Class in Britain
As bankers gain pariah status, William D. Rubinstein discusses Britain’s changing attitudes towards the wealthy.
The most important lesson to be drawn from modern history about the wealthy is that they are challenged and hated in societies where upward social mobility is blocked; but are tolerated, even lauded, in societies where upward social mobility appears to exist.
Revolutionary action against the rich, although it is almost always led by small radical groups, has proven to be most successful in societies like France before 1798 or Russia before 1917, where status and power appear to be monopolised by an elite which opposes the inclusion within it of new rising groups. In societies in which existing elites appear more readily to accept new additions to their numbers and in which realistic opportunities exist (or appear to exist) for upward mobility, there is generally much less hostility to riches and wealth.
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