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- Hacker News
- This relic of the days of Kings/Queens/princes/dukes/Lords/Ladies has to be extinguished, root, branch and leaf. There are residues in many European countries as well, slowly fading to irrelevance. The current King should dissolve this system and abdicate and let the remnants shrivel. The UK 'House of Lords' = also gone. Create an elected second house with spread terms, like the USA has, with 6 years and 1/3rd every 2 years. USA has fixed lengths, first house 4 years for all, the senate 6 in 3 staggered pairs. Or something rational. In the UK/Canada/others, there is party discipline and party members vote as told be leader(except for free votes). This blocks buying votes, as happens in the USA and some, where an elected member is free to vote. This appears to 'let the people see', but it creates a fungible vote where a briber can see if the elected member voted as paid, yes illegal, but the word 'bagman' crops up a lot in politics. Paid lobbies need to be outlawed, however they are named\hiddenby aurizon
- In most countries the hereditary caste system that has oppressed the people of the country for centuries is correctly scorned, but the English are very clever and have managed to turn it into a reality tv show.
Speaking of a country that desperately needs a no kings protest...
by anon291 - Spain? Seem pretty entrenched to me. Same in Sweden and the Netherlands and Norway.
The French axed theirs but the French magazine press love a royal, preferably topeless, either in San Tropez or some night club. Peccadilloes sell papers.
People paid thousands for a shot of Lady di on a boat, some commoner reprobate sucking a duchesses toe, seems like hereditary caste system is loved to be hated to be loved.
by ggm - And speaking of country where reality-TV-stars are Kings ...by galaxyLogic
- No Kings!by galaxyLogic
- > “aristocracy” means “rule of the best.”
Should not “rule of the best” rather be called "meritocracy"?
by galaxyLogic - Merit is from Latin, and cracy is a Greek suffix, so combining them together is nonsense. Aristo has the advantage of actually being Greek for "the best."
The word meritocracy was actually popularized (1) by British Labour Party politician Michael Young in his 1958 satirical novel "The Rise of the Meritocracy" which was basically the Idiocracy of its day- in the future idiots will reign supreme sort of thing. But the book was definitely meant to mock the entire idea of society that we live in today. Right down to how the society in the book defined "merit" as basically IQ plus how hard you work, it was a dystopia that came true.
1: Apparently someone else actually coined the term two years earlier in a peer reviewed paper, but Young was where it broke through into general use.
by mandevil - In that sense, all types of government are "rule of the best". The differences are just in the metrics used to determine who...by bell-cot
- "Meritocracy" was a satirical term invented to mock the way that the markers and abilities suggested by "merit" tend to accrue self-reinforcingly to the "meritorious" and those connected to them, creating a stratified society that pretends to justice and legitimacy by appeals to "natural" outcomes of "natural" advantages or "better work ethic", and dismissal of calls for reform with pleas that changes could only result in "less-meritorious", so, necessarily, worse, rule.
The word itself is basically a joke about the circularity and word-game bullshit of "well we assign power according to merit, so anything else is necessarily less-just". If it's not clear, consider: "Goodocracy" or "Bestocracy", or "everyone-gets-what-they-deserve-ocracy". Like... yes, sure, but the details are everything, that's just a vague appeal to stuff approximately everyone wants.
It's entirely hilarious that it's been adopted as a serious term.
by phantasmish - Hot take: hereditary kingdoms were a reasonably successful solution to curbing constant civil war in a time when representative democracies might not have been viable (for various reasons).by overvale
- I'm sort of amazed that democracies came into existence at all.
On the other hand, I guess the actions of kings were a catalyst. (crazy taxation, closing ports, quartering troops, etc)
by m463 - Republics, like Venice and San Marino (oldest Republic still in existence), endured for a millennia.
I'll accept they don't have a good track record for defending themselves from hereditary monarchies. e.g. Nizny Novgorod to Muscovy, Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (technically elected monarchy) to Prussia-Russia-Austria.
by rgblambda - How can you have a democracy when 90% of the populous is working 12 hour days 6-7 days a week just to pay the bills? How are they going to have an opinion on anything, other than “Stuff is too expensive”.by leobg
- I don’t think you could call it reasonably successful. For example, much of European history consisted of war and succession disputes. The entire system of aristocracy was prone to instability and shifting alliances. It turns out hereditary succession is not a good way to choose a competent political leader.by csb6
- It mirrors what happens when any legacy institution (whether it's nobility or old tech) tries to survive in a world that's stopped needing it but still watches it, half-curious, half-conflictedby RataNova
- Slightly related: to any British readers, I have a question. In the past few weeks, I have seen more and more YouTube videos showing most of Britain outside of London as being essentially like Detroit. How bad are things really?by siavosh
- The contrast between London and the rest of the country is real and growing, and it's hard not to noticeby RataNova
- What is wrong with Motown?
You seem to be picking on a US city as an example of (something) and attempting to apply (something) to the entirety of the UK that isn't a particular city in the UK.
Are you sure that is a wise comparison? I'm certain that Youtube is a source of information, but are you sure it is a useful one?
I live next door to a park and have just stuffed shit loads of cash into an American cruise company as a passenger (P&O - British name, American owner).
I'm alright mate and I'm sure you are too.
by gerdesj - Detroit is known as a place with lots of abandoned buildings and I don’t think something similar exists in the UK. There are poor regions but AFIAK they don’t look like Detroit. Many high street shops are closed but it doesn’t mean that everything is bad. High street shops were hit hard first by COVID lockdowns then by high inflation (people can afford less) but rents continued to be high. It sad to see a row of boarded shops but it’s not everywhere and eventually landlords probably will reduce rent prices.by citrin_ru
- This is a somewhat silly question because you could probably get anecdotal replies of all kinds to it. Some things are different to how they used to be, and in some cases different in ways that feel bad. For example, there are more empty shops in the town centre where I live compared to 20 years ago, which for some people evokes a strong emotional reaction and a sense of loss.
When you say "like Detroit" I assume, having never been, that you mean a high crime rate and unemployment rate? You could visit the ONS: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeand... https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peoplenotin...
My own personal experience tends to back up what the data here show (no significant changes really) - I teach in a large secondary school and really, kids today are not massively different from how they've ever been. They face challenges in navigating the vast amounts of information and misinformation presented nowadays, but we do try to educate them as best as possible in respect of this.
Cheers and hope this helps.
by mistr0 - Not noticeably any worse than over the last 15 years.
Be wary of what you are fed on YouTube (or any major social network) they are astroturfed to hell at this point.
Life here isn’t great for a lot of people but it’s not super terrible either for the most part, we have broadly the same problems as many western nations (aging population, corporations running amok, slow and expensive infrastructure development, expensive housing, low wage growth).
We are still a safe wealthy western democracy though.
by noir_lord - Abandoned homes in any great number would be a real surprise. I think those videos are likely quite carefully staged.
I left the UK about four years ago but AFAICT the picture of housing over there hasn’t changed a lot - it keeps going up in price and there’s a shortage.
There are economic problems at the moment, and service provision problems in particular with the NHS. A decade of post 08 GFC austerity stripped public services and hammered government investment, which turned out to have not been that smart. Then Brexit hammered trade.
Closed-up shops have been a minor trend for a while - small shops have been failing for years due to high taxes, insane rents and being thoroughly outcompeted by the internet. Many old-fashioned high streets have become little more than strips of coffee shops and charity retailers, the former because apparently there is no limit to the appetite for coffee, the latter because they often get tax and rent concessions.
It has always been true that London is like its own country, with transport, employment and investment there dwarfing everywhere else, and tackling this to spread out the prosperity more widely has been a consistent failure of British politics for as long as I remember.
Beyond London there’s the ever expanding, fairly wealthy belt of dormitory-towns, and then there’s the rest of the country, which in my last visit did just feel run down.
I’ve been to Detroit, and I’ve read about the decline there. I don’t think the UK is anywhere near that. But it is languishing in a prolonged economic malaise.
by Nursie - That assumes our knowledge of Detroit is more informed that yours of the UK ;-)
Generally there is a lot of propaganda around at the moment, so take that with a pinch of salt. The UK is not as well off as the US generally, but this does not mean there is a breakdown of society or law and order.
The propagandists would have you believe that there is a massive crime wave and social breakdown due to immigration, but what people are mostly worried about in actuality is job uncertainty and backlogged public services.
There are areas of wealth and of deprivation both inside and outside London. There is political and economic uncertainty because the UK economy is imbalanced, and most people expect a difficult few years and are sceptical that the government knows how to fix the issues (and that vested interests won't prevent the solution)
by ajb - Seems a bit shallow.
The real downfall of the great British houses (architectural sense) was the financial catastrophe that 1914 to 1946 was for the British Empire. Top billing in two world wars - and they went from being blatantly the richest and most powerful nation on earth, to needing a US Treasury bail-out to avoid national bankruptcy.
(Though over in America, most of the historic grand mansions are now tourist attractions, for lack of heirs with the wealth and interest in maintaining them.)
And the benefits of British aristocratic titles faded over quite a few centuries, not just recently. Compare King Charles I of the early 1600's (Parliament didn't like his exercise of Divine Right) with George III of the later 1700's (a clever King could appoint his own Prime Ministers against Parliament's wishes) with Queen Victoria of the later 1800's (she complained to the PM that the Foreign Secretary was taking actions without her approval) with Queen Elizabeth II of the later 1900's (she dutifully read her supposed "Queen's Speech" to Parliament, whether she agreed with a word of it or not).
by bell-cot - >(Though over in America, most of the historic grand mansions are now tourist attractions, for lack of heirs with the wealth and interest in maintaining them.)
Taxes had a lot to do with it--though, really, in the UK as well. In Newport RI, a lot of the gilded era mansions ended up donated to a local college because, as you say, the heirs didn't have either the wealth or the interest in maintaining (and playing the taxes on) them. A lot of these places were also summer "cottages" and would require a huge amount of money to update to modern standards. I know someone whose extended family owned one of these places (not in Newport but similar) and it was going to be a huge expense; don't know how it ended up.
by ghaff - I read a biography of a British politician who was later elevated to the aristocracy (although I guess his family was somewhere between commoner and aristocrat prior to that). It said his family took a financial hit because of a decline in crops in the late 1800s. I dug it up and found out that the US was partly responsible for that actually because of cheaper imported grains. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_depression_of_British_ag...
Many aristocrats relied on agricultural income from their property holdings.
Another interesting point is that it seems like the majority of titles were awarded relatively recently as in within the last 120-150 years. That doesn't mean there aren't some older ones but it changes the perception of them from being a centuries old group of warlords or relatives of the king to a group of lawyers, military officers, and politicians.
- > (Though over in America, most of the historic grand mansions are now tourist attractions, for lack of heirs with the wealth and interest in maintaining them.)
Part of this is that the "old money" tended to withdraw from public life after the Great Depression when they decided infamy was a serious liability.
That's why one struggles to name any of the living heirs of the big names of that era, who are absolutely still filthy stinking rich, while newbies like Musk, everyone knows. The culture of what Fussell calls the "top out-of-sight" is to remain sufficiently anonymous that nobody knows their given names unless one goes looking (and even then, it may be hard to find much trace of them). A bunch of them don't show up on any of those "richest" lists not because they couldn't rank, but because you effectively have to opt-in to those, for enough of your wealth to be traceable without great effort to get counted.
Owning a highly-visible Newport mansion could well be a mark of poor taste, among that set.
They still have their grand houses, they just may not (though, may) be in the Georgian or Neoclassical style or whatever, and they're probably not visible (from remotely close-up, at any rate) from any public road. Drive minor highways in the right parts of the country and look for nice (though, not necessarily imposing or impressive) gates leading into what looks like a simple, wooded lot with an unremarkable, perhaps even gravel, drive that immediately disappears into the trees, and you've probably found one, and they're all over the place... plus their families will usually own plenty of extremely nice, but not flashy, well-located houses and condos and such in more-populated areas.
by phantasmish - I live next to a baron, next town lives a count. Both are just moderately wealthy humans.
There is one distinction that sets them apart from "new money": They could not leave without loosing a significant part of their identity and influence.
I grew up among socialists, I have no love for aristocracy, but in times when the schism between rich and poor widens a caste of people that are bound by custom to be loyal to a place, meaning they are reluctant to abandon their local community, might be worth more than we think.
by niemandhier - When wealth is mobile, so is responsibility. But when your name, history, and even public expectations are tied to a specific region or estate, there's a kind of inherited social accountability that's harder to walk away fromby RataNova
- Forgive me if I don't shed a tear because somebody can't live in a giant house anymore.by BrenBarn