Even in those portrayals of the ruling class at its most feckless, spending its time on hunting and wenching and carousing and so forth, there is usually one or more intense-looking close personal servants who keeps busy by poring over complicated ledgers, making inscrutable notes, and generally intimidating the peasantry. These servants, often in reality supplemented by members of the ruling elite themselves, have in fact throughout history been responsible for conducting the essential core functions of the ruling class: that is, firstly by establishing the systems, structures, and apparatuses by which that rule will be enforced and, secondly, recreating those same agencies so that they will continue to be operable in the future, no matter what changes to the economy or to society might have occurred in the meantime.
Read the full review here.
