Territorial dispersal blocks a landed stratum from political centralization

Evidence

This social stratum finds its limits, and the reasons for its ultimate weakness, in its territorial dispersal and in the “non-homogeneity” which is intimately connected to this dispersal. This explains some of its other characteristics too: its volubility, the multiplicity of ideological systems it follows, even the bizarre nature of the ideologies it sometimes follows. Its will is directed towards a specific end—but it is retarded, and usually requires a lengthy process before it can become politically and organisationally centralised. — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 839