Redirection

Monday, November 28, 2022

Do We Need An Upper Class?

 The question is purely rhetorical, of course, since any society will have a ruling elite, that's just the way things are.

The real question is who the members of elite are going to be. In Europe in Middle Ages, the upper class consisted chiefly of warrior aristocracy, the male representatives of which were supposed to fight for the interests of the king and country and as such, had special privileges. It's no doubt that many of them nowadays would be described as a sociopath/psychopath, their equivalent nowadays would be elite mercenaries de-facto ruling the country.

This old European aristocracy blended with rising bourgeoisie later on the way as capitalism starting developing. In some countries, you got various revolutions which chiefly swept this particular category of people away, while many other European countries kept the monarchy intact but undertook some reforms and are currently trying to pretend they are shining examples of democracy. 

The truth is, the upper class became much more caste-like, secretive and insulated than even in medieval times, where you could get inheritable nobility bestowed on you for your service provided to your country while nowadays the only way to join them is either to be born in one of these families or become obscenely rich and marry into one.

And when you start looking closely at who is occupying all the positions of importance, there are still these people around. They have dropped the old "noblesse oblige"  principle and are cheerfully screwing their lessers on the behalf of the international financial elites. A funny thing is that in places like UK, they keep promoting themselves by making countless TV series and movies about themselves, like Downton Abbey which are especially popular in the USA, the country which fought a revolution to get free from the British Crown, of all places.

I honestly don't get this obsession with (British) upper classes. When you look at the consequences of their current rule, the government of elite mercs would probably be an improvement...

5 comments:

  1. Old Aristocracy is more of a True Meritocracy than the current one.

    Warrior Aristocracy is itself a form of Meritocracy especially when the Men risk their lives in battle. Therefore Competence is selected for.

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  2. Warrior aristocracy yes, financial capitalism aristocracy no...

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  3. Just imagine modern politicians out there on the battlefield like the medieval kings used to do. Or fighting duels with each other for their honour. Of course, it means one should have it first, lol!

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  4. My husband who is a former soldier/peacekeeper/mercenary says that wars had stopped long ago if the ruling class participated in the battlefield as they used to. On the other hand armies are more likely to surrender when their laptops/tablets cease to work... So perhaps it is not necessary to go back to Medieval times even though I do love the aesthetics of that era :-)

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  5. Yeah, that's what my Auntie said recently. Send 'em all to the trenches:)

    Well, I heard some armies forbid their front line soldiers to use their mobiles, that's really an ordeal for anyone this day!

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