The Labour Government in the UK embody the hatred the left have for hierarchy. When they last took office Blair and his government moved swiftly to remove 750 hereditary peers from the UK’s House of Lords. The House of Lords for those unfamiliar is effectively the upper chamber in the UK Parliamentary system. It is meant to serve as a kind of check and balance on the lower house - the House of Commons. Members of the House of Lords are never directly elected - they are appointed and whilst they lack the power to prevent legislation entering into law for anything longer than a year in theory they have a degree of influence.
The House of Lords is disliked by many and seen as archaic - they have been repeatedly neutered - another more recent example is the creation in the UK in 2009 of the Supreme Court. Prior to that the Law Lords of the House of Lords acted as the final appeal system within the judiciary. Today just 92 hereditary peers remained but now they will be gone. This spells the death of a tradition that had been hacked away at and that had also likely gone to waste. Many on the Right themselves actually might approve, there is a streak that runs through many that distrusts and dislikes the aristocracy. Mustache man and his cohorts were quite revolutionary in this regard for example.
The loss of the Hereditary Lords is unfortunate because it signals perhaps the final death of noblesse oblige. As defined by Merriam-Webster:
noblesse oblige: the obligation of honorable, generous, and responsible behavior associated with high rank or birth
A French loan word fitting of the fact that most of the remaining aristocracy today do indeed have their roots of land ownership and power from being Norman, or at least loyal to the Normans on their invasion of England in 1066. In many ways it is the idea of noblesse oblige that sits most at odds with the world. With the removal of these last remaining peers it means everyone in the UK political system with power or influence can, in theory, be bought. The argument for why you have hereditary peers are that such roles are not dependent on seeking election or favor. You can’t easily be bribed. This is high minded idealism in the modern age - after all greed seems to be everywhere but the thinking behind this mostly checks out if you marry it with a duty to the nation.
Noblesse oblige specifically relates to birth. The idea that some are born better and more privileged. Not just in a material sense either. Many of the aristocracy remaining in the UK are much poorer than the nouveau riche. Perhaps they own a crumbling castle or estate and land that in theory makes them wealthy but they are still driving a 30 year old Land Rover. They are usually small c -conservatives and some are still involved in the local community often with farming, often rural. It is their birth though that defines them, a genetic line of power that has changed them and delivered them a higher position of judgement than the man who made his millions through selling cheap goods made in China. Again this might be a touch of idealism speaking because the concept is now truly dead and gone. That notion of the principled unbuyable Lord who does the ‘right thing’ and holds by ancient traditions to guide him not monetary ones is a romantic one but it is not so far off. Once upon a time the elite were these Lords, they were tied much more to their land and thus their people. A degree of loyalty that cut both ways and ran deep. It is this kind of romantic past that people like Peter Hitchens cling to.
For all the idealism talk it does feel that today is the aberration. We are ruled by a greedy and hateful elite. Our elites, who are often not in their position because of hereditary power, seems to despise the common man. They seek to displace and disrupt them, weirdly they seek to import people far more nasty, brutish, and stupid. People who they have no biological connection to. Our elite are servants of Mammon. He is their God and nothing else matters, they are a divorced and hostile set of malcontents who have ruthlessly pursued power in a system that is perhaps even worse at spotting sociopathy and psychopathy. There has always been a tension between the rulers and the ruled, that is to some extent natural, but in past systems and times something was different, something tied them together in a more meaningful way. Perhaps it was the fragility of life, the connection to working the land and the fickleness of nature. Man now is master of nature, we live in massive abundance and the threat of hunger and starvation in your lands from a bad winter is abated.
In sum we passed from a ruling elite that had a concept of stewardship to an elite that only seeks personal gain.
The removal of hereditary peers from the House of Lords is a final death knell for hereditary power. Britain to some extent was unique in how they were able to marry the two for so long. Most other European aristocracies were dissolved and disenfranchised long ago. Only the UK really had a built in mechanism for them to exert some restraint on the power of mass democracy at the ballot box. It sort of worked for a period of time but then you had the most revolutionary government of the modern age - Tony Blair. Now the Starmer’s government continues Blair’s work. The House of Lords was likely already inadequate and feeble, but a handful of times has it worked as intended. It’s something of a lame horse, hobbled and useless. Now it will exist only as a way to offer permanent form of patronage to the political elite who went straight from their PPE degree to the uniparty. A glorified retirement home for those unable to continue to grift their way in the private world.
Hereditary power and noblesse oblige seem to be on the way out for now. Their time might come again. It would be remiss not to acknowledge that some of the capitalists of the post-industrial revolution at least attempted a form of it with certain efforts. Today of course the only philanthropic ventures permitted are seemingly those that pertain to the seething mass of humanity that inhabit the turd world. Whether it is propping up their failing systems or bringing them over here. The more wretched a born person the more the new rich, indoctrinated by the majority leftist cult, seem to feel obliged to spare them their money.
Perhaps then the House of Lords deserves this final shot. These peers ultimately failed not only themselves but they failed us. The rights their ancestors were given in past service they have squandered. The new rich are determined to obliterate their wealth and not create a new aristocracy, some seem upset by this, to me though I am ok with that. There is and was more honor in your ancestors doing something for the King many years ago than prostituting yourself as an actor or musician in our world. Perhaps deep down the new rich intent on abandoning their wealth and not leaving to their children know that it is ill gained and without honor?
One day in the far future I expect hereditary power to be meaningful once more but not today, not now. Whether we were abandoned by them or the parasites stripped them it matters not, it only matters to hold onto that eternal idea and truth of hierarchy and worthiness that rises above material gain.