Reviews for Debating England's Aristocracy in the 1790s: Pamphlets, Polemics and Political Ideas

The average rating for Debating England's Aristocracy in the 1790s: Pamphlets, Polemics and Political Ideas based on 2 reviews is 2 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2008-10-14 00:00:00 Alan Hanson There ought to be a way to give a book two scores. If there were I would give this both a 2 and a 4. I have been looking for a book that would update things I read in the 70s; books that emerge from the C. Wright Mills school of political economic sociology. For example, Mills' Power Elite, Domhoff's higher circles and Lundberg's Rich and Super Rich. This book would seem to fit into this collection. If Frank is correct, he also updates my thinking. I was/am still working under the influence of the above books which claim that the old money -- Rockefellers, Duponts, etc. -- control much of the economy, polity, and culture. Frank claims that the old money is no longer in power. The new money -- millionaires and billionaires that have emerged from within the middle class within the last 25 years have far, far more money and they are currently working their way into politics and culture as well. I will have to read a few more things before I can rest easy with Frank's claim, but if he is correct than he has done me is a great service. Frank is not an academic. This is good since this means he writes well; bad, since we get very little theory, just a few references to Thorsten Veblen. Nor is he a critic of capitalism. This is also good and bad. First the bad: he accepts that the accumulation of vast private wealth is ethically acceptable. Indeed, the weakest aspect of his ethnology of what he calls the Richistanis, is how completely he identifies with them. The umpteenth reference to the size of their houses, yachts, and bank accounts, the constant mention of their jets, cars, watches, and vacation all amount to a kind of thinly veiled envious voyeurism. They let him into see their stuff and their lives and he is utterly seduced. This absence of ethical judgment and critical reflection serves him well in once sense -- it allows him to describe their lives in great detail. And especially in the last 6 chapters, the descriptions really add up to something despite Frank's rich-struck gaze. Chapter 7, "Size Really does matter" is the most theoretical chapter. Relying on Veblen he explains how the Richistanis are forced into a competition amongst themselves to have the biggest boats, houses, cars, etc. and how this competition disallows them to ever slow down their lives, enjoy their possessions, or search for meaning. Their competitive drive is apparent even when Richistanis move into philanthropy (chapter 8). This chapter would go nicely with the claims of those such as Maren's Road to Hell who demonstrate the utter emptiness and destructiveness of philanthropy. There is a section, however, in which frank holds out hope that the new philanthropists will save the world. Chapter 9 shows how four of the new rich have helped to defeat the republicans in Colorado. Frank claims that the new rich are more enamored with Democrats -- they have so much wealth that they don't need to be greedy and thus turn to make their lives meaningful either through philanthropy or quasi-socialist politics. Chapter 10 is really quite useful. Frank shows what Marx so brilliantly understood, that once we realize that the drive to wealth is infinite and therefore without an objective target, then eventually we also understand that wealth on its own is utterly incapable of satisfying human desire. For Marx, wealth is a necessary but not sufficient condition for a good life. This chapter is about the problems of the super rich and it shows how they set up support groups in order to buoy each other's spirits. Marx makes the claim that capitalism exploits the capitalist and Frank's ethnology helps us see how this is the case. Nevertheless, the benefits of this book accrue to the reader, often, despite Frank's naivete. He ends his book with a section titled "A Sliver of Hope." Allow me to quote from page 249: "There is, however, one glimmer of hope. Even as the economy and the global markets dump more an more money into the hands of a few (or few million), the Richistanis will have even more wealth and power to fix society's most pressing problems. If we accept that the rich aren't the cause of the current inequalities, but merely the lucky beneficiaries, we can also hope that they will use their wealth to target society's deepest problems." What?! Having shown us that they are mere mortals, that they are, in a sense mere victims of wealth, that their fortunes are the result of simple and stupid luck (they do work hard but so do most of us), he pins the planets hopes on their intelligence and good will? Fat chance. One day Frank will re-write this book with the sensibility of a theorist and historian. Until then the rest of us will have to give his evidence a resonance that his pop sensibility cannot provide.

Review # 2 was written on 2020-12-12 00:00:00 Martha Elizalde A well-written if underwhelming tour of the lives of America's gilded class. The book is dated for having been published over a decade ago and indeed right before the calamitous 2008 financial crisis. Frank doesn't engage the question of whether it is ethical or spiritually healthy for anyone to accumulate hundreds of millions of dollars in personal wealth or to own multiple colors of the same Rolls Royce Phantom. What he does illustrate though is just how many people like this there are (a lot) and the degree to which money itself feels like an illusory concept. Perhaps before 2008 it was still plausible to feel like there was anything remotely wholesome about this kind of accumulation, but I would volunteer that far fewer people would receive this book well today. The analysis is very journalistic, lots of scenes and quotes, but also light on big picture contextualizing. For that reason I would say its analytic value today is limited, although it is an easy read.