In 2007, Peter Oborne wrote an essay in the Spectator on how the Establishment in Britain, which was a collection of people from varied professions, has been replaced in the 21st century by a homogeneous Political Class that is about as divorced from the people as the aristocracy of France's Ancien Régime .It turns out that this is not an isolated phenomenon and that the United States suffers as badly, if not worse, from the same disease. In the American Spectator, Angelo M. Codevilla has a longish, but highly readable examination of America's self-appointed false elite. Meanwhile, Victor Davis Hanson has his own take on the soft-handed bunch, Jonah Goldberg talks about and Ed Driscoll elaborates on how, despite the false elite, the rules are changing.
Excellent. Now that we've isolated the bacillus on both sides of the Atlantic, perhaps we can come up with a cure.
Read 'em, actually. Comments.
ReplyDeleteFor Comrade Codevilla, I'd say that privilege has always been about whom one knows to one degree or another. There has always been a self-sustaining old-boy class, and a hard-handed working class. The more middle-class there was between the two---the more space in between for a man to improve his lot through education and work---the better for the society. For Goldberg-san et al., not sure I agree. Pessimistically, I would say that we are reverting to the system of patronage, which is the usual, rather then the exceptional, condition in history. As usual, I like what Prof. Hanson has to say.