Life offers few greater pleasures than to humiliate the venal aristocracy before a crowd. I am father to the people, and they shall adore me above all others.
Definition/Summary:
Mob rule
- To bypass the law for instant justice
aka-Ochlocracy - Rule of government by a mass of people who can intimidate legitimate authority
Aristocracy
- Gives small groups of people power to rule
- It is the highest class in certain societies, especially those holding hereditary titles or office
Venal office (usually corrupt)
- Office sold by the state in areas of the judicial system, which provided access to power and profit.
- The most important offices were the most expensive and those that were rich could gain personal noble status to rule
Expanded info:
1651 book LEVIATHAN by Thomas Hobbes
- Describes aristocracy as a commonwealth which the representative of the citizens is an assembly by part
- It is a system in which only a small part of the population represents the government
- The book argues for a social contract and rule by an absolute sovereign.
- Civil war and the brute situation of a state of nature (“the war of all against all”) could only be avoided by strong, undivided government