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aristocracy

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aristocracy

Social elite or system of political power associated with landed wealth, as in Western Europe; with monetary wealth, as in Carthage and Venice; or with religious superiority, as were the Brahmans in India. Aristocracies are also usually associated with monarchy but have frequently been in conflict with the sovereign over their respective rights and privileges. In Europe, their economic base was undermined during the 19th century by inflation and falling agricultural prices, leading to their demise as a political force after 1914.

The Prussian (Junker) aristocracy based its legitimacy not only on landed wealth but also on service to the state.

Aristocracy was one of Aristotle's six original categories of government. Literally, it means government in the interests of the whole community by the most virtuous.
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We have no aristocracy of blood, and having therefore as a natural, and indeed as an inevitable thing, fashioned for ourselves an aristocracy of dollars, the display of wealth has here to take the place and perform the office of the heraldic display in monarchical countries.
Poems by Poe, Edgar Allan View in context
The spirit of clanship which was, at an early day, introduced into that kingdom, uniting the nobles and their dependants by ties equivalent to those of kindred, rendered the aristocracy a constant overmatch for the power of the monarch, till the incorporation with England subdued its fierce and ungovernable spirit, and reduced it within those rules of subordination which a more rational and more energetic system of civil polity had previously established in the latter kingdom.
Federalist Papers Authored by Alexander Hamilton by Hamilton, Alexander View in context
General cargo ports belong to the aristocracy of the earth's trading places, and in that aristocracy London, as it is its way, has a unique physiognomy.
The Mirror of the Sea by Conrad, Joseph View in context
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