Ἀνακύκλωσις - Anacyclosis

Recently a reader of mine commented on one of my blog posts ``We as moderni should look into what one of the antiqui, Polybius, wrote regarding άνακύκλωσις, a cyclical theory (kyklos = cycle) of governing orders”. So, let’s do that:

Polybius was a Greek historian of the Hellenistic period. He is noted for his work The Histories, which covered the period of 264–146 BC and the Punic Wars in detail. Polybius is important for his analysis of the mixed constitution or the separation of powers in government, his in-depth discussion of checks and balances to limit power, and his introduction of "the people", which was influential on Montesquieu's The Spirit of the Laws, John Locke's Two Treatises of Government, and the framers of the United States Constitution. Polybius' sequence of anacyclosis proceeds in the following order: 1. monarchy, 2. kingship, 3. tyranny, 4. aristocracy, 5. oligarchy, 6. democracy, and 7. Ochlocracy.   (Wikipedia)

According to Polybius' elaboration of the theory, the state begins in a form of primitive monarchy (rule by one). The state will emerge from monarchy under the leadership of an influential and wise king; this represents the emergence of "kingship". Political power will pass by hereditary succession to the children of the king, who will abuse their authority for their own gain; this represents the degeneration of kingship into "tyranny". This tyranny will provoke a rebellion and lead to an aristocracy (rule by few), which, in turn, will corrupt to an oligarchy. By then the people will rebel and establish a democracy (rule by many), which again will corrupt to an ochlocracy (mob rule). Eventually, a single person will be able to reestablish rule (monarchy) again.

I remembered this theory vaguely from my sixth-grade history class. I found it highly interesting, but also a bit confusing. Monarchy and aristocracy didn’t seem like opposites to me, after all, doesn't a monarchy consist of a king and different types of aristocrats (barons, dukes, etc.) in a hierarchical order? After all, one person alone never has the power to rule without the support of a small minority. Plus, while I found cyclical theories of history interesting, I also found them too deterministic.

However, Polybius might have been onto something. Political scientists distinguish between four political orientations with their extreme forms being oligarchy, authoritarianism, communism and anarchy.

We can map oligarchy straight onto Polybius’ aristocracy/oligarchy. Anarchy is very similar to ochlocracy or rule the mob or rule of none and (egalitarian) communism is closest to democracy (even if many people would find that idea repulsive). This leaves the authoritarian political orientation to match with monarchy, and indeed it does. We can assume that if in a population one of the four groups becomes dominant political power will tend towards the associated form of government.

Now, this pattern matching hasn’t really gotten us much further than we were before. It starts to get interesting when we ask ourselves where these political orientations come from. After all, they are opposing: it’s hard to imagine that a group of anti-conformists would even accept a king, or a group of egalitarian minded people would accept oligarchy. If we turn our attention to anthropology, we find that hunter-gatherers would correspond best to the anarchical-egalitarian orientation and farmers best to the conformity-authoritarian orientation. Semi-nomadic pastoralists are harder to pinpoint, as pastoralist tribes show considerable variation between egalitarianism and social stratification.

Pastoralists are typically organised in segmentary lineage (clans), often with some clans assuming dominance over others. Now, this is where we approach group hierarchy. Most modern people are a mix of these three types.

Let’s assume that people, despite being mixed, have a tendency to correspond more or less to one of the three (or four) evolutionary types. People would therefore  have a preference for one of the following types of social power networks:

Any of those power networks can be benevolent or corrupted. Voilà, you basically get a dynamic power struggle that could lead to Polybius' anacyclosis. Tyranny (or tightness in Michele Gelfand’s research) will be opposed by people who have decentralised and distributed evolutionary “programming”. On the other hand, farmer types will try to get order, structure and hierarchy if society becomes too loose.  

For more information check out my book Foragers, Farmers and Pastoralists : How three tribes have been shaping civilization since the Neolithic