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Downton Abbey: Soap Opera for Property RightsRecently by Gary North: Cap Pistols, Gun Control, and Ethics
I am not a big Downton Abbey fan. I watched the first half a dozen episodes, but then I realized that the thing was turning into a very expensive soap opera. I stopped watching. I am a Foyle's War fan. I prefer period piece murder mysteries to period piece soap operas. I did not connect with the plight of the younger members of the family. They seemed shallow. I also thought the scheming bad guy and bad woman among the downstairs employees are just too dedicated to their venality. There were caricatures. But I will say this: the bad guys are downstairs. This is a very good thing. It indicates a rejection of a century of Labor Party propaganda. I thoroughly enjoyed Julian Fellowes when he co-starred in a modern version of the same story, Monarch of the Glen. It was an updated version of a family that had a huge albatross: inherited land and a rundown castle. The family had run out of money. Could the estate be saved? Fellowes used the same theme as the script writer for Downton Abbey. But he set it where it really belongs, namely, in the post-World War I era in Great Britain. CASTLES AND CIVILIZATION About 25 years ago, I sat on an airplane next to a man who was a Jacobite. Most people have never heard of the Jacobites. I knew about them only because I am a specialist in early modern European history. It did not occur to me that they still existed, but they do. A Jacobite was a follower of Bonnie Prince Charlie, whose revolt against Great Britain failed at the Battle of Culloden in 1745. He was a Catholic. He represented the Highland Catholic forces. After his defeat, Scotland permanently became Protestant, in the sense that it is not Catholic. Of course, it is not particularly Protestant today. But it is not Catholic.
He told me that the castles that Jacobite families had owned in the mid-18th century are still owned by the families. These days, however, they can make money only by opening the doors to tourists. He said that it is part of each family's obligation to supply full-time managers. For about two years, a young couple takes over the administration of the family castle. If they did not, the castles would be forfeited to the British monarchy. I do not know if what he was telling me was true, although it sounds plausible. He certainly seemed committed to the idea that it was a family responsibility to provide this kind of leadership, because they still hated the Queen, and they were determined to keep the family properties from being transferred to the monarchy. I am not convinced that television shows shape the thinking of those who view them. I think shows are popular mainly because they already adopt the outlook of the viewers. But in the case of Downton Abbey, I could be wrong. There is nothing in the lives of somebody living today that would be recognizable to somebody living at Downton Abbey a century ago. Yet the show is phenomenally popular around the world. So was Monarch of the Glen, but not on this scale. The basic theme of the show is duty. The second theme is inheritance. This is remarkable. You would not imagine that the issue of the inheritance of an aristocratic family's land would be a popular theme in modern times. The class conflict of the era did exist, especially in Great Britain. But for a century, textbooks and popular culture have been produced by people who oppose the upper classes, and who favor the democratic and social democratic (socialist) policies of the lower classes. Yet in this case, the most popular soap opera in the world stands behind the aristocrats. The script favors the preservation of the inheritance. It is about all of the problems facing the post-World War I aristocratic generation.
Maggie Smith's character is J. R. Ewing in drag: the person we love to hate. But there is this difference: she cares about inherited status. He cared about money. That is the difference between an American boomer buying his way to the top and a British aristocrat trying to keep him out. BURKE AND SMITH This sense of duty, which is a sense of duty to both the past and the future, is an inherently conservative theme. Edmund Burke would have recognized it instantly in 1790. In a very real sense, the show is about competition between the free market and the aristocratic culture. The free market is driven by internally driven men who wish to accumulate capital. After World War I, the rising capitalist order was able to offer higher wages to employees who would have been stuck for all their lives in service to the aristocracy. It was the competition between Edmund Burke's conservative vision and Adam Smith's capitalist vision. Yet Edmund Burke was a great fan of Adam Smith, and Adam Smith was a great fan of Edmund Burke. The story of Downton Abbey is the story of the clash of civilizations -- a clash that was inherent from the beginning in the social philosophy of conservative Edmund Burke and the economic philosophy of Adam Smith.
The world of 1850 was not recognizable to the dwellers of the world in 1800, yet they accepted it, because it grew slowly, not overnight. Every 50 years, the world that had been in existence was overwhelmed by a completely new world technologically and economically. Societies made the adjustment, but in doing so, new social philosophies began to take over. Socialism was one of them. February 15, 2013 Gary North [send him mail] is the author of Mises on Money. Visit http://www.garynorth.com. He is also the author of a free 31-volume series, An Economic Commentary on the Bible. Copyright © 2013 Gary North
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Neither
of those men understood what was about to take place under their
noses in the 1790. For the first time in history, economic growth
of 2.5% per annum was about to take hold of the Anglo-American civilization.
Nothing like this had been seen before. Nothing like this was even
conceivable, although the title of Adam Smith's book,