Anacyclosis
The cycle of governance forms, according to the Classical Greeks
Contextual Quote
“The initial human condition is characterized as savage, scattered, and insecure. Out of this disorder one man, of particular strength and boldness of character, establishes a hierarchical order, a kingship, with the consent of the governed. The king’s sons lack the virtue and restraint of the founder and degenerate into abusive tyranny, against which the leading citizens rebel and replace with an aristocracy. The next generation lacks the virtue and restraint of its predecessor and degenerates into an abusive oligarchy, inciting the mass of the people to rebel and establish a democracy. Against the virtues of moderation and restraint are lacking in the next generation, which degenerates into an ochlocracy (mob rule), which then sinks into savagery, thus returning to the beginning for the cycle to run again.”
- Polybius
Description
Anacyclosis Institute:
"The theory of anacyclosis (ἀνακύκλωσις in Greek) represents the culmination of ancient Greek political thought on the evolution of political communities. It is a “unified theory” of political history in that it attempts to explain the evolution and dissolution of all regime types, including democracy. The theory is most clearly and succinctly expressed in the writings of the historian Polybius, though many aspects of the theory were described by earlier thinkers such as Plato and Aristotle. Recognized by Machiavelli for its explanatory power, Polybius’ model was studied by the Founding Fathers of the United States and profoundly influenced their vision of the republic they were founding.
The word anacyclosis has been variously translated as “the cycle of political revolution” and “the cycle of the constitutions.” In short, the theory states that the six regime archetypes that the Greeks identified and which we still use today (monarchy, tyranny, aristocracy, oligarchy, democracy, and ochlocracy or mob-rule) each represent different stages of one long process of political evolution. There is good reason to think that Polybius and his predecessors arrived at this theory empirically. After observing the rise and fall of many hundreds of city-states, most of which cycled through several of the governmental forms mentioned above, Greek political thinkers concluded that these transitions from one form to another were not random. Rather, they seemed to follow simple and recognizable patterns. For example, tyrants were frequently overthrown by groups of aristocrats, while popular revolutions frequently overthrew oligarchies and ushered in democratic rule. Interestingly, the reverse of these trends (aristocracies being overthrown by tyrants or democracies turning into oligarchies) were statistically less likely to occur.
Through such observations, Polybius extrapolated the likely complete course of political evolution for an independent state whose lifecycle is not cut short by war or disaster. According to our interpretation of his model, the cycle proceeds as follows. Political communities are first ruled by kings. Kingship is eventually corrupted into tyranny. The last tyrant is deposed or forced to share power with an aristocracy. Aristocracy degenerates into an oppressive oligarchy. Occasionally, an independent middle economic stratum – a middle class – emerges; hoi mesoi in Aristotelian terms. If this middle class is entrenched, democracy emerges. In time, however, a plutocracy emerges, stratifying society between opulent and dependent. The hopes of the dependent masses fuel an intensifying competition among their political patrons, transforming democracy into mob-rule, perhaps better described as rule by demagogues. This tournament of demagogues rages among a narrowing field of popular leaders until a single champion arises victorious, dragging political society back to some form of monarchy, thus completing the cycle."
(https://anacyclosis.org/portfolio/what-is-anacyclosis/)
Characteristics
Tim Ferguson:
"Anacyclosis entails two distinct but related processes running in parallel. The first is an external tendency toward territorial expansion, with diverse cities and states swept up into the domain of one political system, culminating in the hegemony of one nation over many others. The second is the internal evolutionary cycle just described, culminating in the dominion of a single man over the leading nation."
(https://anacyclosis.org/2022/07/31/rationist-no-3/)
Typology
Adapted from pdf
Cycle of Five: pre-democratic
"The history of most states is confined to the events described above this line.
Most states in history have not advanced below this line because most states have not developed an independent middle class."
RULE BY THE STRONGEST
"When scarcity prevails and humanity struggles to survive, people submit to the power of the strongest man.
RULE BY KINGS
When the state attains security and stability, rulers derive authority from the approbation and loyalty of their subjects.
RULE BY TYRANTS
When kings or usurpers abuse the people and violate custom, kingship degenerates into an oppressive tyranny.
RULE BY THE NOBILITY
When the state’s leading men curtail tyranny and restore law and custom, tyranny is subdued by the aristocracy.
RULE BY THE WEALTHY
When the leading dynasties oppress their own citizens, aristocracy becomes an oppressive oligarchy or plutocracy.
Democratic Cycle
"Democracy is historically rare and when it emerges, it comes in waves, as was seen in Classical Antiquity and in the modern West.
Once democracy is entrenched in an autonomous state, the cycle will run its full course."
RULE BY THE MIDDLE CLASS
When a middle class obtains political rights for its military or fiscal contributions, alongside oligarchy emerges democracy.
PLUTOCRACY STRIKES BACK
When the state attains military supremacy, its plutocrats siphon the world’s wealth, plundering citizen and foreigner alike.
GAME OF DEMAGOGUES
When the state’s middle class collapses, the people rally behind demagogues who denounce plutocrats and foreigners.
RETURN OF THE MONARCH
The demagogue who ends the civil strife returns political society to some form of monarchy, thus completing the cycle."
(https://anacyclosis.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Anacyclosis-Flyer-November-2019.pdf)
History
The Classic Cycles Including Rome
Tim Ferguson:
"Modern scholarship confirms that the Greek city-states generally evolved in accordance with this sequence. Monarchies were the most common regime from 700 BC until c. 450 BC, then oligarchies until c. 350 BC, then democracies until the conquests of Macedonia and Rome. More on Rome below.
The early stages of Anacyclosis have been everywhere experienced. Most of mankind lived and died as the subjects of kings, nobles, dictators, and military juntas. The ending democracy-ochlocracy sequence is rare, however. Democracy is mainly limited to states adhering to Western Civilization, during less than one-tenth of recorded history since the Mesopotamians and Egyptians.
Democracy has only flourished in two great historical waves. The first appeared in the Mediterranean Basin around the 6th century BC, yielding over 300 ancient democracies. The second commenced in the North Atlantic around the 18th century AD, yielding over 100 modern democracies. Few examples of democracy, of course, means few complete examples of Anacyclosis.
Why democracy is rare
The chief powers of government are that of the sword and the purse. The ability to withhold an indispensable contribution to either is the basis of political agency. Any claim by the common people to share in government therefore rests not on the fantasy that their consent is given, but in the possibility that it be withheld. Ancient democracy accordingly originated in the potential of military labor strikes, the first modern democratic republic in a tax revolt.
In all of history, there’s only existed one people’s agency which could sustain a challenge of the elite status quo to that effect. It was the financially independent, self-sufficient middle classes, what Aristotle called the οἱ μέσοι, or hoi mesoi. The outbursts of the proletariat, by contrast, have only ever been able to change the prevailing form of oppression, but never challenge its existence. In a quip foretelling the futility of proletariat revolutions, Crane Brinton once wrote: “The blood of the martyrs seems hardly necessary to establish decimal coinage.”
Middle class revolutions are another thing altogether. Aristotle celebrated the virtues of the middle class, noting, among other things:
Democracies are more secure and more long-lived than oligarchies owing to the citizens of the middle class (for they are more numerous and have a larger share of the honors in democracies than in oligarchies), since when the poor are in a majority without the middle class, adversity sets in and they are soon ruined.
Indeed, the first appearance of democracy in both great historical waves was preceded by the emergence of an independent and politically active middle class.*
These observations stand for a broader proposition. It is the diffusion of wealth that advances the sequence of Anacyclosis. Writing during the Interregnum, James Harrington explicitly connected the diffusion of wealth with the diffusion of power.** John Adams agreed, referencing Harrington in a letter weeks before America declared Independence. And in the year the United States Constitution was drafted, Noah Webster, a lesser-known American Founding Father observed:
On reviewing the English history, we observe a progress similar to that in Rome—an incessant struggle for liberty from the date of Magna Charta, in John’s reign, to the revolution. The struggle has been successful, by abridging the enormous power of the nobility. But we observe that the power of the people has increased in an exact proportion to their acquisitions of property.
Democracy cannot be sustained by just any middle class, however, but only by a relatively independent middle class. Because, as Alexander Hamilton observed, “In the general course of human nature, a power over a man’s subsistence amounts to a power over his will.” When the people become susceptible to patronage they lose their political volition, hence their ability to withdraw their consent, obliterating the original rationale for democracy.
So that’s why democracy is historically rare and an authentic democracy distinguishable from plutocracy-supervised ritual electoral patronage is even rarer. Because the independent, self-sufficient hoi mesoi is historically rare. This is the principal reason why the full sequence of Anacyclosis is not everywhere seen.
But it isn’t the only reason. Machiavelli identified the other: most republics don’t advance to the end of the sequence according to their own volition before they’re made provinces or satellites of their neighbors:
It may well happen that a republic lacking strength and good counsel in its difficulties becomes subject after a while to some neighboring state, that is better organized than itself; and if such is not the case, then they will be apt to revolve indefinitely in the circle of revolutions.
Which brings us back to Rome
Rome was the first superpower republic to consummate Anacyclosis. Highlights from the Roman sequence (some being legendary) include:
753 BC: Rome at the beginning was ruled by kings.
509 BC: Aristocrats expelled the last tyrant.
494 BC: Commoners begin agitating against Patrician aristocracy.
396 BC: Rome achieves first significant conquest (Veii).
287 BC: The Patrician aristocracy was eclipsed by moneyed oligarchy.
267 BC: Democratic law promoting rationing of land passed (Lex Licinia Sextia).
241 BC: Rome acquires first province (Sicily).
146 BC: Rome defeats Carthage, achieving Mediterranean hegemony.
133 BC: Democratic laws reviving the prior land-rationing laws passed (Lex Sempronia Agraria).
123 BC: Grain dole established (Lex Frumentaria, Cura Annonae).
107 BC-27 BC: Violent populist agitation/conservative reaction occurs.
44 BC: The Blind Spot breaks the news of Julius Caesar’s assassination.
27 BC: The entire Mediterranean Basin submits to imperial monarchy.
The events in plain font highlight Anacyclosis’s internal revolutionary one-few-many-one sequence. The events in bold describe a parallel process alluded to by Polybius and Machiavelli: an external process of territorial integration.
Whereas the internal revolution sequence culminates in the dominion of a single man, the external consolidation sequence results in the hegemony of a single state. The conclusion of Anacyclosis witnessed the entire Mediterranean Basin drawn into the dominion of the Roman Empire.
Sallust accordingly marked Roman hegemony as commencing the end of the Republic, lamenting “when Carthage, the rival of Rome’s sway, had perished root and branch, and all seas and lands were open, then Fortune began to grow cruel and to bring confusion into all our affairs.” But why? What happened after 146 BC?
Simple. In a word, the hoi mesoi was annihilated, its wealth reconcentrated, eliminating the argument for democracy for almost two thousand years.
Lintott records that “Roman writers after the collapse of the Republic were…united in believing that the operative factor throughout was a moral failure arising from the increase of wealth.” Duruy vividly describes the plunder process:
After having pillaged the world as praetors or consuls during time of war, the nobles again pillaged their subjects as governors in time of peace; and upon their return to Rome with immense riches they employed them in changing the modest heritage of their fathers into domains vast as provinces.
As the chief basis of wealth in those days was land, the policy response was eminently rational: rationing. Of public land to be precise. In 133 BC, Tiberius Gracchus pushed through the Lex Sempronia Agraria, against staunch elite opposition. The Gracchan law evidently revived provisions of the Licinian-Sextian law (267 BC). The chief purpose of the Gracchan law was to cap household use of public lands (at about 326 acres, plus 163 acres per child) and provide minimum allocations (of about 20 acres) to citizen-solider farmer households dispossessed during Rome’s relentless military campaigning. According to Abbott:
The republic had been at the outset, and for several centuries afterward, a commonwealth of free landowners. This great middle class was now swept out of existence, and with it went the foundation on which the state rested. The object of the movement connected with the name Tiberius Gracchus was to build this class up again.
The law’s main objective was to rehabilitate the middle census ranks to feed Rome’s military machine which was organized according to property qualifications. It certainly couldn’t be considered a “hand-out” because land is useless unless worked, and alienation was prohibited. Despite some success, even after Gracchus’ swift murder by the senatorial elite (the first political bloodshed in Rome for centuries) the hoi mesoi was not salvaged.****
By 123, Tiberius’ younger brother Gaius regularized the grain dole (Cura Annonae) via Lex Frumentaria to permanently subsidize the now-precarious Roman citizenry. By 107, Marius dispensed with military property qualifications altogether. The rest is history.
The party was over and the hangover was already beginning by the time Brutus showed up."
(https://anacyclosis.org/2023/01/31/democracy-wars/)