When they took on the vestments , titles , and properties previously monopolized by the aristocracy , it was because they had assumed a central , increasingly decisive position in the world . While political structures took time to acknowledge their franchise , these merchant capitalists were becoming men of power ' According to Ewen , this middle class claiming of power , was a mask , to let them feel as powerful as the elite that claimed social power . ``Its symbolic identification with power , this "middle class " performed , and...











SUBJECTS

