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The Gracchi Tried to Reverse an Extreme

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The Gracchi Tried to Reverse an Extreme Polybius witnessed the aborted revolution of the Gracchi, political reformers who in the late Republic tried to rehabilitate the Roman hoi mesoi, or middle class. If the Gracchi had succeeded, the contest of demagogues that carried Rome from plutocracy to monarchy would have likely been averted. But the Gracchi were murdered by plutocrats, and within a century Rome had transformed into imperial monarchy. From kings to emperors, Anacyclosis ran its full course in Classical Tiberius and Caius Gracchus, two brothers Antiquity. who sacrificed their lives trying to restore a ______________________________________ middle stratum and save a republic ______________________________________ The Gracchi tried to reverse an extreme concentration of From the ruin of the middle wealth and rehabilitate the class arises the tournament of hoi mesoi, but were murdered demagogues ______________________________________ by the plutocracy ______________________________________ What comes after democracy? Today we confront essentially the same trends that Polybius recognized Anacyclosis at the confronted the Gracchi when Polybius first precipice of that final, irrevocable turn to described Anacyclosis centuries ago: A middle monarchy. Unlike his predecessors – class crashes into the ground as a plutocracy Herodotus, Plato, Thucydides, and Aristotle – hurls into the stratosphere. We’ve thus entered What comes after Polybius saw the conquest of the entire the age of plutocracy. Social stratification is democracy? Mediterranean basin by a single power. It was expanding, dependency is intensifying, not the history of a city-state or confederation subsidies are increasing, and demagogues are that inspired Anacyclosis, but the evolution of ascendant. If an independent middle class is the entire Mediterranean world. The ancient not soon restored, next, and once again, comes superpower which became the Roman Empire demagarchy. was no fleeting polity bound to a warlord or dynasty. It was a stable political singularity, the product of territorial, economic, and legal integration, with few languages, one ruler, and no rivals prevailing, which survived for centuries. Polybius has an authority his forebears lack because he looked from a vantage they never had; his history beholds an integrated global civilization such as existed The Institute for Anacyclosis before the Age of Discovery. Chapel Hill, North Carolina www.anacyclosis.org [Brochure subtitle or company © 2016 The Institute for Anacyclosis tagline] Democracy is a cherished principle of Western The full sequence of evolution The full sequence of Anacyclosis is rarely seen civilization, but another, bigger idea lurks on the global scale because an independent behind it that democratic peoples would be combines an internal process middle class is historically rare, which makes wise to acknowledge, at least if they want to of sociopolitical revolution democracy historically rare. Until modern remain democratic. This idea is “Anacyclosis,” times, most societies never advanced as far as and it’s no coincidence it comes from the with an external process of democracy. World history is replete with the Greeks, the very people who invented territorial integration earlier stages of Anacyclosis, however, with democracy to begin with. oligarchy and plutocracy the most persistent ______________________________________ ______________________________________ states of political society. Advanced global While the internal revolutionary cycle runs its integration is likewise historically rare. Democracy is only a phase in course, separate states meanwhile undergo a ______________________________________ the cycle of revolution separate but related process of integration. By By accident of history, the ______________________________________ copying, consent, colonization, and conquest, leading states spread their culture. Just as the processes of revolution and Anacyclosis is the recurring sequence of internal revolutionary cycle is consummated integration converged in political evolution; democracy is but one phase under one victorious person, this external in the cycle. According to the revised model of process of integration is consummated under Augustus, who came to rule Anacyclosis developed by The Institute for one dominant polity. Political evolution begins the Mediterranean world Anacyclosis, political society begins in tribal with many nations and ends in one state. ______________________________________ chiefdom. Chiefdom crystallizes into kingship. ______________________________________ Kingship corrupts into tyranny. The last tyrant The last time these dual processes converged on is deposed or forced to share power with an Abstract thinking and a wide the world stage, the champion was Augustus, aristocracy. Aristocracy degenerates into an field of vision are required to the world state was the Roman Empire, and its oppressive oligarchy. Occasionally, an leading cultures were Latin and Greek. When independent middle economic stratum – a perceive Anacyclosis history so recurs, these dual processes will middle class – emerges; the hoi mesoi in ______________________________________ eventually converge in a single chief ruling a Aristotelian terms. If this middle class is world state dominated by its leading cultures. entrenched, some form of democracy emerges Both processes take centuries to complete, We should not presume to foretell the future alongside oligarchy. Meanwhile, as money proceed at uneven paces, and are often with particularity, but global dominance of the becomes ubiquitous, oligarchy further interrupted by accidents of history. Sufficient English language may foreshadow what is to degenerates into plutocracy. The wealth of the time, however, averages out the occurrences of come. Though Anacyclosis will likely not be middle class is reconcentrated in the chance. The outline of history, like that of the consummated for several generations, we plutocracy, stratifying society between opulent Earth, is only visible from afar. appear much nearer the end than the beginning. and dependent. The hopes of the dependent ______________________________________ ______________________________________ masses fuel an intensifying competition among their political patrons, transforming democracy An independent middle into demagarchy – rule by demagogues. This Anacyclosis was discovered in tournament of demagogues rages among a economic stratum, or middle the age of the Gracchi narrowing field of popular leaders until a single class; a “hoi mesoi” in Greek _____________________________________ champion arises victorious, dragging political terms, is the sine qua non for society back to some form of monarchy, Anacyclosis was first described by Polybius, completing the cycle. authentic democracy Greek historian of the Roman Republic. .
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