself. So, in cases of famine or draught, people had to make political decisions concerning the distribution and exercise of power:
- either to raid other agricultural societies and tribes for means of subsistence
- or to develop new more intensive and effective forms of agriculture.
Survival of the society was the main concern and priority. And besides depending on a military force, survival, also critically depended on adopting these new techniques of production and agriculture. Ruling classes arose out of the organisation of such activities and, with them, towns, states and what we usually call civilisation – when the right of exercise and distribution of power rested with Rulers. – Ruling elite acquires authority – legitimate power. For the first time social development encouraged the development of the motive to exploit and oppress others. Humanity increased its degree of control over nature, but at the price of most people becoming subject to control and exploitation by privileged minority groups. Ruling elite organised the labour of the exploited class in the interests of the exploiting class, acting as both:
- units of production
- and social control.
This class exploitation was usually legitimised by the exclusiveness of provision of ‘Common Good’ by the ruling elites, and it was certainly easier to gain validation when religious and/or mythological understanding of the nature was a single and dominant one. In Mesopotamia, for example, ‘Early kings boast of their economic activities, of cutting canals, of building temples, of importing timber from Syria, and copper and granite from Oman. They are sometimes depicted on monuments in the garb of brick layers or masons and of architects receiving the plan of the temple from the gods’.
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