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Read the article, and unless I missed it, they didn't mention the real reason: Primogeniture, or one person keeps it all. So you have 100,000 acres from the 15t

Read the article, and unless I missed it, they didn't mention the real reason: Primogeniture, or one person keeps it all. So you have 100,000 acres from the 15th century and the oldest son gets to it all, intact. If it was split over the centuries, they'd have next to nothing. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/to-the-manor-born-the-female-aristocrats-battling-to-inherit-the-title-8656310.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/to-the-ma... https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/aug/10/new-duke-of-westminster-hugh-grosvenor-inherit-fortune https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/aug/10/new-duke-of-...

Quarrelsome 9y ago
bring back Gavelkind?
- tryingagainbro 9y ago
  Why? I see nothing wrong with the this system, the original owner and the state agree to it. Probably UK is better since a huge estate can make /generate much more income /employment than a 1000 plots of 1.2 acres each. They have power because they have money. A window washer that is the second cousin of Queen Elizabeth and with a nobility title is just a window washer, barely making ends meet. Now Queen Elizabeth's second cousin with 50,000 acres, a nobility title and two castles is a different thing :)
zokier 9y ago
This is actually something that I have sort of encountered/pondered in my own life; while my family has never been wealthy by any degree, they have held a bit of land. But in just couple generations the original "estate" has been splintered into huge amount of small pieces, especially with the bigger family sizes of past. Such small pieces are not really that valuable, and can get "lost" (sold more or less voluntarily, or reach a dead end in family tree) more easily. My father has been trying to counteract this arguably destructive force by offering to buy some lands to keep them in the family, but of course his resources are limited and not everyone sees the splintering or the damage caused by it the same way.
AtomicOrbital 9y ago
The exact opposite of the Islamic approach of selling off everything and giving equally to all children ... this concentration of wealth in the hands of non-royals parlayed into enabling risk taking which helped kick start the industrial revolution in the West

Quarrelsome 9y ago

bring back Gavelkind?

tryingagainbro 9y ago
Why? I see nothing wrong with the this system, the original owner and the state agree to it. Probably UK is better since a huge estate can make /generate much more income /employment than a 1000 plots of 1.2 acres each. They have power because they have money. A window washer that is the second cousin of Queen Elizabeth and with a nobility title is just a window washer, barely making ends meet. Now Queen Elizabeth's second cousin with 50,000 acres, a nobility title and two castles is a different thing :)

zokier 9y ago

This is actually something that I have sort of encountered/pondered in my own life; while my family has never been wealthy by any degree, they have held a bit of land. But in just couple generations the original "estate" has been splintered into huge amount of small pieces, especially with the bigger family sizes of past. Such small pieces are not really that valuable, and can get "lost" (sold more or less voluntarily, or reach a dead end in family tree) more easily. My father has been trying to counteract this arguably destructive force by offering to buy some lands to keep them in the family, but of course his resources are limited and not everyone sees the splintering or the damage caused by it the same way.

AtomicOrbital 9y ago

The exact opposite of the Islamic approach of selling off everything and giving equally to all children ... this concentration of wealth in the hands of non-royals parlayed into enabling risk taking which helped kick start the industrial revolution in the West