America Has Reached It's WWI

American has never had an real aristocracy. There is no generational passing of land and wealth that could be called aristocratic by European standards. Inheritance taxes and division of property laws ensured that no such caste could or would arise in this country, at least one that would last for more then a few generations. There is however a broader aristocracy in this country. This aristocracy is more porous then others in the world. People enter and leave it more fluidly, but the resultant decadence and inevitable inbreeding and decay that form in other aristocracies are just as present in America's version.

America's aristocrats are it's corporate executives. This elite group of people who shuffle from company to company taking with them more wealth each time, but often not leaving their fiefdoms any better off once they leave. These dukes and duchesses of industry lead one company or non-profit or investment firm then whether the company does well or not they shuffle off to another corporation or bank and due whatever it is they do. This incestuous practice has given birth to a corporate structure that is as mentally retarded as if a real life brother and sister had born children.

The phenomena parallels Europe's officer corps at the beginning of World War One. Years of promoting based on the social standing of a solider resulted in an absence of real military strategy. The result was the bogging down of WWI to a stalemate. Both sides in the war did come up with new ideas, such as machine guns, and poison gas, but neither side could turn them into significant gains. American CEOs have managed to concoct a variety of moneymaking machinations but have failed to implement them for any long term growth. In both cases the elite fail to make any headway, bog down their own growth, and begin to lose ground while their power ebbs away they need to be saved by a previously untried and underestimated ally.

In WWI that ally was the United States, in the current economic crisis that ally has not yet arrived, but it will probably be China or India. Whoever that savior turns out to be, I hope that the American people will see the problems that promotion that is not based on merit causes. For the sake of the CEOs out there I hope their fate does not mirror the fate of the Russian aristocracy during WWI.