Answer:
A) The lives of the merchant class were dependent on the decisions of the elites.
Step-by-step explanation:
The merchant class were not part of the aristocracy, but they were gaining similar econoimc power in the eighteenth century, mostly because they had investments in trade and industry.
However, they still did not hold as much political power. The political power was still largely in the hand of the aristocracy, and the merchants resented this because they wanted to obtain political power to take the decisions that affected them.