[apsec112]

In a fast-paced, industrial society, like the one we live in, long dynasties tend to get wiped out by high volatility. I don't know exactly what happened to the aristocrats of Russia as of 1910, or the businessmen of Germany as of 1935, but it can't have been good. Likewise for China, France, Poland, India...

In a stagnant, agricultural society, like medieval Europe, dynasties tend to get weighed down by the problem of reproduction. If you've inherited a fortune, there's no reason not to have ten kids, especially before birth control. And those ten kids will then want to fight over or divide the family fortune, and so on with their kids, etc. Queen Elizabeth is a descendant of Charlemagne, but so are millions of others whose distant ancestors were slightly less lucky in the power game.

[rtpg]

You really think that? There are a lot of families that got rich in the early 20th in the US who are still controlling huge stakes in production of the country. After a 100 years I'd start calling those dynasties.

Countries you cited have had the bad luck of having much of their means of production wiped out through war/political turmoil. But the places that haven't blown up... well the wealth doesn't seem to be moving as fast as you seem to imply .

[bayesianhorse]

The businessmen of Germany from 1935 eventually got to use slave labor to build lucrative weapons... Quite a few corporations and individuals survived the war.

[_delirium]

The Krupps are perhaps the most famous. They profited handsomely from both WW1 and WW2, managed to escape losing their fortunes during denazification (for unclear reasons), and the family still controls large amounts of wealth today: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krupp

[bayesianhorse]

I have a personal beef with the "profiting from war" story. In the particular case of Krupp it stands to reason whether or not spending for the war, getting their factories bombed to the ground and the lost opportunity for peace time development (and even peacetime production of arms) wasn't making the world wars a lot less "profitable" than a peace would have been. Leaving aside the discussion if peace throughout the 20th century would have been possible in slightly different circumstances.