Abstract: If analogies superficially the ancient hindus caste system is apparent to the medieval social classes in Europe. The hindus caste system has on behalf of the social solidarity of the sub-caste a far superior dimension which bring a lot of benefits to the population.
On his outline, india caste system is closed to the ancient Egyptian social classes system. The indian caste system is hierarchies in the following order:
In the religion of ancient Egypt, the social classes structure is similar to the Indian one except the pharaoh is at the head of the ruling class and the religious class. The sudra are generally the slave and Asiatic foreigners.
The roman social classes is characterized by the freedom of the cult and competition between the religious priests. In doing so, the religious is considerable weaken face to the ruling and the business.
With the religious freedom of the roman empire, sects propagated. The christian sect develops an anti caste philosophy which help it to spread among slaves and the small business classes. This left wing movement frighten the ruling classes which start persecution against the leaders of the Christian movement.
When in 324, Constantine stated to be in favor of the Christian movement, Christian were below 10 % of the population. Forth centenary after, the Christian church had eliminated all other cults on the name of a single truth. The persecution movement were one of hardest of the history: most pagan temple were destroyed. The antic library of Alexandra in Egypt burned. One side effect of the victory of a left wing movement is the lost of traditional and civic values. The change of values made it impossible for the roman emperor to collect taxes and to maintain the army ready to face the German barbarian. The German took the opportunity to enter in the roman territory. The barbarian invaders were easily converted to the new faith and took over Roma. The result of the collapse of the roman empire is terrific:
However, classes slowly reappear. The ruling class was now the German invader. By forbidding the marriage of priest, the catholic church avoids the constitution of a religious classes by forbidding priest marriage. So, the tradition was that the second child of the family should become a priest. And so, priests were recruited among other classes.
French revolution
The next successful anti-cast movement were the French revolution. During the French revolution, many nobles (ruling classes) were murder and the church has to give up with their privilege. Since then, French society qualify itself has an equalitarian society.
On the opposite, great England kept his social classes system which progressively become less and less important in the economical sphere. The lack of difference between the English and French economical structure is an argument against anti-caste agitator as it seems when the social classes lost their utility, they stop to have any influence on the society.
The caste system of India has a similar hierarchical structure than the European classes (with the religious on the top) but also a community structure the sub-castes. The community structure explain why the caste system is resilient. The sub-castes provide genuine social service and solidarity to their community.
The India caste system is based on hinduism beliefs and so it gives a superior status to the Brahmin caste. This superior status was justified by their monopole in the studies of hinduism.
The caste system of India and Hindu people is one of the most decried institution of the world since the appearance of Buddhism. But according to Hinduism beliefs, if the description of the caste system by Hindu scholar at its foundation is true, the original caste system respected laws of meritocracy and upper castes was accessible to valuable members of lower castes. It was a wonderful barrier against poverty with an inter-caste solidarity far more efficient than the unsuccessful welfare state.
If the Hindu culture and history had not been interrupted by the Muslims and the British invasion, the caste system would have been modernized in the same manner than the state, the business law and finance has been modernized. If so in years 2100, 2500, 3000 AD or latter, India would have had benefited of the best social and economical system that the world had ever known.
The state would have appeared as a defender of the nation against invaders and a regulator and economic conciliator of the casts. The castes would have been capable to innovate in economy and to develop socials structures. They would have been able to make a more adapted and better managed welfare system than the state. The possibility of people to move from one caste to another would have been a protection against the risk of corruption of the caste administration. The caste management team which would have fear the lost of their "citizens" and so be far more efficient against corruption than the Indian state.
The arguments in favor of such a system are based on the prevention of the over-taxation which is a consequences of the decadence of welfare system. Arguments to defend this thesis are based on the theory of system management (versioning) of the software industry and the risk/profit theory of modern finance.
This new system based on the coexistence between communities and as it is the most logical way to manage to create an efficient, well manage and modular social system, it is one the most promising political theory of the future. To avoid the negative connotation of the "caste system", castes are called community. State is called "first level government".
Copyright 2002
Author: Hector Archytas