Knowra Aristocracy Aristocracy Aristocracy is government by a class regarded as especially qualified or entitled to rule, often through birth, inherited status, or property. The term also names that ruling class.
Oligarchy : Oligarchy is government by a small group whose power rests on wealth, family, military force, or political influence. It describes rule by a few, without aristocracy’s claim that the ruling class merits authority.
Aristotle : Aristotle was an ancient Greek philosopher whose works examined ethics, politics, biology, and logic. He distinguished rule by the virtuous few from its corrupt form, oligarchy.
Democracy : Democracy is a system of government in which political authority ultimately derives from the people. It locates political legitimacy in popular participation rather than an entitled ruling class.
Social stratification : Social stratification is the structured ranking of groups and individuals into unequal layers of status, wealth, or power. Aristocracy is a political expression of durable social ranking.
Hereditary monarchy : Hereditary monarchy is a system in which political office passes through a ruling family, usually by descent. Aristocratic power often operates alongside a monarch whose office passes by inheritance.
Politics (Aristotle) : Politics is Aristotle’s treatise analyzing constitutions, citizenship, political communities, and forms of rule. Its account of aristocracy established a lasting distinction between rule for the common good and rule for private advantage.
Meritocracy : Meritocracy is a system in which advancement and authority are allocated according to assessed ability or achievement. It makes individual accomplishment, rather than inherited rank, the stated basis for privilege.
Aristocratic privilege : Aristocratic privilege is a set of legal, economic, or social advantages attached to noble or elite status. Such advantages gave ruling families resources and rights unavailable to ordinary subjects.
Feudalism : Feudalism was a social and political order built around landholding, personal obligations, and hierarchies of authority. In medieval Europe, landholding nobles formed an aristocracy within feudal relationships.
French Revolution : The French Revolution was a period of political and social upheaval in France from 1789 to 1799. It dismantled legal privileges that had sustained the French aristocracy.
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