Dynasty

The controversy over priggish Donald Trump, Jr.'s safari massacre of big game illustrates the flaw in the system of wealth transference within families when families simply have too much private money. This was not a case of simple privilege. This was a case of breaking laws in a country and then claiming immunity to those laws based in personal wealth and notoriety. The stuff which inspired the invention of the guillotine.

As a humanist, I am reminded that I have no control of what happens with my own resources after my death unless I plan ahead. As a citizen, I support taxing surplus and extraordinary personal wealth to support the real needs of general society. Great personal wealth is generally extracted from society by the sale of goods or services.  In these times, great wealth is amplified by playing with computers and hedging bets on a worldwide economic system that is capricious and inequitable.There is no honor or justice in the accumulation of this wealth. So why would anyone expect that it will be used in a socially responsible or progressive manner?

The return of international aristocracy is glaringly obvious. The Trumps are perhaps a more obvious example of their class, but they do belong to an international class of world-hopping aristocrats who see themselves as above the rules applying to the rest of the human race. They live for hedonist pleasure, as aristocrats have always done. They feel entitled to their elevated state of life on grounds of traditional religion or lineage. 

Humanists and other free thinkers have been writing about the injustice of aristocracy for half a millennium. Revolutions have come and gone. Their benefits are inevitably watered down by politics in their aftermath. Those who control money manipulate systems to reinstate their aristocratic privilege. We see this glaringly illustrated in the debates in the U.S. Congress. Inherited fortunes are the foundation of support for politics which restrict personal freedoms and socioeconomic justice. This is not new. It is as old as money itself.