The term the “monied elite” is one in frequent use among social commentators these days and rightfully so. There is much discussion and worry about the concentration of wealth into the hands of the “top 1%” of the world’s population and the decline of the middle class.
Elites are rarely patriots; it is contrary to the definition of the term. Elites are transnational because their wealth is so immense, no single nation can account for it. Elites own wealth in multiple jurisdictions so as to avoid the restrictions of any single nation’s laws. Elites base their wealth upon money and banking because it is mobile wealth which can be moved, hidden, and defended quickly and easily. Elites are often involved in international trade and various forms of colonialism. Their loyalty is to their fellow elites in other countries; their patriotism is usually feigned and transient.
Aristocracies, on the other hand, are not necessarily elites – although mistaken for such – but rather are nationalistic because they represent the best class of leaders which a nation can produce in science, industry, education and politics. The very term means “the rule of the best,” and suggests people who have advanced themselves through hard work and community service. The 20/80 Rule applies: 20% of the people are the ones who innovate, lead, and get things done. The 80% follow along, often complaining, but not doing anything to make a difference.
The American Colonial experience illustrates this principle on many levels. America’s Founding Fathers were often members of the landed gentry: men who owned immense plantations and estates, but were money poor. The monied elite of London made sure that the American gentry were always in debt to their banks, with an ever-shrinking money supply. They were alarmed at the “colonial script” advocated by Benjamin Franklin and others to help facilitate local commerce. Parliament’s oppressive taxes were proxy efforts to take money out of circulation: the Colonists resented it.
Eventually, America’s aristocracy had enough of the oppression when King George III arrogantly overplayed his hand in a series of contemptuous violations of the Colonists rights as Englishmen. Arbitrary confiscation of property ensued as British mercenaries hunted down the rebels. The rest is history.
After Independence, the American national experience was one of a continuing struggle between its aristocracy and the world elite. It has been, first and foremost, an ideological struggle. That is why the public university system was conceived by them to defend “republican principles.”
However, for the children of the wannabe elite, America’s universities were not good enough for them. George Washington saw with foreboding their foreign travel for education in “elite” European schools:
It is with indescribable regret, that I have seen the youth of the United States migrating to foreign countries, in order to acquire the higher branches of erudition. . . Although it would be injustice to many to pronounce the certainty of their imbibing maxims not congenial with republicanism, it must nevertheless be admitted, that a serious danger is encountered by sending abroad among other political systems those, who have not well learned the value of their own. (from the collections of Verna Hall and Rosalie Slater of the Foundation for American Christian Education, The Christian History of the Constitution, p. 416)
While aristocracies can be either good or bad, Thomas Jefferson, who wanted to be remembered more for the founding of the University of Virginia than for being the 3rd President of the United States, is alleged to have said, “We need an aristocracy of virtue . . . the virtue of Jesus.” Smarting from verbal attacks for his heterodoxies, he, nevertheless, was an advocate of non-sectarian education, but not the advocate of a non-Christian one. It is with admiration and hope that Virginia’s aristocracy has again chosen the course of patriotism in recent elections, perhaps more out of a sense of self-preservation than of altruism – but a change of course, nonetheless.
–JWS
