You have to wonder why the Brits keep electing these elites to top positions in the government (it's a little tougher to keep alumnae from being given positions in the corporate world).
Of course, you have to ask the same question about US voters. And in a bit of irony, this topic and another discussion [1] of the government elites in the US vis-a-vis the Lawrence Lessig campaign are in the #2 and #1 spots on the HN front page.
> You have to wonder why the Brits keep electing these elites to top positions in the government (it's a little tougher to keep alumnae from being given positions in the corporate world).
We don't. We elect a (one) Member of Parliament for the constituency we live in. Following the election, the leader of the largest party attempts to form a government (thereby making them Prime Minister), and they then appoint cabinet ministers.
Most elections end up with people voting in favour of a party, regardless of who the party has nominated to stand in the election, and those viewed as "senior" members of the party are typically asked to stand in safe seats (regardless of where the seat is and whether they have any ties there!).
…it's probably worthwhile to add to this the fact that (cabinet) ministers can be from either the democratically elected House of Commons, or the House of Lords. There's typically a small number of ministers from the House of Lords.
But does not that mean that prime minister must also be a member of parliament, so at least people in one district voted for her or him? It is not the same as whole populace of UK votes directly for Pam, but still.
In theory, the Prime Minister can be in the House of Lords, though since 1902 this hasn't occurred—in principle, the Prime Minister merely has to be capable of commanding confidence of the House of Commons (i.e., must be able to win any motion of confidence, and to be able to ensure supply). It seems highly unlikely for this to occur in future, however.
I would say that on any given weekend a significant proportion of the male population of the UK, particularly between 16 and 25, are doing stuff that involves large amount of alcohol, breaking things and the occasional stripper.
Not sure why these guys doing it is that bad or different.
Sorry, that wasn't my point at all. I was focusing on the part of the article that describes the potential of the general populations discontent with the social program management by the elites.
I seriously doubt that there is that much discontent - perhaps most people are evaluating politicians based on their policies and actions when in power rather than being influenced by whether they are posh or not and what they got up to at university 25 years ago. [Edit: what a horrendously naive thing for me to say :-)]
Perhaps my own concern about modern MPs is they often lack "real world" experience before working in politics - but that's a criticism I could make of both sides of the political spectrum.
Consider a middle aged non-partisan couple who are part of the middle income bracket. They are extremely risk averse. They do not want any drastic changes that could jeopardize their livelihood and their family. They vote for the incumbent except when the incumbent has begun abusing their position of power a bit too much and have been involved in too many blunders. Then they vote for the other solid option.
They know that the elite do not represent their interests but they also do not trust any newcomers to do a better job of keeping things more or less the same.
We should assess the properties of the current political system as emergent, not as some sort of top-down planned thing.
Life in Britain if you've got a decent salary and disposable income, have a stable marriage/family, have a stable job, have a mortgage or outright own a property, and have citizenship is pretty sweet. Meaningful political change for people in this situation might have a theoretical upside, at least in the abstract (you might want a fairer society, less poverty, less unemployment because you're a decent person and care about others) but it has a very personal, practical and massive potential downside.
Change for these people is indeed very risky. I don't have figures, but my impression is that a large slice of the regularly voting population are in more or less this situation. They might want laws or policies in one or two of the areas changed or tweaked, but not enough that they'd risk stability in the other areas. Besides, the main parties' policies are generally so averaged over what their votership want in the aggregate, that their manifesto matching precisely the tweaks you want (which bear in mind somebody else won't want, because it'll impact them negatively) is nigh on impossible, statistically speaking.
So, you end up with a stable political institution where change is disincentivised, and where the status quo has evolved its own culture and structure over decades, centuries even. That culture is that our 'elites', via a wonderful private education, the encouragement of parents, teachers, and other mentors, connections etc, end up in the profession of politics and end up doing quite well in it, because they've been trained and shaped for it pretty much their whole lives. It's the same reason why top software people were once 10 year old kids fiddling with computers and games and hacking in their bedroom. The current political elites probably at least had the concept and ideas of politics and leadership and power in mind at that age, even if they weren't actively being trained towards it at that young age.
Anyway my analysis is obviously very naive and a full one could fill several books, but regardless of the reasons, we shouldn't be surprised to see patterns emerge in a very stable system which resists change in the short term. The pattern in this case being that 'elites' rise to the top of the current system. We also shouldn't be surprised to see people accept this system, even despite its flaws, when it results in a pretty great quality of life for them, personally. Remember that the people worst affected by the things wrong with the political system are also those least likely to, or unable to, vote. This too is an emergent property of the system and is just a mathematical inevitability, however unfair it appears to be. If suddenly the tables flipped and everyone who previously voted stopped, and everyone who never voted started, the system too would flip on its head within the space of one or two election cycles. But that will obviously never happen.
It's true that every system we have was just invented by humans, nothing is written in stone and we don't have to run society the way we do. However it's also true that (assuming actual democracy exists) political systems generally emerge and then stabilise from the aggregate of what most people truly want. The problem with aggregates over populations is that they're incredibly difficult to change and can result in undesirable artefacts, but these are generally artefacts that are just palatable enough that they can just be ignored. Such as elites always being at the top of a government (regardless of party) that provides a stable, good life for most of the people that tend to vote.
"Remember that the people worst affected by the things wrong with the political system are also those least likely to, or unable to, vote. This too is an emergent property of the system and is just a mathematical inevitability, however unfair it appears to be."
It's not emergent, the elites have fought to prevent democracy for a long, long time. See the Peterloo massacre for example, and the current conservative party is actively trying to disenfranchise voters by making it a hassle to register. This from a government with a "nudge" unit to take advantage of the power of defaults.
"That culture is that our 'elites', via a wonderful private education, the encouragement of parents, teachers, and other mentors, connections etc, end up in the profession of politics and end up doing quite well in it"
Which is probably a positive thing, we should want the people running our government to come from the top of the pile even if the reason they are at the top is an unfair leg-up early in life.
Between the royals and the unelected hereditary lords in parliament we have a serious problem with subserviency even before you get to elected MPs. It's mindboggling that it's not been sorted out yet.
To see the photo including the current Prime Minister (David Cameron) and the current Mayor of London (Boris Johnson), and the photo including the current Chancellor of the Exchequer (George Osborne) and Nat Rothschild (of the Rothschild family), see for example [0].
But beware, some of the photos appear to have had people airbrushed out[1].
The Bullingdon Club members are a nasty bunch. As Right Honourable Tories they back harsh drug policies all the while denying their youthful indiscretions. Separately two British journalists told me that Osborne was deep into cocaine when they were at Oxford. I don't care about his poor health choices, but the baldfaced hypocrisy is laughable.
> Stairway to Paradise: Between drags on her cigarette, one student says that she will be working for Goldman Sachs.
As someone who worked at Goldman and is college-aged, I think this says quite a lot about the piece in general. Working at Goldman is not some kind of prestigious, difficult to obtain position. If you're in investment banking, that's laughable. If you're in the SSG, then that's only more mildly impressive. I did two-weeks in London where a few of the interns were part of the Pitt club at Cambridge (albeit, not quite as storied a group, but Cambridge's version of the Bullingdon Club) and seemed to revel in this prestige despite having decidedly worse placements in every way than myself. Only one of the three members were hired back full-time.
If these kids went to work at interesting hedge funds in Mayfair then I'm inclined to suggest they have some powerful connections. But, by in large, these are 18-21 year olds with all the insecurities and lack of knowledge you'd expect. In the world of finance perhaps this club helps getting you an interview at an investment bank, that's about it. Once you see how these things work you become cognizant of the fact that stories like this are more based in what the members of the clubs want you to believe secretively, or rather a writer would like to suggest is some vast conspiracy to pontificate on his or her moral outrage, then having even the slightest basis in reality.
Now, I would grant that having this kind of network gives opportunities to become more involved in politics (similar to what Cameron himself did) at an early age. That's fair, I suppose, however this notion of these secretive groups, with members who have intellects and connections that the average chap can only dream of ever obtaining is laughable. I'd encourage folks not to be drawn into articles like this, similar to the film The Riot Club, that seek to create heroic tragedies and spark mock outrage. Things are always more dull then they appear and most things aren't intricate conspiracy theories, which unfortunately HN seems to have a predisposition towards chatting about.
SSG is only "mildly impressive"? By what metric? Those positions put you squarely in line for mega fund private equity jobs. If thats par for your course, you must be in some pretty rarified air I guess.
The merits of those candidates is debatable, but the prestige of those positions really isn't.
Mildly impressive in the spectrum of potential jobs, not just jobs at Goldman. Plenty of folks in the SSG leave to jobs one-off kids go to immediately after undergrad. This, of course, is all a function of your perception of the prestige of buy-side vs. sell-side (more aptly, how rarified does your position in the sell-side now have to be to get into decidedly less rarified fields in the buy-side).
You should also be cognizant of the makeup of the SSG and how it's needing to, unfortunately, evolve. It's far from a homogeneous group. The trading arm has needed to be completely restructured after Volcker came into full effect in July. Trading distressed debt is hard enough when you can take quasi-prop positions, now it's a fundamentally different business and many top traders have fled to the buy-side. I believe the only area that's truly insulated and routinely profitable is MSI, which, yes, I'd be inclined to suggest is a prestigious role. However, that's a small segment of the SSG.
I'd reverse your final sentiment. In my experience, the merits of those in the SSG are usually top notch (just pick the best of the S&T/IB pool), the prestige is debatably if your broaden the discussion. One of the best young members of the SSG just left to go back to school to learn how to code.
Also note that by context for impressiveness in the OP was, for example, to go work at a hedge fund in Mayfair right out of Oxford (perhaps, for example, at Chris Rokos' new fund as he's a maths Oxford alum).
Sure, I just wanted to clarify that "mildly impressive" in this context referred to "the relative prestige of that job within the spectrum of potential positions available to high performers and the sons and daughters of the ruling class at a small handful of the most elite universities worldwide." This is quite a bit different than what one would normally associate that phrase with.
That's fair. Would say that, in my experience, there wasn't much explicit nepotism at GS. If there was it'd be a case of someone's son getting good freshman/sophomore internships at small private equity shops, which made them a pretty sure merit-based bet getting into GS.
> Yes, we would sometimes break plates or furniture or whatever, but we tried to be as polite as we could be to the people whose establishments we were in
Call me Dave Cameron, Boris Johnson and George Osbourne were all members of the infamous Bullingdon Club whilst at Oxford. The club is renowned for two things the wealth of its members and getting absolutely blotto and smashing up the property. Apparently this is just high jinks and acceptable if one pays for the damage. Any landlord or restaurateur who wont be bought off and reports this activity to the police is seen as a bad sport.
“Boris Johnson himself was seen fleeing down the highstreet & crawling on his hands and knees through the undergrowth after the window of an upmarket venue was shattered. ….of course back then there was no CCTV & boris Johnson face wasn’t plastered all over the internet.” [1]
Andrew Gimson, who wrote a biography of Boris Johnson, said about the Bullingdon Club in the 1980s: “I don’t think an evening would have ended without a restaurant being trashed and being paid for in full, very often in cash. […] A night in the cells would be regarded as being par for a Buller man and so would debagging (An act of removal of the trousers) anyone who really attracted the irritation of the Buller men”.
In recent years, dinners have been more low key but in 2004 a 15th century pub in Oxfordshire suffered considerable damage during a dinner, and four members were arrested. – BBC.[3]
“A number of episodes over many decades have become anecdotal evidence of the Club’s behaviour. Famously, on 12 May 1894[11][12] and again on 20 February 1927,[13] after dinner, Bullingdon members smashed almost all the glass of the lights and 468 windows in Peckwater Quad of Christ Church, along with the blinds and doors of the building. As a result, the Club was banned from meeting within 15 miles of Oxford.[2]
While still Prince of Wales, Edward VIII had a certain amount of difficulty in getting his parents’ permission to join the Bullingdon on account of the Club’s reputation. He eventually obtained it only on the understanding that he never join in what was then known as a “Bullingdon blind”, a euphemistic phrase for an evening of drink and song. On hearing of his eventual attendance at one such evening, Queen Mary sent him a telegram requesting that he remove his name from the Club.[9][14]
Andrew Gimson, biographer of Boris Johnson, reported about the club in the 1980s: “I don’t think an evening would have ended without a restaurant being trashed and being paid for in full, very often in cash. […] A night in the cells would be regarded as being par for a Buller man and so would debagging anyone who really attracted the irritation of the Buller men.”[15]
Dinners in recent years, being relatively low key, have not attracted press attention, though in 2005, following damage to a 15th century pub in Oxfordshire during a dinner, four members of the party were arrested; the incident was widely reported.[16] A further dinner was reported in 2010 after damage to a country house. [17] [18]
In the last few years the Bullingdon has been mentioned in the debates of the House of Commons in order to draw attention to excessive behaviour across the British class spectrum,[19] and to embarrass those increasingly prominent MPs who are former members of the Bullingdon. These most notably include David Cameron (UK Prime Minister), George Osborne (UK Chancellor of the Exchequer) and Boris Johnson (Mayor of London).[20][21] Hansard records eight references to the Bullingdon between 2001 and 2008.[22] [2]
An exploration of the shared past at Eton and Oxford of the two most powerful Conservative politicians in Britain: London Mayor Boris Johnson and party leader David Cameron
We are at the verge of a new area of aristocracy. The new aristocrats are building their relationships and are shielding themselves from the plebs -- just the same as in the Roman empire: The "best" people of the world, don't need morals or standards, that belong to the outsiders.
That is also the reason, we need more and more surveillance -- to protect the "best" people from the terrorists -- all people, that oppose this world-order.
Interesting how these aspects are distributed in different cultures. For example in the US, musicians of certain genres (and probably other artists) are expected to act that way. In the 2004 presidential election, frontrunners Bush and Kerry were both from the same elite Yale secret society, where they were trained to be members of the ruling class.
At Harvard, there is the Porcelian club. The initiation ritual is equally secretive and elaborate. The club is said to be the third largest land owner in Cambridge (behind Harvard and MIT), and that if you are a member who is not a millionaire by the age of 40, the club will make you one (so that every alum is). Winlekvii were members
Of course, you have to ask the same question about US voters. And in a bit of irony, this topic and another discussion [1] of the government elites in the US vis-a-vis the Lawrence Lessig campaign are in the #2 and #1 spots on the HN front page.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10403507