He sees the new king as a representative of the drive toward Net Zero carbon emissions that, according to Kotkin, is being pushed in all five of the above nations.
The newly crowned Charlies III is a perfect sovereign for a culture primed for decline. Charles is the model of a modern plutocrat. He has inherited a huge and growing fortune, including nearly $10 billion in real-estate assets, and he holds the ‘correct’ eco-friendly views on how his subjects should live. Although many among the elites consider his green politics to be ‘enlightened’, Charles’s worldview is fundamentally backward-looking or, I would even suggest, neo-feudalist.
Charles views industrial capitalism as a scourge upon the Earth. He promotes a new kind of noblesse oblige centred on concern for the natural world and for social harmony.
After building a gloomy picture of the state of the Anglosphere countries, Kotkin concludes:
Ultimately, the Anglosphere is increasingly moving towards neo-feudalism. Meritocracy – for centuries a key means to upward mobility for both natives and immigrants – is being rejected in universities and throughout the professions. Worryingly, as Pamela Paul notes in the New York Times, this approach is also being pushed in our elite scientific organisations. This is despite meritocracy being “the most effective way to ensure high quality science and greater equity”, she says.
Who to blame? The World Economic Forum, mostly associated in our minds with its annual meetings at Davos, Switzerland, is a primary culprit. If that elitist bunch isn’t neo-feudalist and high on noblesse oblige, nobody is.
