4 ms·
What's wrong with aristocracy? It seems like we have not rid ourselves of a single problem that old aristocratic societies had, we only got rid of the benefits
by simonsarris 8y ago
What's wrong with aristocracy? It seems like we have not rid ourselves of a single problem that old aristocratic societies had, we only got rid of the benefits and then kept all the bad parts.
Today's rich are not bound by any noblesse oblige, their money can more than ever exclusively benefit far-off places. Instead of building Rome or adding more beauty to Paris, they build gated communities. In patronizing art they tend to only flatter each other, it seems, (though maybe the art world of early Florence or Amsterdam were just as much "insider" art scenes, I don't know.) Beautiful things, especially beautiful cities, are not built anymore. Anything built that might benefit the middle class or lower is totally stripped, economized away. Most beautiful things (buildings, plazas) in cities were built long before high tax rates existed.
Politics is still run by rich families (Bush, Kennedy, Clinton in the US) or rich businessmen (Trump, Bloomberg). Power is still held by the nobility, its just that the nobility is not held to any standards and barely cares for the country they reside in, beyond their gates.
- lumberjack 8y agoWe got rid of a lot of "bad parts". For example we got rid of institutionalized classism whereby certain stations in society were reserved for nobles and royals. And one other thing facet to think about is that "avoiding collapse" is not necessarily the same as progress. These new aristocrats may decide to give everyone just the very minimum to get by, leaving the masses in a sort of limbo. And then that defeats the whole point of capitalism; the individual is not longer in control of their destiny.