I occasionally hear things in the news that are so stupid that it makes me want to scream. For example I’ve read a couple of articles lately praising the Lords of Downton Abbey for providing jobs. Here’s an example at Quartz, an online magazine: Downton Abbey's Hidden Class Appeal The idea seems to be that the wealthy upper class, and by implication the 1%, really are “job creators.”
But here’s what makes me crazy. Lord Grantham of Downton Abbey isn’t providing jobs out of the goodness of his heart. He’s providing jobs because his Estate is one of the last vestiges of Feudalism. Downton Abbey is a product of the British feudal system, and the show depicts how this system met its demise in England after the First World War.
Feudalism wasn’t some wonderful system where the well off felt obligated to help the poor. It was a system of interlocking duties. The Lords ruled a realm, and the people were part of the realm. They were there, and it was the duty of the aristocracy to protect them. The Lord also had duties to the King: he had to pay taxes, and supply men for an army should the need arise. So the aristocracy relied upon the peasants they ruled. They relied upon the farmers to work the land to feed the people of the estate, and to create surplus for taxes sent to the King. They also relied upon the male peasants to serve as foot soldiers should the King call upon them to do their Feudal duty and show up leading an army.
If you look solely at one metric, employment, this was a great system. This was a system that had, essentially, zero unemployment. Even the most addled person could how a row of crops or muck out stalls. (Re-watch “Monty Python and the Holy Grail” to get a sense of how that worked.) But by every other measure it was pretty horrible. Thomas Hobbes looked at this world and said that for people “life was nasty, brutish, and short.”
Feudalism began to die out in Europe in the Renaissance with the expansion of commerce and the development of Mercantilism. It was abolished in France by the Revolution, and it ended in Russia in 1861 when Czar Alexander II abolished serfdom. Its last tentacles extended into the modern world on the great landed estates of England. The system was wholly unsuited for the modern capitalistic economy, as shown by the financial struggles of the Granthams of Downton Abbey.
So anyone who says that Downton Abby somehow shows the kindness, honor, or benevolence of the British upper class is an ignoramus. Were we living in the medieval times that they seem to long for, they wouldn’t even be smart enough to be a village fool, and certainly not quick enough to be a court jester. Off to mucking out stalls for them. But at least they’d have a job.