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This article presents the idea that aristocracy on whole in Britain is as powerful as it ever was - which is a fallacy - the aristocracy was devastated by the d

by Aloha 9y ago

This article presents the idea that aristocracy on whole in Britain is as powerful as it ever was - which is a fallacy - the aristocracy was devastated by the death of an entire generation of its best and brightest in World War I, it was bled deeply by taxes between 1918 and 1980, it was stripped largely of its political power (reduction of hereditary peers, removal of the veto power of the House of Lords, removal of the House of Lords as a court of appeal) - those who survived (with wealth) have survived because of either the specific assets they owned - or because of good business savvy, or a combination of both. Consider that a majority of the peerage didn't come out still owning estates - most of them fell out into the middle class and 'work for a living' - even those with great wealth, now mostly act as businessmen rather than merely shepherds of that wealth.

gwern 9y ago
Overall, this article is a tissue of misleading statistics, anecdotes, and lack of context. The largest figure mentioned is 4 billion pounds; which is about as much as you might earn by selling an odd video game about crude blocks to Microsoft. Wow, so impress, much 'preservation of power'. The House of Lords rhetoric is also odd - how do anecdotes about a largely inactive house they've been mostly expelled out of show that they "preserved their power"? Or take this one: > The figures for Scotland are even more striking. Nearly half the land is in the hands of 432 private individuals and companies. More than a quarter of all Scottish estates of more than 5,000 acres are held by a list of aristocratic families. In total they hold some 2.24m acres, largely in the Lowlands. 'private individuals and companies' != 'aristocracy', by any means. You could say something very similar about the USA, which has not had an aristocracy in 200+ years - because all countries have considerable wealth inequality. And, uh, what exactly are we supposed to take away from dicing Scottish landholdings into "estates of more than 5,000 acres"? Perhaps we are supposed to be astonished by the fact that rich people buy London real estate and "rent" it out? Or perhaps we are supposed to be impressed by > According to the 2016 Sunday Times Rich List, 30 peers are each worth £100m or more. So in other words, they're collectively worth about as much as Magic Leap or Slack? Truly impressive, I see now that England is ruled as much as ever by the aristocracy, it is merely hidden better. Hang the bastards!
- ZeroGravitas 9y ago
  I think you're trying too hard. Minecraft is a phenomenon. Why would you feel the need to talk it down as an "odd video game" just so that its price doesn't seem so high. You apparently also think that an individual being worth the same as 1/30th of a highly successful business even though their main claim to fame was being born to the right person isn't remarkable.
  - gwern 9y ago
    If Minecraft were the only video game in history, or the most successful one, or the majority of the video game industry, then you might have a point. But it is merely one of many franchises or players along with Mario, League of Legends, Starcraft, Dota, WoW, Angry Birds etc etc. That is my point: none of these numbers are given any kind of context and OP is relying on sheer innumeracy to intimidate the reader. "4 billion pounds! Wow, that's a lot!" Actually no, it's not, it's a tiny portion of an entire economy (UK national wealth is more like 9000 billion pounds). What OP needs to do is show that aristocrats control a large and relatively unchanged from historical levels of the economy, and they fail abysmally at that, to the point where you have to conclude the opposite: if the richest aristocrat they can find is that poor and these are the best statistics they can come up with, that rather disproves their case. > You apparently also think that an individual being worth the same as 1/30th of a highly successful business even though their main claim to fame was being born to the right person isn't remarkable. It isn't. The Forbes list has many non-aristocrats who inherited much or all of their money and are vastly wealthier. Consider the Waltons heirs. As I said, wealth inequality is nothing new or interesting.
    - ZeroGravitas 9y ago
      Surely you choose Minecraft because it was unusual, unusual in delivering so much wealth to one person. The creator of Mario isn't as rich is he? You could point to a lot of people who have contributed amazing things to society and who aren't even millionaires, but you did exactly the opposite. You found a game dev who was very unusually a Billionaire, then you talked down the product that made him so rich as if he wasn't even special. You also said the House of Lords is "largely inactive" which doesn't really seem connected with reality either. Do you mind sharing why you're so keen to minimise this?
zokier 9y ago
Indeed. More intriguing is how the aristocracy has fallen. Naively it might seem that at the dawn of industrial revolution the aristocracy held most of the cards in their hand, but somehow fumbled massively and allowed industrial magnates to overtake them in wealth (and power). Now they are barely a shadow of their former selves. Interesting question is if aristocracy would even been able to utilize their massive capital (that was mostly bound to land ownership) to reap the benefits of all the new industry that popped up.
- andrewjl 9y ago
  It might be akin to why startups regularly supplant and defeat large incumbents, you need a certain level of ingenuity and perspective that those incumbents don't have. Traditional aristocracy had a very different view of the world compared to merchants and factory owners.
- Boothroid 9y ago
  Reversion to the mean? Whatever exceptional attributes or good fortune led to wealth and power dissipated. Now the Rothschilds on the other hand seem to have managed to hold on pretty effectively.

by Aloha 9y ago

gwern 9y ago

Overall, this article is a tissue of misleading statistics, anecdotes, and lack of context. The largest figure mentioned is 4 billion pounds; which is about as much as you might earn by selling an odd video game about crude blocks to Microsoft. Wow, so impress, much 'preservation of power'. The House of Lords rhetoric is also odd - how do anecdotes about a largely inactive house they've been mostly expelled out of show that they "preserved their power"? Or take this one: > The figures for Scotland are even more striking. Nearly half the land is in the hands of 432 private individuals and companies. More than a quarter of all Scottish estates of more than 5,000 acres are held by a list of aristocratic families. In total they hold some 2.24m acres, largely in the Lowlands. 'private individuals and companies' != 'aristocracy', by any means. You could say something very similar about the USA, which has not had an aristocracy in 200+ years - because all countries have considerable wealth inequality. And, uh, what exactly are we supposed to take away from dicing Scottish landholdings into "estates of more than 5,000 acres"? Perhaps we are supposed to be astonished by the fact that rich people buy London real estate and "rent" it out? Or perhaps we are supposed to be impressed by > According to the 2016 Sunday Times Rich List, 30 peers are each worth £100m or more. So in other words, they're collectively worth about as much as Magic Leap or Slack? Truly impressive, I see now that England is ruled as much as ever by the aristocracy, it is merely hidden better. Hang the bastards!

ZeroGravitas 9y ago
I think you're trying too hard. Minecraft is a phenomenon. Why would you feel the need to talk it down as an "odd video game" just so that its price doesn't seem so high. You apparently also think that an individual being worth the same as 1/30th of a highly successful business even though their main claim to fame was being born to the right person isn't remarkable.
- gwern 9y ago
  If Minecraft were the only video game in history, or the most successful one, or the majority of the video game industry, then you might have a point. But it is merely one of many franchises or players along with Mario, League of Legends, Starcraft, Dota, WoW, Angry Birds etc etc. That is my point: none of these numbers are given any kind of context and OP is relying on sheer innumeracy to intimidate the reader. "4 billion pounds! Wow, that's a lot!" Actually no, it's not, it's a tiny portion of an entire economy (UK national wealth is more like 9000 billion pounds). What OP needs to do is show that aristocrats control a large and relatively unchanged from historical levels of the economy, and they fail abysmally at that, to the point where you have to conclude the opposite: if the richest aristocrat they can find is that poor and these are the best statistics they can come up with, that rather disproves their case. > You apparently also think that an individual being worth the same as 1/30th of a highly successful business even though their main claim to fame was being born to the right person isn't remarkable. It isn't. The Forbes list has many non-aristocrats who inherited much or all of their money and are vastly wealthier. Consider the Waltons heirs. As I said, wealth inequality is nothing new or interesting.
  - ZeroGravitas 9y ago
    Surely you choose Minecraft because it was unusual, unusual in delivering so much wealth to one person. The creator of Mario isn't as rich is he? You could point to a lot of people who have contributed amazing things to society and who aren't even millionaires, but you did exactly the opposite. You found a game dev who was very unusually a Billionaire, then you talked down the product that made him so rich as if he wasn't even special. You also said the House of Lords is "largely inactive" which doesn't really seem connected with reality either. Do you mind sharing why you're so keen to minimise this?

zokier 9y ago

Indeed. More intriguing is how the aristocracy has fallen. Naively it might seem that at the dawn of industrial revolution the aristocracy held most of the cards in their hand, but somehow fumbled massively and allowed industrial magnates to overtake them in wealth (and power). Now they are barely a shadow of their former selves. Interesting question is if aristocracy would even been able to utilize their massive capital (that was mostly bound to land ownership) to reap the benefits of all the new industry that popped up.

andrewjl 9y ago
It might be akin to why startups regularly supplant and defeat large incumbents, you need a certain level of ingenuity and perspective that those incumbents don't have. Traditional aristocracy had a very different view of the world compared to merchants and factory owners.
Boothroid 9y ago
Reversion to the mean? Whatever exceptional attributes or good fortune led to wealth and power dissipated. Now the Rothschilds on the other hand seem to have managed to hold on pretty effectively.