The rule by a few by reason of their wealth, nobility, or virtue.
For Plato (c. 427 - 347 BC) the perfect state was the aristocratic state. This ideal was given its best expression in the Republic: "Unless philosophers become kings, or those now called kings become philosophers, there will be no end of evils for mankind." Plato describes a state in which social justice would be fully realized as embracing three classes of men: the king-philosophers, or the ruling class, who constitute the legislative and executive power; the soldiers or guardians of the state; and the workers. The rulers must be intensely trained to become true philosopher-kings and must be subjected to a rigid process of selection that will bring the best philosophic minds to the top. Rulers and soldiers must be supported by the state; they cannot hold private property or enjoy normal family life because these are incompatible with full devotion to their duties. This system is proposed as a "model fixed in the heavens for human imitations, but not attainment." NCE (798-9).
Aristotle (384 - 322 BC) attempted to describe the existent state. To discover an ideal state, he observed in the Politics, it is necessary to begin by examining both the best states of history and the best that the theorists have imagined. The best practical policy is aristocracy, the rule of the informed and capable few; this is nowhere described realistically, however. St. Thomas Aquinas (c. 1225 - 1274 AD) also insisted that the state should be governed by the ablest. Right order among men demands naturally that the more intelligent should rule. Later, St. Thomas More (1478 - 1535) revived Plato's conception in his Utopia, describing an imaginary communist state so governed as to secure universal happiness. The City of the Sun of Tommaso Campanella (1568 - 1639) substituted wise priests to rule instead of philosophers. In the New Atlantis, Francis Bacon (1561 - 1626) placed scientists at the head of the state (NCE 798-9).
In everyday speech, the word "capital" is generally used to describe an asset owned by an individual as wealth. Capital might then denote a sum of money to be invested in order to secure a rate of return, or it might denote the investment itself: a financial instrument, or stocks and shares representing titles to means of production, or the physical means of production themselves. And depending on the nature of the capital, the rate of return to which the owner has a legal right is either an interest payment or a claim on profits. Bourgeois economics broadens the usage of the term still further, by letting it also denote any asset of whatever kind which can be used as a source of income, even if only potentially; thus a house could be part of an individual's capital, as could also specialized training enabling a higher income to be earned (human capital). In general, then, a capital is an asset which can generate an income stream for its owner. Two corollaries of this understanding are, first, that it applies to every sort of society, in the past, in the present and in the future, and is specific to none; and second, that it posits the possibility that inanimate objects are productive in the sense of generating an income stream. The Marxist concept of capital is based on a denial of these two corollaries. Capital is something which in its generality is quite specific to capitalism; while capital predates capitalism, in capitalist society the production of capital predominates, and dominates every other sort of production. Capital cannot be understood apart from capitalist relations of production; indeed, capital is not a thing at all, but a social relation which appears in the form of a thing. To be sure, capital is about money-making, but the assets which "make" money embody a particular relation between those who have money and those who do not, such that not only is money "made," but also the private property relations which engender such a process are themselves continually reproduced (DMT 60).
Writers from the eleventh through the fifteenth century commonly spoke of chivalry, but their meaning was seldom consistent or precise. For this reason an exact yet comprehensive definition of chivalry remains elusive. It is important to recognize subtle shifts of meaning attached to chivalry in medieval and modern usage. The concept in the fifteenth century differed from that of the thirteenth, just as the thirteenth-century meaning differed from that of the eleventh. Regional usage also varied. In origin chivalry is tied to the early history of the mounted warrior or knight (French: chevalier; Latin: miles), particularly in France in the later decades of the tenth century, when knights had become the dominant military and political figures of the countryside. The raw exercise of power by knights was possible because only they possessed the requisite military training, sufficient wealth, and the proper horse to conduct a specialized form of warfare, mounted shock combat. Social differentiation initially based on the factors of skill, means, and authority rapidly led to the development of a knightly class self-conscious of its place in the larger society, boastful of its martial behavior and values, and contemptuous of the unarmed segments of society, both peasant and clerical (DMA 301).
Gender is the study of sexual difference. As a grammatical category, gender is a system of classifying nouns as masculine, feminine, or neuter (without regard to the relation of the noun to biological sex). In contemporary criticism, gender refers to a range of issues seeking to differentiate the sexes in more ways than the apparently objective distinctions of the biological male and female. Elaine Showalter writes that gender refers to three different issues: 1) a grammatical category in all language use in which the norm is masculine (e.g.poet) and the feminine must be marked by some variant (e.g. poetess); 2) "the social, cultural, and psychological meaning imposed upon biological sexual identity"(3) talk about both women and men, "marking a shift from the woman-centered investigations" of feminist criticism of the 1970's. (Showalter, ed. Speaking of Gender. New York, 1989. (1-3).
A class, group, or kind of individuals with common attributes (American Heritage Dictionary 554).
Ideology is generally defined as "the set of ideas which arise from a given set of material interests, or, more broadly, from a definite class or group." It is used more specifically to describe "any social policy which is in part or in whole derived from social theory in a conscious way, and especially refers to socialist thought in this sense. In Marxist criticism, ideology refers to false consciousness, "abstract and false thought" used by the ruling class to propagated ideas about itself as having the interests of all classes at heart. Ideology in this sense is "upside-down reality." See Raymond Williams, Keywords New York, Oxford UP, 1976. (153-55).
Among the two earliest examples of the use of labor in English are "begin a laboure . . . and make a toure" and "quit o labur, and o soru" (both c. 1300). These two senses, of work and of pain or trouble, were already closely associated in labor, (Old French), and laborem, (Latin); the root word is uncertain but may be related to slipping or staggering under a burden. As a verb labor had a common sense of ploughing or working the land, but it was also extended to other kinds of manual work and to any kind of difficult effort. A laborer was primarily a manual worker: "a wreched laborer that lyveth by hys hond" (c. 1325). The sense of labor as pain was applied to childbirth from the sixteenth century. The general sense of hard work and difficulty was well summed up in Milton's Paradise Lost:
"So he with difficulty and labour hard
Mov'd on, with difficulty and labour hee."
In the Authorized Version of the Bible, both senses were active:
"For thou shalt eat the labour of thine
hands: happy shalt thou be . . ." (Psalm 128:2)
"The days of our years are threescore and ten;
and if by reason of strength they be
fourscore years, yet is their strength labour
and sorrow." (Psalm 90:10)
From the seventeenth century, except in the special use for childbirth, labor gradually lost its habitual association with pain, though the general and applied senses of difficulty were still strong. The sense of labor as a general social activity came through more clearly, and with a more distinct sense of abstraction. But the most important change was the introduction of labor as a term in political economy: at first in an existing general sense, "the annual labour of every nation" (Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations, Introduction) but then as a measurable and calculable component: "Labour . . . is the real measure of the exchangeable value of all commodities" (ibid, I, i). Where labor, in its most general use, had meant all productive work, it now came to mean that element of production which in combination with capital and materials produced commodities. It is interesting to watch the effects of these modern developments on the old general senses of labor. The special use in childbirth has continued, but otherwise the word is not often used outside its specific modern contexts. It survives in rather self-conscious phrases and whenever used is at once understood. Laborer, however, is still current, as a particular kind of worker, while work, with all its difficulties, has taken over almost all other general senses (Keywords 176-9).
A term used in some religious orders to designate a religious individual of the permanently nonclerical class in a community that has both clerical and nonclerical members. This differentiation arose early in Western monasticism, when a distinction was made between the oblati, or those who had been placed in the monastery by their parents; and the conversi, or those who entered later in life. Both groups enjoyed equality as monks, but as the abbeys became centers of learning the term conversus was restricted to an illiterate or uneducated monk who lacked the training of the ~oblati~. In the Cistercian reform, a clear, legal distinction was made between conversi, or lay brothers, and choir religious. The former were in a class inferior to that of the choir religious and were engaged primarily in the manual occupations of the abbey, in order to free the choir brethren for the liturgical duties. This class distinction was adopted by subsequent religious insitutes (NCE 575-76).
One whose office it is to manage a business establishment or a public institution (OED 1711). Chaucer, for example, according to Donald R. Howard, was the controller, the auditor of the collectors, who were the major officials of the Wool Custom (a permanent duty on exports of wool, wool fells, and leather), the Wool Subsidy (a secondary, larger duty voted by parliament for particular periods of time), and the Petty Custom (a duty on other merchandise) (Chaucer: His Life, His Works, His World. NY: E. P. Dutton, 1987. (210-11).
A peasant is a countryman or rustic, either working for others, or owning or renting and working by his own labor a small plot of ground. Though a word of not very strict application, it is now frequently used of the rural population of such countries as France, where the land is chiefly held by small holders, "peasant proprietors" (Encyclopedia Britannica 31).
If in the world of politics Marxism is associated with the struggle for communism, in its theory it is identified with the fundamentally determining role played by production. Each society is characterized by a definite configuration of socially and historically constituted forces and relations of production which constitute the basis upon which other economic and social relations rest. "In the social production of their life, men enter into definite relations that are indispensable and independent of their will, relations of production which correspond to a definite stage of development of their material productive forces. The sum total of these relations of production constitutes the economical structure of society, the real foundation, on which rises a legal and political superstructure and to which correspond definite forms of social consciousness. The mode of production of material life conditions the social, political and intellectual life process in general" (Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, Preface). Continuing this famous passage Marx goes on to suggest that the passage from one mode of production to another is to be understood on the basis of the determining role played by production. Yet, equally important, Marx qualified these observations as "the general result at which I arrived and which, once won, served as a guiding thread for my studies." This is not to suggest that Marx considered any revision of his conclusions to be likely, but that his analysis depended upon further logical and historical investigation. The materialist conception of history is not to be considered as some ready-made formula for revealing the secrets of social organization and development (DMT 395-6).
In the twelfth century (the first that provides us with much evidence) the various words that we would translate as "squire" almost always meant a knight's personal servant. The squire's duties were manifold: literature of the period reveals squires serving their masters at table, carrying their messages, and running their errands. On campaign, squires stood watch, set up camp, and foraged for the host, but they do not seem to have fought on the battlefield. In war and peace alike, however, the squire's most important function was caring for his master's arms, his armor, and especially his horses. On the march, the squire rode one of his master's horses (the rouncy) and led the warhorse (destrier), which was too valuable to serve as the knight's usual mount. Historians have traditionally depicted the squire as a youth of knightly birth whose service constituted a form of military apprenticeship that culminated in his own knighting. Late-twentieth-century scholarship has shown that this picture overestimates the squire's status, at least in the twelfth century. Most squires appearing in the literature of that era were professional servants performing their duties for pay; they had no claims to knighthood and need not have been young. (DMA 465).
In northern Italy, the gap in status between knights and their squires left its mark on the tenurial system. There a peasant of the highest rank might hold a squire's fief in return for maintenance of a horse and service to his master in the host. This arrangement clearly presupposes a permanent, indeed inheritable, distinction between knight and squire. Though young men aspiring to knighthood did serve a kind of apprenticeship, those undergoing it were seldom called squires until the thirteenth century. Evidence from southern France suggests a preference in the 1100's for the term damoiseau as the word for a young nobleman, before and after knighting; it also reveals that the responsibilities of such a youth, though similar to those of a professional squire, emphasized personal attendance on the knight, and downplayed the less honorable and more onerous tasks of caring for horses and gear. Eventually, resistance to the use of the word "squire" to describe the gently born waned, and by 1300 the term's base connotation seems to have disappeared.
Meanwhile, the gradual restriction of knighthood to a smaller circle among the upper classes created new meanings for the term "squire" during the thirteenth century. As sons of knightly families came to postpone and even forgo their own dubbings, they required a title to distinguish themselves from their social inferiors. Perhaps because it emphasized their connection to the chivalric title they no longer consistently claimed, squire became one of the words used to denote a man of gentle birth who was not knighted. In the fourteenth century such squires gained the right to coats of arms, and by 1400 in England, they constituted a distinct grade of the lesser nobility below the knights but above mere gentlemen. Similarly, as the title of knight came to refer not to all armored cavalry but only to an elite of the best-equipped, squire came into use in military documents as one term for the non-knightly heavy horseman (DMA 465).
Thane originally meant "servant" in Anglo-Saxon, but it came to replace gesith as the term for "noble." It is doubtful if this change in words reflected any social difference. As early as the sixth century, Anglo-Saxon society contained an elaborate set of gradations. The gesith was a noble warrior, and he was distinguished from lesser freemen by a higher wergild and the ability to swear stronger oaths. Members of this class probably held land, at least as members of a family; but many of them depended on the kings for maintenance either as household warriors or as landed retainers. The kings were supported by an elaborate system of royal tribute consisting of food renders and works that lay upon the land, and they rewarded their warriors by loaning them the right to receive the tribute from particular villages. Once a gesith had loanland, he still served the king as a warrior, and he probably also had ministerial responsibilities for overseeing the delivery of the tribute. He could also now marry and have a family. When he died, the land returned to the king. This type of quasi-ministerial thanage survived in parts of Northumberland and eastern Scotland as late as the twelfth century, but in the south the nature of the institution changed. In the late eighth century, kings began to give thanes hereditary possession of loanland. Such grants were called bookland, and they ended a king's right to receive the old tribute from the booked land. Thanks to such grants, the thanage became a landed nobility over the course of the ninth and tenth centuries. It is not clear why kings made such grants, but the grants did not end royal rights entirely because the kings imposed new or reformulated burdens on the land and the obligation to serve in the army and repair bridges and fortifications (DMA 8).
Since the commodity is a product which is exchanged, it appears as the union of two different aspects: its usefulness to some agent, which is what permits the commodity to enter into exchange at all, and its power to command certain quantities of other commodities in exchange. The first aspect the classical political economists called use value, the second, exchange value. Marx emphasizes the fact that while use value is a necessary condition for a product to enter into exchange and hence to have an exchange value (no one will exchange a product useful to someone for a product of no use to anyone) the use value of the commodity bears no systematic quantitative relation to its exchange value, which is a reflection of the conditions of the commodity's production. He further argues that the proper object of study of political economy is the laws governing the production and movement of exchange value, or to put it more rigorously, the laws governing value, the inherent property of the commodities which appears as exchange value (Capital 1, ch. 1). It is important to recognize that use value differentiates itself as a concept in human consciousness as a result of the development of the commodity form of production. Without commodity exchange the usefulness of products in general is a fact self-evident and thus invisible to producers and users. Only with the emergence of commodity relations do the opposition of usefulness and exchangeability and the resulting contradictions and puzzles of commodity-organized life become an object of speculation and investigation. It is also important to recognize that the specific usefulness of products depends on the social relations and development of forces of production in any given society. Structural steel has no use value for nomadic cattleherders (DMT 504).
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