HI! To contribute my perspective t you’re comment, please allow me to add some missing details, and since we’re governmentally and legally descended from England, I’ll employ the specifics of England’s case:
Landowners/Aristocracy:
the roles of landowners and aristocracy were complicated. While they did control land and usually played big roles in military matters, their influence wasn't monolithic. Power in their space was in effective terms very decentralized, so the lesser nobility (like the gentry) managed local affairs and governance. Justices of the Peace, often but not exclusively from the gentry, were big in local admin, law enforcement, and the execution of policies at the local/county level. Their authority was balanced by other local power structures whose membership included non nobles, these structures were things like parish officers and borough corporations.
Burgesses/Merchants:
The configuration of the burgesses and merchants in their "controlled trade, finance, and mechanical production" is also complicated because of the decentralized and fragmented nature of their control. Merchants and burgesses operated within the framework of guilds and borough corporations which were themselves decentralized entities with a wide degree of personal autonomy. Control of trade and finance was not centralized in the hands of a relative few, it was spread across a wide and loose network of independent actors who, very importantly and unfortunately in most of the big cases unlike today, had to deal with local politics regulations, whether they wanted to or not.
Clerisy/Academia:
The Church and academia, were very influential in education, and moral guidance, and the transmission of knowledge, but they didn’t control the law. Their role was more about shaping societal values and traditions, which often provided a framework within which the law was interpreted and applied. But they were not the only groups doing that stuff, and while they were coordinated they coordination was much less than their most analogous contemporaries of current day USA, for example, in the case of England, the legal system was mostly in the hands of the nobility, both full and lesser, with a large amount of decentralization in how law and tradition were held. The nobility, especially in positions like Justices of the Peace (often Minors), played big roles in local law and justice admin. But Non nobles, usually those in local governance roles like as parish officers or members of borough corporations, also had real and meaningful says in how local laws were crafted, enforced and admined.
Very interesting approach. I would be interested in seeing how a distinction between positive rights (the right to something) and negative rights (the right to be allowed to do something) plays into this, as well as some discussion of how the legitimacy of political order/the state is defined/maintained/lost.
I think I'm going to sum all this up with exactly that kind of discussion.
In a nutshell, I'm not interested in "rights", which exist to be violated, but in "interests" which are things to negotiate upon. Both kinds of "rights" can be part of an interest.
Legitimacy collapses when ruling classes lose control of the narrative. The Enlightenment narrative gutted the Ancien Regime for near a century before 1789.
What is an 'interest'? I feel like 'interest' is used as if it labels something we understand with some clarity, but I don't think we do (or can). An 'interest' exists only when an interested party exists. But what drives the party to be 'interested' in just that 'interest' and in just that way?
I suspect that knowing what we want is political. Knowing *why* we want it is not.
HI! To contribute my perspective t you’re comment, please allow me to add some missing details, and since we’re governmentally and legally descended from England, I’ll employ the specifics of England’s case:
Landowners/Aristocracy:
the roles of landowners and aristocracy were complicated. While they did control land and usually played big roles in military matters, their influence wasn't monolithic. Power in their space was in effective terms very decentralized, so the lesser nobility (like the gentry) managed local affairs and governance. Justices of the Peace, often but not exclusively from the gentry, were big in local admin, law enforcement, and the execution of policies at the local/county level. Their authority was balanced by other local power structures whose membership included non nobles, these structures were things like parish officers and borough corporations.
Burgesses/Merchants:
The configuration of the burgesses and merchants in their "controlled trade, finance, and mechanical production" is also complicated because of the decentralized and fragmented nature of their control. Merchants and burgesses operated within the framework of guilds and borough corporations which were themselves decentralized entities with a wide degree of personal autonomy. Control of trade and finance was not centralized in the hands of a relative few, it was spread across a wide and loose network of independent actors who, very importantly and unfortunately in most of the big cases unlike today, had to deal with local politics regulations, whether they wanted to or not.
Clerisy/Academia:
The Church and academia, were very influential in education, and moral guidance, and the transmission of knowledge, but they didn’t control the law. Their role was more about shaping societal values and traditions, which often provided a framework within which the law was interpreted and applied. But they were not the only groups doing that stuff, and while they were coordinated they coordination was much less than their most analogous contemporaries of current day USA, for example, in the case of England, the legal system was mostly in the hands of the nobility, both full and lesser, with a large amount of decentralization in how law and tradition were held. The nobility, especially in positions like Justices of the Peace (often Minors), played big roles in local law and justice admin. But Non nobles, usually those in local governance roles like as parish officers or members of borough corporations, also had real and meaningful says in how local laws were crafted, enforced and admined.
HI! To contribute my perspective t you’re comment, please allow me to add some missing details, and since we’re governmentally and legally descended from England, I’ll employ the specifics of England’s case:
Landowners/Aristocracy:
the roles of landowners and aristocracy were complicated. While they did control land and usually played big roles in military matters, their influence wasn't monolithic. Power in their space was in effective terms very decentralized, so the lesser nobility (like the gentry) managed local affairs and governance. Justices of the Peace, often but not exclusively from the gentry, were big in local admin, law enforcement, and the execution of policies at the local/county level. Their authority was balanced by other local power structures whose membership included non nobles, these structures were things like parish officers and borough corporations.
Burgesses/Merchants:
The configuration of the burgesses and merchants in their "controlled trade, finance, and mechanical production" is also complicated because of the decentralized and fragmented nature of their control. Merchants and burgesses operated within the framework of guilds and borough corporations which were themselves decentralized entities with a wide degree of personal autonomy. Control of trade and finance was not centralized in the hands of a relative few, it was spread across a wide and loose network of independent actors who, very importantly and unfortunately in most of the big cases unlike today, had to deal with local politics regulations, whether they wanted to or not.
Clerisy/Academia:
The Church and academia, were very influential in education, and moral guidance, and the transmission of knowledge, but they didn’t control the law. Their role was more about shaping societal values and traditions, which often provided a framework within which the law was interpreted and applied. But they were not the only groups doing that stuff, and while they were coordinated they coordination was much less than their most analogous contemporaries of current day USA, for example, in the case of England, the legal system was mostly in the hands of the nobility, both full and lesser, with a large amount of decentralization in how law and tradition were held. The nobility, especially in positions like Justices of the Peace (often Minors), played big roles in local law and justice admin. But Non nobles, usually those in local governance roles like as parish officers or members of borough corporations, also had real and meaningful says in how local laws were crafted, enforced and admined.
Who would have thought that I, a spiritual aristocrat, was just another artisan at the circus when I had been forced into the proletariat!
Get you that sword, girl...
I'm gonna start a new political party and transcend all of this. You just wait.
Very interesting approach. I would be interested in seeing how a distinction between positive rights (the right to something) and negative rights (the right to be allowed to do something) plays into this, as well as some discussion of how the legitimacy of political order/the state is defined/maintained/lost.
I think I'm going to sum all this up with exactly that kind of discussion.
In a nutshell, I'm not interested in "rights", which exist to be violated, but in "interests" which are things to negotiate upon. Both kinds of "rights" can be part of an interest.
Legitimacy collapses when ruling classes lose control of the narrative. The Enlightenment narrative gutted the Ancien Regime for near a century before 1789.
What is an 'interest'? I feel like 'interest' is used as if it labels something we understand with some clarity, but I don't think we do (or can). An 'interest' exists only when an interested party exists. But what drives the party to be 'interested' in just that 'interest' and in just that way?
I suspect that knowing what we want is political. Knowing *why* we want it is not.
HI! To contribute my perspective t you’re comment, please allow me to add some missing details, and since we’re governmentally and legally descended from England, I’ll employ the specifics of England’s case:
Landowners/Aristocracy:
the roles of landowners and aristocracy were complicated. While they did control land and usually played big roles in military matters, their influence wasn't monolithic. Power in their space was in effective terms very decentralized, so the lesser nobility (like the gentry) managed local affairs and governance. Justices of the Peace, often but not exclusively from the gentry, were big in local admin, law enforcement, and the execution of policies at the local/county level. Their authority was balanced by other local power structures whose membership included non nobles, these structures were things like parish officers and borough corporations.
Burgesses/Merchants:
The configuration of the burgesses and merchants in their "controlled trade, finance, and mechanical production" is also complicated because of the decentralized and fragmented nature of their control. Merchants and burgesses operated within the framework of guilds and borough corporations which were themselves decentralized entities with a wide degree of personal autonomy. Control of trade and finance was not centralized in the hands of a relative few, it was spread across a wide and loose network of independent actors who, very importantly and unfortunately in most of the big cases unlike today, had to deal with local politics regulations, whether they wanted to or not.
Clerisy/Academia:
The Church and academia, were very influential in education, and moral guidance, and the transmission of knowledge, but they didn’t control the law. Their role was more about shaping societal values and traditions, which often provided a framework within which the law was interpreted and applied. But they were not the only groups doing that stuff, and while they were coordinated they coordination was much less than their most analogous contemporaries of current day USA, for example, in the case of England, the legal system was mostly in the hands of the nobility, both full and lesser, with a large amount of decentralization in how law and tradition were held. The nobility, especially in positions like Justices of the Peace (often Minors), played big roles in local law and justice admin. But Non nobles, usually those in local governance roles like as parish officers or members of borough corporations, also had real and meaningful says in how local laws were crafted, enforced and admined.