ABSTRACT
The chapter delimits traditional aristocratic empires from the more modern societies into which commercialization can turn them. It explains the deep cleavages that do not give rise to politics and thus clear the ground for a later analysis of politics, that is, of those cleavages and issues that do give rise to conflict. Politics is conflict, and conflict rests on differences and cleavages within a population, that is, in the minds of the people concerned. The aristocracy and each village and to some extent also town organizations like guilds are separate communities or societies and hence constitute separate political arenas. It is the object of this book to analyze politics within the aristocracy and then to investigate whether and to what extent peasants and townspeople impinge on aristocratic politics. Finally the chapter argues that class differences, precisely because they are so great, do not produce class conflict in aristocratic empires.
