ABSTRACT
A one-class society may appear at first sight to mean one where there is no inequality, because everyone belonged to the same class. But it has already been laid down that this cannot have been so in the pre-industrial world, at least in Europe. The ancien régime, as the historians call it, was marked by a very sharply delineated system of status, which drew firm distinctions between persons and made some superior, most inferior. There were various gradations, all authoritatively established and generally recognized. If class were simply a matter of social status, of the various degrees of respect in which men are held by their fellows, then it could not be said that the world we have lost was a one-class society. On the contrary, it would have to be described as a society with a considerable number of classes, as many as there were distinct steps in the graduated system of status.
