5. How Do We Know What Left and Right Mean? Who’s who on the left and right: 1789-1917
WHAT IS POLITICS?
The Hierarchy of Power in the Middle Ages
In the middle ages, this hierarchical ideology more or less matched reality in terms of who held political, economic and cultural power. But over the centuries, as europe slowly recovered from the fall of the roman empire, polities got bigger and more centralized. As a result, the source of power shifted away from controlling land and being able to squeeze grain out of peasants,. towards being able to accumulate cash from trade and taxes and fees. Eventually, merchants, who were members of the order of the common people, often became more wealthy and more powerful than many nobles.
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