@RefurioAnachro What snapped political factions into strong focus for me was reading a description of the situation in Rome at the end of the Republic and dawn of the Empire:

It was the agrarian problem that sparked off the violence that was ultimately to destroy the Republic. Tiberius Gracchus' bill [Lex Sempronia Agraria, Ed], enacted in 133 B.C. for distributing the public land, after leaving a generous allowance to the occupiers, in small lots to poor citizens, excited such furious resistance among the senatorial landowners that a group of them lynched Gracchus. This was the first in a series of violent clashes between two groups who called themselves the optimates and the populares. The nucleus of the optimates was the small clique of nobles (men whose fathers, grandfathers, or more remote ancestors had been consuls) who more or less monopolized the highest offices and dominated the Senate, but they had wide support among the propertied class, even, as Cicero says, prosperous freedman; otherwise they could not have maintained their unbroken hold on the higher magistracies. They were conservatives, who regarded the rights of property as sacred, and therefore resisted bitterly any attempts to redistribute land or cancel debt. They were upholders of the constitution and of religion, which could be used to block any revolutionary legislation. Though at times they had to yield to popular pressure, they always remained the government.

The populares were a much less well defined group. Their leaders were individual politicians or very small groups of politicians, who at intervals attempted to legislate in the interests of the people, by which they meant the common people....

That's from A.H.M. Jones, Augustus. More:

https://web.archive.org/web/20230607042525/https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/6i2h0e/ahm_jones_augustus_the_breakdown_of_the_republic/

In particular it's the make-up, policies, and challenges of each group which strikes me as entirely timeless. At the same time, there's no direct through-line from Rome to the present which would suggest a 2,000+ year conspiracy, but rather strongly-persistent emergent behaviours.

Edit: Markdown.

#Augustus #AHMJones #Populares #Optimates #LeftRightPolitics #Rome

@CptSuperlative

@natecull In the grander scheme of things, I'm finding it interesting that representational politics seems to have a profound tendency (dating to Roman times, literally) of dividing into parties of Capital and Labour.

Employers and HR department, as you note.

"Capital" was initially: land and oligarchical access to government as in the hereditary role of Roman senators, since the Industrial Revolution, capital, finance, and distributional networks.

"Labour" in Roman times were the populares, the non-slave working class and most of the Roman colonies.

The swing voters were the equites, which included what we'd call the professional, skilled trades, merchants, and business classes. Their allegiances varied between the optimates and populares depending on political circumstances.

I think I've pointed out A.H.M. Jones's Augustus and its introductory paragraphs before. Realising that the political battle lines were drawn over 2,000 years ago was something of an insight:
https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/6i2h0e/ahm_jones_augustus_the_breakdown_of_the_republic/

#AHMJones #Augustus #optimates #populares #equites #politics #capital #labour