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Contemporary elites use the idea of freedom to confuse, mislead, and rationalize their power over large numbers of the world's people. Today's ruling class of big capitalists ensures that few of us learn much about their sources of wealth, power, and control. Elite rule has depended upon a widespread lack of freedom for non-elites, whose life-chances are circumscribed by elite power. This book is an enquiry into the origins and development of elite rule from its beginnings, through antiquity, the Middle Ages, and the development of capitalism in the early modern period. Still operative today are components or by-products of earlier elite class rule: religion, patriarchy, wars for empire, the enemy "Other," and opposition movements like democracy. This volume traces these trends and countertrends, and explores their development as elites struggled to maintain their power against slave, peasant, and working class opposition.

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Publié par	Austin Macauley Publishers
Date de parution	31 mai 2019
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781528957687
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	1 Mo

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Through the Needle’s Eye: Elite Rule and the Illusions of Freedom
Chuck Churchill
Austin Macauley Publishers
2019-05-31
Through the Needle’s Eye: Elite Rule and the Illusions of Freedom About the Author About the Book Dedication Copyright Information Acknowledgments Introduction Part One From Hunter-Gatherers to Ancient Aristocrats Chapter 1 Subsistence to Surplus and the Advent of Class Societies Chapter 2 Democracy and the Rule of the Ancient Greek Aristocracy Chapter 3 Establishing the Rule of Rome Chapter 4 Ancient Slavery Chapter 5 Patriarchy and Women in Antiquity Chapter 6 The Tools of Rule in Antiquity Part Two Christianity and the Late Roman Empire Chapter 7 Jesus and the Origins of Christianity Chapter 8 Roads Not Taken: Alternatives to Orthodoxy Chapter 9 The Centrality of Paul Chapter 10 Constantine’s Christianity, Heresy, and State Power Chapter 11 Christianity Against Ancient Science Chapter 12 Empire Ends in the West, Continues in the East Part Three Antiquity to Modernity: Continuity and Transformation Chapter 13 The Middle Ages Take Shape Chapter 14 Feudalism: War and Conquest Chapter 15 Medieval Growth, Power Struggles, and the Role of the Church Chapter 16 The End of the Middle Ages and the Development of Capitalism Conclusion
About the Author
Chuck Churchill holds degrees from the following Universities: BA English, the University of California, Irvine; MA American Studies, the University of Hawaii; PhD American Cultural History, the University of California, Santa Barbara. The Arthur H. Clark Company published his dissertation, Adventurers and Prophets: American Autobiographers in Mexican California. He has also published numerous articles and reviews in scholarly journals, while teaching History at California State University, Chico, and at Oregon State University. He is now retired and dedicates his time to the study and writing that most interests him, of which the current book is a beginning.
About the Book
Contemporary elites use the idea of freedom to confuse, mislead, and rationalize their power over large numbers of the world’s people. Today’s ruling class of big capitalists ensures that few of us learn much about their sources of wealth, power, and control. Elite rule has depended upon a widespread lack of freedom for non-elites, whose life-chances are circumscribed by elite power.
This book is an enquiry into the origins and development of elite rule from its beginnings, through antiquity, the Middle Ages, and the development of capitalism in the early modern period. Still operative today are components or by-products of earlier elite class rule: religion, patriarchy, wars for empire, the enemy “Other,” and opposition movements like democracy. This volume traces these trends and countertrends, and explores their development as elites struggled to maintain their power against slave, peasant, and working class opposition.
Dedication
For Lisa, my wife and partner, with the greatest love and appreciation for a lifetime of emotional and intellectual support
Copyright Information
Copyright © Chuck Churchill (2019)
The right of Chuck Churchill to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with section 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.
Any person who commits any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.
ISBN 9781528904353 (Paperback)
ISBN 9781528904360 (Hardback)
ISBN 9781528957687 (ePub e-Book)
www.austinmacauley.com
First Published (2019)
Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd
25 Canada Square
Canary Wharf
London
E14 5LQ
Acknowledgments
I have received encouragement and editorial help from my close friends Stefan Dasho, John Marciano, and John Mraz; my son Joe Churchill; and my wife Lisa Churchill. Their assistance has been invaluable, and any errors that might remain are mine alone.
I would also like to thank Leslie Dwyer for her design of the front cover image.

“I have always believed that history cannot be really understood unless it is extended to cover the entire human past.”
Fernand Braudel, Memory and the Mediterranean , 2002
Introduction
Human freedom has been dependent on the material developments of societies throughout history, and these have been uneven and varied. Nevertheless, a minimal definition of freedom that could be realistically met in the several millennia after the agricultural revolution would require that every family in a given society have unrestricted access to some means of livelihood sufficient to feed, clothe, and house them, and take care of the old and sick, with an adequate amount of productive land in the hands of those who actually labored on it. There were peasants for whom these conditions obtained. The majority of the lower classes, however, toiled under the domination of aristocratic landlords to whom many were indebted; and who used them as slaves, serfs, or hired laborers whose work went to enrich and make powerful this elite class.
How have ruling classes (almost always backed up by a monopoly of coercion but generally not needing to use it systematically against their own populations) persuaded those below them to follow their leadership? How have ruling classes even been able to make use of ideas like freedom that would not seem, on the surface, to favor their interests? How have they countered ideas that would undermine their rule? Not surprisingly, the ideas of ruling classes have dominated throughout history, and still do. Indeed, elites have almost exclusively shaped the historical landscape, ideologically, even when fighting a rear-guard engagement against ideas of freedom and equality, in order to rationalize their interests and rule. Why have they been so successful?
This book addresses these questions by taking a long view of the development of elite rule. It looks at the historical conditions from which an elite class emerged, and the use made of the idea of freedom in contrast to the substance of domination. However, this is not a history of ideas. Instead, freedom will be a kind of leitmotif running through a survey of aristocratic rule in Antiquity and the Middle Ages, examining the methods used by successive ruling classes to accumulate their wealth and power while keeping a majority of the population in subjection most of the time. The book also considers possible exceptions to this such as the democracy established in ancient Athens, as well as other ideas and practices that seem to contradict or conflict with the operations and rationale of elite rule, in particular the concept of equality.
It begins with a brief assessment of the earliest human societies, which were not yet divided between a wealthy elite and everyone else, if for no other reason than to show that not all of human experience has been marked by such divisions. But the text primarily considers the long history of how ruling classes managed to rule and in particular, what conditions might have prompted them to seek (or give in to) more inclusive governance. It also examines the role played by non-elites in the struggle for greater participation in the practices and institutions that structured their lives and work. It is in this context that ideas like freedom and equality are examined in an effort to understand how and why they arose, the different ways in which they were understood and used by ruling classes and those over whom they ruled, and what role these ideas might have played and continue to play in human activities and aspirations.
I make no claim to originality in what follows, and as the saying goes, stand on the shoulders of some giants. The book includes a wide variety of sources in an effort to explain the historical development of the conditions that led to elite rule and in particular, how elites persuade non-elites to follow them, even when the loss of freedom is the result.
Furthermore, throughout much of human history, elites in control of economies and social institutions (including religion and education) have played a much larger role as enemies of freedom than as its enablers. There have been times when they have embraced the idea of freedom for their own uses and benefit, but the historical record seems to show that their wealth, power, and aggrandizement have more often rested upon a systematic, institutionally based oppression, and denial of freedom to large numbers of men, women, and children.
There is no attempt here to present a “balanced” approach. My sympathies are with the subjugated classes, and the reader will note the primary influence of Marxist ideas. Marx himself suggested that his analysis of capitalist society “allows insights into the structure and the relations of production of all the vanished social formations out of whose ruins and elements it built itself up…” 1 Nor is there an exhaustive attempt to survey all the literature, a task that would doubtless take up several separate volumes. I have instead relied on those works I found to be most useful for making my assessment of elite rule.
Part One examines the conditions that might have led to the development of the idea of freedom among human beings, starting with a brief consideration of the earliest experiences of people as hunter-gatherers. Then it focuses upon the agricultural revolution of the Neolithic period. More details are presented of the ancient world, with special emphasis on the societies of Greece and Rome that were foundational for what would become Western culture’s notions about freedom. Part One ends with several sketches of those who were excluded from any parti