Eighteenth-century English state power functioned as aristocratic parasitism

Evidence

E. P. Thompson first used the term “brigandage” to describe this phenomenon. In 1965, while describing power in England as it assumed form in the second half of the eighteenth century, he wrote: “It should be seen less as government by an aristocracy … than as a parasitism—a racket, which the King himself could not break into except by becoming the croupier. It was not wholly a parasitism: the business of the nation had to be carried on, from time to time the ‘independent’ gentry—and their representatives in parliament—had to be appeased, there were even occasions (although one after another these are called into question as the disciples of Namier break into the archives of the last of the great mafiosi) when the interests of the nation or the class, rather than the family or faction, were consulted. Nor was it only a parasitism: being conducted upon so gigantic a scale, from bases in private and public wealth of such magnitude, and commanding influence which reached, by the most direct means, into the army, the navy, the chartered companies, the Church, the Law, it was bound to congeal into something that looks almost like an estate; to surround itself in a cocoon of ideological apologetics; and to nourish a style of life, of conspicuous—indeed, spectacular—consumption which is associated with a true aristocracy.” — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 1972

Categorization

• DEFINE: Thompson’s definition of ‘brigandage’ — state power as a racket/parasitism that congeals into estate-like structure.
• XREF: Echoes Horkheimer’s racket theory of society from the Frankfurt School volume, where totalitarian monopoly capitalism was read as compulsory team membership. — connects to: English racialism predated ruling class divisions and shaped proletarianization itself; Eighteenth-century English ruling power operated as a parasitical racket — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 1972; Eighteenth-century popular culture operated outside the law yet inside networks of social force (+3 more)
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 1972

Broader Connections

• Eighteenth-century popular culture operated outside the law yet inside networks of social force #complicates (0.45)
• English racialism predated ruling class divisions and shaped proletarianization itself #expands (0.35)