Comment by gregwebs

This is fascinating after learning about and rading Peter Turchin's concept of Eelite overproduction [1]. The theory is that much of society's conflicts are actually fights between the elite and that this happens when the elite start fighting for the same resources.

From that point of view they seemed to have created a system that stopped the elites from starting wars with each other by imprisoning their families. And although they levered high taxes they did force many elites to accept a small amount of resources per elite to the point that some in elite status were effectively poor. Instead of money they got status and a title.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elite_overproduction