The city-dwelling "Ancients" are paid in kind for:
record-keeping;
medicine;
metallurgy;
textiles;
gunpowder;
prediction of solar flares.
They:
monopolize a few cannon;
are credited with magical powers;
have grown fat off the ways of the fathers (p. 66);
have "...power..." (p. 65);
are influential enough to instigate, entirely in their own interests, an attack on the mission base.
In fact, although they deny this and claim neutrality, they armed the attackers.
"Rulers" are individuals or groups that directly control populations. Individual rulers include absolute monarchs and military dictators. A "ruling group" or "ruling class" exercises less overt but equally real control. Obviously, wealth is power, even though it is not political office. In fact, which is more powerful: the elected government of a country or the corporations that disinvest and the banks that impose austerity?
For these reasons, I call the Ancients the ruling group on t'Kela.
9 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
At least I now understand better what you meant by "ruling group," and how that applies to the Ancients of Kusulongo the City. A definition I now agree with, even while not wholly satisfied with "ruling group" as a term.
And I would still argue that great corporations or wealthy individuals can influence, shape, or guide a nation's policies ONLY as the men who control the blasters, guns, or swords are willing to put up with that. A point Stirling discussed in some detail.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
But the guns are produced by arms companies.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
And those arms companies were paid for by the people who wanted those guns. No, "economic power" alone is not the ultimate source for the POWER held by any state. THAT remains the monopoly of FORCE the state, any state, holds.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
I think that, when society divided into economic classes, the state, initially just an organized body of armed men, came into existence as an instrument of social control and coercion.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
And it was fortunate that happened, because the state was needed to enable peoples and societies larger than single families or villages to get some kind of peace and a chance to prosper.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Agreed. Once there were conflicts of economic interests, it was necessary to prevent those conflicts from destroying society. There was then some chance of progress. Some members of a leisured class lived in luxury but others developed arts, philosophy and science.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
I agree. I don't agree with anarchists/libertarians who would like to do away with the state OR with those who so glorify and exalt the state that it becomes totalitarian, under whatever name is used (Marxism, Nazism, socialism, etc.).
Ad astra! Sean
There were always conflicts of interest and competition for both physical and social resources.
Before the State, people solved them by a mixture of negotiation, deterrence and violence — and there was lots of violence, mostly low-level but continuous.
Note how many cultures there are where everyone, or at least all adult males, pick up a weapon on leaving the house, rather like putting on a hat or their shoes.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
I agree! And we see the phenomenon you described in Anderson's story "The Man Who Came Early." Iceland did not have a true state, the residents of every farm had to be on the alert against all too possible attacks. Strangers had to prove their bona fides before being accepted.
Ad astra! Sean
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