Originally published at ahead.life: https://ahead.life/event/ZXZlbnQ6ZWJhYmJlODAtYmYxMy00NDdmLWE4OWMtZjYzYTI2OTg4MmFj
Is the modern nobility the billionaire class considering how many of them inherit their wealth? What are the consequences? I am a history nerd and will put my two unstructured cents in. "The data comes from cost information website How Much, who illustrated the world’s distribution of billionaires by country and origin of wealth. The size of each country is also relative to its total number of billionaires."
One of the main reasons why the Roman empire, with the advent of Julius Caesar, shifted from a “democratic” senate to a system of emperors was the increased inequality and stagnated system of inheritance. The rich grew richer while the talents and ambitions hidden in the masses never had a chance to flourish. Caesar channeled the frustration that this caused among the masses to make himself emperor.
Napoleon’s success was no different from Caesar’s, and it is remarkable how successful he was. The key characteristic of these dictators was their, at least initial, ability to bring competent people to the forefront of society and to get things done - something that wasn’t done properly before they came to power.
We shouldn’t be surprised then, by the dictatorial forces that are developing around the world and especially in the West. In fact, people behave in the same way as they always have and it is the politicians of the democratic systems that should be blamed by their inability to learn from history. The Romans as well as the French, like people today, did not believe that the bureaucracy of democracy could solve their problems and thus looked to strong individuals for hope, just like people today look to leaders like Duterte, Trump, etc.
Is the people wrong to put their trust in dictatorial leaders? Well, there is a tendency to overestimate the fruitfulness of democracies. We might look to examples such as Athens or Great Britain for inspiration, but that is naive. The most successful period of Athenian democracy was headed by Pericles who in many ways had dictatorial influence.
Winston Churchill is often hailed as a torchbearer of democracy, but we must remember that following the disastrous work of British prime minister Neville Chamberlain leading up to the Second World War, both the parliament and the people put their complete faith in Churchill - an extremely forceful individual.
In here somewhere lies the paradox of the people putting their powers into the hand of a single leader; they expect more to be accomplished, and many times they are right. However, the problem is that they also lose the control over what is accomplished. This is why Churchill said that democracy isn’t good but the best we have.
The main thing to learn from all this is that history is indeed a cycle, and once again, we can observe a system that neglects meritocracy and focuses on inheritance. What will happen? Well, my good friends, the cycle of history will repeat itself.