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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TigerPaw who wrote (10514)	2/1/2006 3:12:59 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 541863

It becomes less so as dynastic families become lodged in the upper aristocracy. I don't think it is becoming less so. The economy is too dynamic for that. If innovation stagnated and economic change and international trade was greatly reduced than I could see that these "dynasties" might become a problem. But if the wealthy heirs are truly passive their percent of the national income and wealth will shrink as the money is spread among multiple heirs in each generation, and as new innovators and entrepreneurs create more wealth. I also don't think these "dynasties" are really worthy of the name. There are not an aristocracy in the classical sense. Sure the very wealthy has more power and influence than I do, but their relative power declines over time (at least if they are "passive"), and they have less relative power than the old aristocracy. They don't have anything like feudal obligations owed to them. They don't have serfs. The Waltons or the Gates are not the Medicis, and the Kennedys and the Bushes aren't either.