Apr 18, 2010
The New Aristocracy
When Alexis de Tocqueville wrote of America in the early 19th century in his classicDemocracy in America, he was comparing America’s democracy to the declining norm in Europe: aristocracy.
The European aristocracy, a landed aristocracy, ruled with inheritance and privilege. Exclusionary guilds and inherited wealth kept a calcified social order lacking change and social mobility. Great wealth was to be expected only by those who had it.
Recent Comments