Other Definitions
aristocracy (dict)
|
AristocracyAristocracy is a system of government originally defined by the Ancient Greeks. The term has a strict, albeit it controversial, meaning in political science. The related terms nobility and upper class have separate meanings, but the differences between the three are often not fully understood. See the separate articles about those two terms for further details of usage. The Ancient Greek term Aristocracy meant a system of government with "rule by the best." That is the first definition given in most dictionaries. It is often confused with plutocracy ("rule by the wealthy"), oligarchy ("rule by the few"), and monarchy ("rule by a single individual"). The term is often used to refer to the historic system of rule by the nobility, which would more accurately refer to plutocracy. While the pure Aristotelian idea is intellectually appealing to many, selecting who is "best" is problematic. Certainly, those in power usually wish to stay in power and "the best" do not necessarily beget "the best". Aristocracy as a term defining a social group is more or less synonymous with nobility. In the United Kingdom and other European countries in which a monarchy is still recognized, an aristocrat is the descendant of one of approximately 7,000 ancient landowning families, usually still in possession of considerable wealth, though not necessarily so. The aristocracy traditionally defines itself as Society, as in 'a Society wedding'. In the feudal era, only people within its orbit qualified as rights-possessing subjects of a nation (ie, the nobility was the society), with all inferior persons functioning simply as property or vassals. The aristocracy is all that remains of the feudal court system of government in Europe. Aristocrat as a pejorative term is intended to indicate that a person has achieved status by accident of birth, not merit - ie, a person whose unearned status is an affront to the bourgeois or liberal norms of meritocracy. See also External links
|
 |