"Elias related Linz's point to the question of social stratification, and particularly to the tradition of absolutism and its influence in hindering the development of a real multi-party system. Absolute despotism and the tradition it created in Germany - and perhaps in Spain and many other countries - played an important role, because it created a middle class without political experience, a middle class which was consequently counterpart in countries such as England. But to study this problem it was necessary to go back further than the late nineteenth century."

source:

Stuart Joseph Woolf: Discussion - Fascism and the Intellectuals, in: idem (ed.): The Nature of Fascism, New York/N.Y./USA: Vintage Books, , S. 246