Great Houses

Hello everybody, and welcome to
this episode of The Great Houses

Forum, where we gather interesting
people to talk about the, how to

rebuild great houses in our time.

Great houses are, you know, those
pillar institutions which in every

age in- including, uh, the most
recent one, though it's been a little

bit hard- harder to see them, are
the, the pillars of civilization.

They're the, the, the
foundational families, businesses,

self-perpetuating institutions that,
that actually reproduce and allow

for human civilization to endure.

Um, and so this, you know, one of
the, my long-term goals with this,

with this forum experiment is to try
to get people on to talk about their

ideas, to understand, like, h- how
are these things, in particular, how

are these things applying to us today?

So I am honored and pleased to
have, uh, Will Tanner with us.

Will Tanner runs, uh, The American
Tribune on Substack, and, uh, and his

podcast is called The Old World Show.

Um, and, and again, Will, you know,
of the many things that I appreciate

you, it, you're, the fact that you're,
you're pressing on and being enormously

successful while maintaining three
different brands is, uh, is, is of,

of great personal interest to me
because I'm doing the same thing.

So I, I, uh, now with, with not nearly
necessarily as, as much talent as

you are, but, uh, I'll get there.

I'll get there.

So great to have you here, Will.

Yeah thank you for having me on

All right.

Well, so, we could talk about whatever,
whatever it is that you wanna talk

about because I think you're, one of
the, the most interesting thinkers.

I think one of the, the first
articles, that I, I read from

you was, your yeoman article.

You had a, an article about, uh, how
to survive as a yeoman in an oligarch's

world, which I thought was just really
insightful and, and in many ways,

like the thinking and researching
that I did as a result of, of reading

that article is, is one of the things
that led to my current stance on AI.

Um, tell me about, uh, tell me about
that article and tell me about what

you're, what you're thinking and, and,
um, and, you know, at some point, o-

obviously, and if you wanna, if you can
work this in, then, then feel free to.

But at some point I want to, uh, talk
about your, your studies in, in the cursus

honorum and, and how important those
sorts of things are to, to any society.

And, and if we're, if we're
about to rebuild a society, we

probably should rebuild a cursus
honorum to go with it, so.

Yeah.

So that article stemmed out of m- my
original research into the r- reasons

that America's WASP aristocracy
fell apart, and the reasons the

British landed elite fell apart.

uh, because the, those two
were actually quite different.

In the case of the WASPs, it was
largely their holding securities that

didn't keep up with inflation, th-
they preferred bonds to land, uh, and

their lack of a sense of duty, which
gets into the cursus honorum thing.

Um, particularly during the Gilded Age.

Uh, some of them were better earlier
on, but by the Gilded Age, uh, with the

exception of maybe Henry Adams and Charles
Adams, it was a pretty decayed order.

Um, Teddy Roosevelt was good, too.

A- anyway, i- in the case of the British
landed elite, it was much more a hostile

government policy that destroyed them.

And if you look into the financial
transactions they made, the, the

8th Duke of Devonshire, I think, uh,
I think it's the 8th, it might be

the 9th, is a really great example
of kind of rebuilding the family

fortune in the New World and keeping
the traditions intact as he did so.

The, um, uh, father of the
current Duke of Westminster is

another great example of that.

I, I think that was the 6th
Duke, but I could be wrong.

I- in any case, uh, th- they're different
situations and they're interesting to

study because there's so much information
a- available about them 'cause people

are generally interested in those groups.

Uh, if you look at that though, people,
you know, most, most of us, myself

included, don't happen to be English
lords, which, you know, maybe in another

life, but in this one I'm not a duke,
um, and n- nor are most of my readers

So, um, so people ask, "Well, you
know, how is this applicable to the

middle class?" And I, I think that's
actually a much tougher question

because the, the middle class's problems
are different in different eras.

You have, uh, really the burgeoning
of the middle class in the mid-20th

century, which was just a dismal
period for aristocracy generally.

Um, but you also have different periods
that aren't great for the middle class or

that are good for it, uh, like the early
20th century was pretty good for it and

also good for the kind of lordly class.

Uh, so it goes back and forth.

And, and I think if you're looking
at, well, when was a period where

the middle class or what would be
termed the, the yeoman of the day,

uh, faced the same sort of challenges
the, the middle class of today faces?

Whi- which I would argue are
largely paid wage work not

being, uh, a way to build wealth.

E- essentially it being impossible to
build wealth if you work for someone else.

That's the case today.

It's why people complain
about house prices.

You can kind of track that in
terms of ounces of gold and what

people were making back in the day
compared to house prices versus now.

House prices haven't actually changed,
just the value of paid work has.

And that's because of
a s- surplus of labor.

Uh, and so if you look at the last
time that was really the case in

America in a notable way, it was the
antebellum South, but particularly

the Virginia of the late 17th century.

Because that was a period where,
much like today, um, i- in the couple

decades leading up to it, you'd
actually had nowhere near enough labor,

so labor was quite valuable, and the
people who came over with nothing

could build a little bit of wealth.

They… Really none of them became
great lords or the Tidewater barons,

um, but they did become yeomen.

And, and they were able to amass land
in a way they wouldn't have been able

to in Europe, and maybe patch together
300, 400 acres, something like that, and

make reasonably good lives for themselves

a respectable inheritance, as they

Yes.

A- and then that completely fell
apart in the late, um, 17th century,

i- in part because of taxation
involving Governor Berkeley.

Um, you, you have, uh, Bacon's
Rebellion flow out of that.

But that really ended, and it wasn't as
much of a class struggle as just, you

know, uh, being infuriated over taxation
and the Indian problem, both of which

were just solved by the rebellion.

And really it was this economic situation
where because the price of tobacco

had gone down, um, i- there wasn't
a way for the middle class to build

wealth by acting like the middle class.

W- whether in wage work or in kind
of the contemporary equivalent

of being a solo la- uh, farmer.

I, I know, I know that's not quite wage
work, but yeah, i- it's essentially

the same thing as like, you know,
being a blue-collar employee now or

a low-level white-collar employee
now, where you're just kind of,

uh, you're in it for the ride.

And, you know, how you do kind
of depends on other factors.

And i- i- th- so what had been a situation
where, you know, one guy who, with his

couple kids could grow enough tobacco
to fill the cou- fill a couple hogsheads

and make a good living for himself, all
of a sudden he couldn't, uh, because

the tobacco wasn't worth anything.

It was worth less than a penny a pound.

Uh, he would go broke by doing that.

Yeah, it was not good.

Uh, and tobacco's very labor-intensive, so
they got frustrated with that situation.

Uh, but that didn't mean
the situation was hopeless.

If you look at what happened, on one
hand you had the people who didn't

adapt with the times and didn't really
put in the, uh, the risk-taking,

but also just the, like, diligence
required to, uh, ascend the ladder.

They fell into being tenant laborers or
kind of perpetually along the frontier

and never really building wealth of
note, probably getting killed by Indians.

But at the same exact time, you
had the other people, uh, the

other parts of the yeoman class
who kind of examined the situation.

They leveraged themselves or they
worked a little bit harder a couple

years when they really could or
waited for the right opportunity.

And then if you could just import one,
maybe two indentured servants or buy

one, maybe two slaves, not to get into
the morality of that, y- whatever,

um, then all of a sudden you were on
the capital, capital growth flywheel.

And having those o- yeah, those one or
two productive assets producing wealth

for you r- really under your oversight
and direction meant that all of a sudden

you'd be able to continue expanding
that, bringing more over, expanding your

ability to cultivate tobacco at scale.

And though it wasn't as quick of a way to
build wealth as it had once been, uh, you

could do it, and you could become part of
this landed gentry class or upper yeoman

class that maybe in, by the time the Civil
War happened, had like five or six slaves.

So you're not poor, you're not a baron,
but you are wealthy and w- well-to-do-ish.

I-

And, and, and I think you make money pr-
so one of the things that I would say

when people are like, "Well, what, what
do we mean by middle class here?" We would

mean, uh, you're, um, you're not ruled by
anybody and you don't rule anybody, right?

You're, you're not, you're not a
manager and you're not managing, right?

You're … So the, the, the, the thing
about, you know, even if you just have,

you know, five or six slaves on your
plant- in your, your, your farm, it's not

really a plantation at that scale, right?

If you only, if you've got five, y-
it is much more important for you to

make sure that those people are doing
what you need them to do correctly

or, or, or close enough than it is for
you to just work 10% harder, right?

You cannot outwork the, uh, you know,
bad prompting, if you will , right?

Uh, which, which sort of leads
into the, the, the, the place that

you go in that article, which I,
which I wanna get to in a second.

But so c- but, but keep going on.

Tell, tell, tell us how
that, how that worked out.

Y- yeah.

So y- you have, uh, like if you read
the history of the early 20th cen-

or the early 20th century historians
reviewing this period, like Thomas

Wartenbaker is kind of the most famous
one who wrote about this in depth.

He had three different books on it.

He's very frustrated by it, says
it was this great crime, the

importation of Africans meant that
the yeomen were displaced, and, you

know, that's this horrible thing.

Which may well be true, but it's
also kind of beside the point.

I, like if you actually have to exist in
the world that was Virginia circa 1705,

which, you know, the people there did,
you can die of mosquitoes or exist, well,

it makes sense, I think, to examine how
to succeed in that situation and kinda

a- approach that from a practical angle.

So, so the ones who did

of tobacco was the
price of tobacco, right?

Like, there was, there was no government
conspiracy to change the price of tobacco.

That's just how the economics worked out

Right.

Uh, with the exception of, you know,
like the Navigation Acts funneling it

all into England, which depressed the
price, which is also applicable to today.

Uh, th-there are structural constraints,
I think, that help make the value

of middle class labor worth less.

Um, kind of can get into that.

But, um, the, just the, the general
situation, wh-what I took away from it

was, uh, the people who managed to look
at what the actual upper class was doing,

which was importing more laborers to
grow tobacco at more scales than they

could make money kind of on volume rather
than hoping f-to make money on price.

Well, they did quite well, and their
families continued to do well, and it's

those people who formed the backbone
of the state that then, uh, once prices

recovered a little bit, had its golden
age and really formed the foundation

of the Republic, where if you look at,
uh, all of the founders who mattered

and came from the South were large
planters, m-um, and there were far more

of them from Virginia than anywhere else.

Uh, it's just, uh, th-that generation,
it was the Virginians who mattered,

uh, largely, particularly after you
move past the old revolutionaries

and into the Founding Fathers,
which is an interesting split.

It, it's the Virginians.

And, and so it's, uh, this, I think,
attitude towards, um, understanding,

uh, the ability to, uh, marshal assets
behind you and figure out ways to make

that happen, uh, and then a-apply virtue
towards that a-as their cursus honorum,

which we'll probably wanna get into,
um, i-is what made them so successful.

And those who just couldn't get with
the program, whether for moral reasons

or for just not caring reasons, was
the much bigger problem actually.

That, though, like a lot of these
people just liked hunting, they liked

farming by themselves, they didn't
wanna deal with this, and they died out.

And that's in the historiography.

That's not me making that up.

That's, you know, uh,
documented at the time.

That's the reason they died out.

And, and so I think that is really the
lesson and the warning to the middle

class, wh-which is, uh, assets matter,
uh, much more than income, because

eventually… Uh, assuming they're
the correct assets, because eventually

those will produce the income and can
do so sustainably, which then is what

leads into this ability to cultivate
virtue and cultivate leadership and

establish sovereignty, uh, eventually.

Uh, because the flywheel generally
continues to spin once it's started

in the absence of, uh, the state
smacking it down as happened to

the British in the 20th century.

Yeah.

I mean, one of the interesting
things that, that I, it, I, I wanna

think about before we move on to the
next point is just how productive

and successful the Virginians were.

So you think about challenges like,
you know, uh, I've, I've spoken before

about, you know, the, the last line of
the Declaration of Independence, right?

To m- we mutually pledge our lives,
our fortunes, our sacred honor.

Um, and, and that was the
form of a legal oath, right?

Like, you could, if you wanted to,
interpret that as, and we will sort

of mutually ensure if one of… If
something goes bad for one of us,

right, and we, and we lose our lives,
our fortunes, or our, or our honor

doing this thing, then the others will
come around and, and pay things back.

And largely, Virginia… I mean,
Virginia was able, actually,

technically to, to pay off all of their
war bonds, all their wartime debt.

They, they sort of were able to
kinda gather around as a community

and collectively pay things off, as
opposed to, say, New England, which

was never able to pay those things off.

And tho- you know, Vir- New England
war bonds were still floating around

by, I mean, I think by the War of 1812.

Like, th- there was, it caused
long-term financial problems.

I mean, that, that's, is, you
kinda gets into, uh, the origin of

the Bank of the United States and
kind of what was going on there.

Like, that's why i- in the opinion of
many of the, the Dutch, you know, bankers,

we needed a Bank of the United States,
was to deal with this lingering New

England debt And, and, and, you know,
it's interesting when you, when you, um

This was something that, that I, I
discovered as we were corresponding.

'Cause when I'd read the histories
it was just sort of, well, there

was this debt hanging around, just
hanging over the colonies, right?

And it's like, well, no, but it
wasn't evenly distributed, right?

Because the, the, Virginia in particular
and, and maybe the, the southern colonies

more broadly were able to pay off their
debt and take care of their own and

kind of get, get things moving again.

And it was the New Englanders that, that,
uh, uh, as in so many ways, you know,

were, were, uh, you know, the, the, unable
to keep up their end of the bargain.

The same thing is true on
the education side, right?

We, we had a, an interesting exchange,
uh, you know, um, it's one of the

pleasures of following you on X
is that I, I, I learn new things.

I have, I have some friends, some of
whom might be on this call, who tease

me for being the kind of person that
when I'm asked a question I respond

with a book recommendation, right?

And so the- by the way, the, the, the,
the, the goal of my life is to surround

… Well, you're better at that than I.

You've, you read, you know, more
books and respond with more, more

volume of bibliographies than,
than, than I do, for the record.

Which I love, right?

That's, that's, that's why, you
know, you're, you're, you're here

and, you know, my, my goal is to
surround myself with such people.

Um, 'cause I'm a, I'm a reason-
to be a, a reasonable, moderate,

centrist book recommender.

Uh, as, as, as we all should seek to be.

Uh, but you were talking about, you know,
the, the public school system, right?

And that in Virginia, and again
broadly replicated throughout the

tobacco-growing states, there wasn't
a need for a public school system

because the large families, you know,
took, took care of it themselves.

Um, you know, there's a story that I think
I've told on the podcast before about, uh,

there was a building on the ranch that I
grew up on called the nursery schoolhouse.

And, you know, as, as a kid I
asked, "Well, what's, what's

the nursery schoolhouse?" And I
was told this fascinating story

about my great-grandmother, my,
my mother's father's, uh, mother.

And she, she was the person who
came over from back east when, when

my family settled in California
and got their, their square mile.

Uh, their, their 640 acres which they
then divided between two brothers.

So we had, you know, 320 acres, um,
that, that, that we were living on.

And, um, so they, they had gotten a
number of hands that for, for a variety

of reasons didn't speak English.

And so this, you know, Pennsylvania Dutch
woman decided it was her duty to, um, to

educate all of the hands and their wives
and their children so that they c- And

she was a, a Methodist back in, back in
the day when the Methodists were, were

still, like, very religiously rigorous.

And so, uh, she, she gave them a, a, a, a

She taught them how to read and write
and speak English, taught them our

place, their place in our household,
and our household's place in the story

of the West and the story of the world.

Which included a pretty heavy-handed,
I'll note, you know, gospel presentation

in kind of that old Salvation Army,
you know, Methodist way, right?

That they had.

Uh, g- good, good, good times.

Good times.

And, and, and one of the, the
anecdotes was she always blamed

property taxes on the factory owners.

'Cause in her opinion, a
landowner, a farmer, right?

A- a- and really as, as a landowner,
as an employer, it was in her opinion

your, your bounden duty to educate not
just your children, but the children

of all who you were beholden to, right?

Um, and I mean, that, so by the
way, the, the nursery schoolhouse

also educated I think like half of
the neighbors at the time, right?

People that really didn't have an economic
connection to my grandfather at all.

But, but that was just, it was open,
and so if you were part of the community

you were welcome and, and she would,
she would teach you that stuff.

And she considered that her
duty as a landowner's wife.

That was just part of what
we were supposed to do.

Um, and, uh, and, and in her opinion, the
reason we got property taxes was 'cause

all these factory owners came in and they
didn't, uh, they didn't teach their kids.

They didn't, they didn't, or not just
teach their kids, they didn't teach

their employees' kids how to read and
write, and that caused social problems.

So it was, it was the factory owners'
fault that we had property taxes.

Um, so yeah, as, I, just, just that,
that, that contrast has been really

interesting kind of as, as I've interacted
with you, learning about that contrast

between New England and, and Virginia.

Because again, New England had the
serious problems of they needed the

public schools because they weren't
able to fund this stuff themselves.

Yeah.

You know, there's a lot of myths
about the, like, the early republic

era, particularly the period kind
of between, I don't know, like, the

end of John Adams' presidency and
the, um, beginning of the Civil War.

It, it's entirely made up.

Like, like, you have this myth that the
South was, uh, anti-industrialization

or that they didn't understand
debt, which is total nonsense.

If you look at, say, the debt issue,
a- as you mentioned, Virginia actually

paid off its Revolutionary War debts,
and then when all the other state debts

were folded into the national debt, you
had, like, Arthur Lee coming back, who

he was, um, one of the sons of Thomas
Lee and one of the Founding Fathers.

He's a great spy, and he's actively
encouraging the state to buy up these

securities that are depressed because
he knows the price is gonna go up.

It largely didn't because they had other
productive things to invest the money in

rather than speculating in debt markets.

But the, um… L- l- like, they
understood what was going on.

Or, you know, with industrialization,
the Tredegar Iron Works were h-

hugely profitable, hugely productive,
as was Richmond industry generally.

Just the difference was that they
used slave labor to staff it instead

of imported Irish and Italian labor.

And so there were fewer, you know,
no one likes hearing this, there were

fewer, uh, social problems associated
with that, at least before the war.

Um, because they, they didn't, like,
have this imported socialism thing.

They just had Virginia society developing
as it had developed for centuries,

and they knew how to deal with that.

Uh, and that's been largely, uh,
forgotten, uh, for reasons discussed

in the book, the British gentry, the
Southern planter, and the Northern family

farmers, kind of this clash of cultures.

Uh,

Yeah

the…

A- anyway, my only point there is
the, the, the Virginia gentry in

particular, even, uh, separated from
the Deep South, uh, planters, which

were a different group, was actually
highly competent across domains and

knew what was going on and wasn't
really being outsmarted by some of the

Yankee industrialists or plutocrats.

It was rather going along with some
of the stuff for the sake of the

nation, the debt issue in particular.

Um, and it was the continuing develop-
or the, the continuing development and

cultivation of personal virtue as applied
to Republican politics, uh, really in the

classical tradition that molded them and
molded their behavior in that respect.

And simultaneously, it was their
continuing ability from the kinda

upper yeoman class, the, the planters
who had a couple slaves, to the large

Tidewater barons, their ability to
continually, um, make their land

profitable well into the 19th century.

It, it made them a continuing economic
force, uh, which has largely been

forgotten, and also a- able to support
that public virtue because the,

the two were related to each other.

Uh, so I, I think that's important
to remember, and it is kinda

why I talk about them as I do.

Yeah.

Well, and you know, people, I think
one of the things that, that, that I

remember learning when I was studying
the history of public education was

just the i- incredible influence of the
New York Board of Educators, which was

essentially like an early teacher's union.

Um, so for instance, reading levels,
um, w- as you know, like a third

grade reading, a fourth grade.

For, for a long time now, reading
levels have been set by the

New York Board of Educators.

There's actually a, uh, a Bible
translation, uh, that I won't name

who, who … They, they have a problem
because they, they have in their, like

the, the incorporating documents of
their nonprofit set that the, the Bible

translation that they issue will hit
a certain reading level, and it's like

nobody bothered to think about who
sets the reading level in this country.

And so they, they, uh, they, they had to
have a fairly clever, clever workaround

that, that, uh, that, that resulted in,
in what's, uh, the Legacy Standard Bible.

Um, and, uh, that, that, that's kind
of avoids the reading level thing.

Um, but, uh, but it's a fascinating
… You know, it's a fascinating thing

because the, you know, again, the New
York, the New England group had invested

all of this kind of institutional weight
in public schools, so when the public

school thing broadened to the rest of the
country, it, it resulted, you know, de

facto in a bunch of these New York people
kind of spreading across, uh, you know,

like insert your unf- uh, unflattering
insect, uh, metaphor of choice here,

across the rest of the country and
kind of bringing their ideas with them.

So, okay, anything else you wanna, you
wanna think about on that topic before

we move on to the, the cursus honorum?

Yeah

Yeah, so I think, um, y- the Romans of
course had their cursus honorum, which

most people know about, kind of the
progression through public offices.

I, we, I don't really need to
get into it in more depth than

that 'cause it's not particularly
relevant other than the purpose

listening, we, we've done, we've done,
like, three or four episodes on the

Roman cur- Cursus Honorum, so go back and
listen to my other podcasts on the topic

Yes.

So the same sort of thing was
developed in Virginia, though with

different positions because, of
course, the positions were different.

And, uh, the general concept was that
when cavalier society in Virginia

really fermented and developed under
the period really where Governor

Berkeley was in charge, kind of in the
late-ish, mid to late 17th century.

Not that many cavaliers, like aristocrats
who mattered came over, um, but some

of them did, and particularly there
were just enough, um, the, the general

planter society was leavened, is the
term typically used by their presence,

where it adopted their mindset, their
view of life, and their general,

um, economic, political, religious
views, which combined represented this

union of church, state, and property.

Where the general idea was that
the landowners kind of up and down

the pyramid should be involved
with the established church, not

the Quakers or the Puritan church.

Uh, they hated the dissenters and
repeatedly forced them out of the state.

It was an Episcopalian project, right?

Yes, exactly.

Um, and so you have the established
church, the landowners, and the landowners

are expected to be in the government
of the church and the government of

the state, and it kind of forms this,
uh, this trinity, you know, which is

appropriate, yeah, given the religion.

Where it's all united, and it's all
devoted towards the proper cultivation

of the territory and its people.

And so the way that worked was, uh, this
combination of democracy and aristocracy,

um, that's really interesting, where
at each level there was kind of input

from the populace, but also input
from the established authorities.

Kind of if you imagine this developing
over time, there were the old men

who have always been in it, and then
the y- the younger men coming up.

And so it started at the plantation level
where because tobacco's price is in part

determined by its quality, there are
other things as well, such as the strain

or just the general commodity price.

But quality matters, and quality can
be discerned because you can see if

the leaves kind of look bad or if there
are a bunch of worms crawling on them.

So a, a planter's ability to grow good
tobacco was generally the way, uh,

his neighbors viewed him as a man.

That played into, uh, credit decisions.

It played into, you know, what
social situations he'd be invited to.

It determined what level of respect
he'd get because people could just,

you know, ride their horse by your
fields and look over and, you know,

see what your workforce was up to.

And if your tobacco looked bad, they'd
realize you probably were inattentive

or incompetent, and they didn't
really want to be associated with you.

Um, and th- there were other things
that kind of played into that, such

as if you'd ever reneged on a debt,
you know, that was a big black mark.

Um, or if you refused to loan to
people who were good credit risks,

um, you, you seemed overly greedy
or, you know, not trusting of your

fellows, and they didn't like you.

But the main thing was, uh, the quality
of your leaf, the quality of your tobacco.

And if you were competent in that
respect and you could manage your

plantation well, as all around you could

t- Oh,

they called this the
habit of command, right?

Uh, kind of.

Kind of.

Okay.

So, so, so get, yeah, get into that

yeah.

So then coming out of that, you know, if
you think about the way, uh, liberty and

equality, uh, conflicted in Virginia,
uh, uh, the men in charge, if they were

gonna grow good leaf, they had to develop,
yeah, what you just called, or the habit

of command, which is a term that actually
comes from, uh, Charles Francis Adams Jr.,

which is funny that he kinda,
uh, immortalized it given,

you know, their Puritan bent.

But regardless, the, um, it, it was
understood that the sort of man who would

be able to grow good leaf was the sort
of man who had this habit of command

and who could probably command and could
probably lead his fellows where he was

worthy of consideration for the next
step up the hierarchical ladder, the

next step up the Virginia cursus honorum.

Uh, in that leads into the vestry
board because each Episcopalian church,

um, and kinda community surrounding
it is governed by the vestry.

Uh, and at the time that was much more
important than it is now because it was,

uh, the, the board that handled not just
management of the church, but management

of the people associated with the church

and

like a, we could a k- it would
be like a, like a, like an all

purposes arbitration board,

Yes.

So like

one that you were socially expected
to submit a whole list of, of,

of certain types of disputes to

Yes, that's a great way of describing it.

So it was essentially that, and
importantly, um, it wasn't elected.

It was determined by c- the current
members of the board in cooperation

with the state legislature and the
governor, but primarily just the men

who were on the board and m- maybe
a few other influential people.

So it was more aristocratic than
democratic, but you had to be adding

people to it, uh, who would be acceptable
to the community because it was this

community arbitration board, so there was
that break upon oligarchic tendencies.

Uh, and also it was unpaid, so, uh,
to submit yourself to being a part

of it, you knew you were gonna be
dealing with huge social headaches

and kind of the most difficult people
in your community continuously for

no money whatsoever, and indeed you'd
be pulled away from your plantations.

You'd have less time to devote to
management of your estate, which meant you

had to continue developing in your skill
of doing that and your ability to handle

tenants or slaves or indentured servants.

Uh, so it was kinda… It was the next
step up the cultivation of leadership,

cultivation of the habit of command
ladder, and it was, uh, the, the intent

of it was to acculture one to dealing
with community members who weren't of

his rank, uh, typically people below
him, um, and also to see who could pass

the shit test of, um, you know, dealing
with a- all this nonsense constantly.

Um, and it worked in that regard.

It did screen out the people who
weren't willing to submit themselves

to public service, and then they would
be somewhat socially ostracized if

they weren't willing to do so, which
was important to the continuance of

the system, it… while also helping
develop these people as leaders early

on in a relatively low stakes way.

I- if they did well in that
position, the next step up the

ladder was the, uh, justice of the
peace role in the county courts.

Once again, county courts were a much
bigger deal then than they are now

because they met about once a month, and
it was a big social event when they met

because people had nothing else to do.

So they'd show up, they'd drink,
they'd trade horses, they'd poke around

the courthouse, and they'd wait to
see who was gonna be hanged, who was

gonna be fined, who had the bastard
child that needed to be supported.

A- all the fun things one can imagine
in a semi-frontier county court.

And once again, the justices of the
peace were appointed by a mixture of

the current members, but in this case
much more the governor and s- some

influence of the Council of state,
uh, which, uh, we, we'll get into in a

minute, uh, and the House of Burgesses.

And so it was once again appointed, but
they had to be respectable people who

would be respected by their community
members, and this was a higher stakes,

uh, version of the vestry board,
essentially, where they would have to

continue cultivating themselves, learn
the law, learn how to lead, and learn

how to, um, make decisions that both
pushed the community in the correct

direction while also being acceptable
to that community, uh, which made the

Virginia leadership group a relatively
conservative group overall, and also

kind of well accustomed to wielding
this habit of command in the right way.

And they had to continue managing
their plantation and dealing with

the vestry responsibilities as
they did this, so it was a big

thing.

Y- yes, it stacks up over time,
and you have to keep doing

all of it well as you do it.

Um, so then

the things that I, I, I, I think about,
when, when … Wou- would you say, like,

there's, there's some point between kind
of the justice of the peace and, and

then the, the, the higher ranks, right?

The, obviously the, the House of
Burgesses, uh, you know, where you're

dealing with things that primarily
are gonna matter for their second

or third order effects, right?

You know, one of the things that
we're constantly talking about on X is

that there's just this whole group of
people that have no apparent ability to

recognize that there is such a concept
as second or third order effects.

And, and everyone just kind of
wanders around saying, "Oh, this is

terrible. This is ter-," like how

There's … But, but, uh, people
don't seem to be aware there is

actually a, a structure of human
organization and human civilization

that really does solve this problem.

You just make, you just have this layer
where if you don't do a good job thinking

about second and third order effects,
you don't get past this layer, and we

don't listen to you on anything important

Yes.

That's a point that, um, both
Charles Sinder in his book American

Revolutionaries in the Making, and also
Carl Bridenbaugh in his book The Seed of

Empire make explicitly, which is that,
uh, you know, one had to think about

all these things at each chain up this,
but, you know, more so as it went on.

Because i- if you experimented too
much, or if you didn't think things

through before embarking on some
project, uh, it could me cap you.

Uh, y- you'd lose all your respect,
uh, say if your tobacco went poorly

because you decided to do some insane
thing that year, um, and you wouldn't

be able to do any of this anymore.

Or, you know, if you started making
horrible decisions as a justice of the

peace, or, uh, be obviously partial
in your decision-making and kind of

'Cause those things
would follow you, right?

It, it was… It- people knew you.

It was a, it was a political system
that was scaled at the personal level.

It, it was, it wasn't a bureaucratic
scale, it wasn't of industrial

scale, it was a personal scale,
and it was in an honor community

where these things did matter.

Um, and so y- yeah, you had to, you had
to be able to consider how your decisions,

your experiments, um, your thoughts and
your application of political theory to

reality, uh, would ripple through society,
and you had to be able to, you know,

cultivate yourself in order to cultivate
society, which was really the purpose of

it, 'cause it was threshing the, uh, chaff
and the wheat at kind of each level up

I think up until this point,
still completely unpaid, right?

Yes, uh, entirely unpaid.

Um, so then the next step was the House
of Burgesses, which was e- effectively

the House of Representatives at the
state level, uh, at a time when state

legislatures, uh, mattered much more.

And so this one was the first one that
was more democratic than aristocratic.

Typically, what would happen is each
county got, I think, two, um, m-

Burgesses, um, or y- y- and so then
those typically mult- four or five

people could run, something like that.

But typically you had to get the green
light from established authorities

within it, um, particularly the
older members who are higher up the

ranks within it in order to run.

It were… You know, they didn't want just
anybody doing it, and they also wanted

to screen out the troublemakers or screen
out the people who would dis- detract from

the general respect accorded to the body.

Um, so you, you had to have done
well at the vestry level and at the

justice of the peace level to even run.

You also had to be wealthy enough to
provide snacks for your potential voters

because election day was yet another big
deal where people showed up and you had

to have a lot of liquor, a lot of wine,
and a lot of beer available to hand out.

Not as a bribe, that was illegal,
but just, you know, as a treat for

your friends to thank them for, uh,
making the journey to vote for you.

Uh, so yeah.

Like, it- Washington has these amounts
noted in his personal ledger, and

it'd be, you know, some headache of
paying five pounds for, you know,

hogsheads full of Madeira to hand out
to voters in the hope he'd get elected.

It's stuff like that.

It's kind of these, uh, funny things
that w- they were more entertaining

when they were kinda openly encouraged
rather than having to be hidden like now.

In any case, um, that mattered because,
you know, n- you had to be given the green

light by the established authorities,
which made it semi-aristocratic,

but you also actually had to win the
respect of the local freeholders.

And it typically, it was people over 50
acres in landed property who could vote.

It, the, the restriction to think of
to make it applicable to modernity

would essentially be net taxpayers,
um, y- people who are productive

and add something to society.

It, it screen… The property voting
wasn't really a way of establishing

oligarchic authority so much as just
screening out the underclass because

people thought they wouldn't vote
responsibly, which of course was true.

Um, and so then you had to be able
to win the respect of those people.

yeah, I mean, one of the, one of
the ways I, like, w- w- I, I think

also it wouldn't be, it wouldn't be
waged workers in, in, in many ways.

Um, so, so a- a- as we understand
this today, maybe, maybe, maybe

waged workers in the '70s or '60s
or something of that nature, right?

Uh, which, which, which was one
of the things, the criticisms that

people made about property voting.

Uh, but, but the, the goal I think was,
we don't want you voting if you could,

if you could have ever been somebody
who, who worked for this guy, right?

We don't want somebody who was
submissive, you know, underneath the,

the, the guy that's running, because
we just assume those people are

gonna vote for their patron, right?

It w- it would be sort of
dishonorable for them not to.

And so you need to be independent
at least to some degree, um, in,

in, in order to, to, to vote.

You can't, you can't
have abject dependents.

Obviously th- these guys had m- a
multiplicity of economic long-term

economic relationships with their
fellows and the, the people in

their community, and that was okay.

But y- you know, that wasn't, they, they
didn't want you to have the people that

you had kind of economically supported in
a, in a significant way voting, at least

or the other people in the state had
economically supported, um, w- which was

even the bigger deal because, uh A- as
came up, say, with the controversy over

John Robinson appropriating public funds
to loan out to his friends to try and

… He, he had noble motives of trying to keep
the state from just crashing economically,

and he didn't make any money from it.

But it was a bad situation.

And had Richard Henry Lee not actually
been independent and have been elected

by independent voters, had he instead
been elected by people who were dependent

on John Robinson, uh, the investigation
wouldn't have happened, the rooting out

of corruption wouldn't have happened.

It would've been quite bad for the state.

So that's, you know, the sort of
thing they were trying to prevent is

the situation we have now, where it's
just people directly voting for some

handout at each and every election.

They wanted the people who, uh, weren't
gonna be getting the handouts, who were

gonna be, you know, participating in
society fully as members of the res

publica, uh, though it wasn't a republic
at this time 'cause it was the colonial

world, a- a- being the ones who had a say.

Um, and so y- you get this interesting
situation where the sort of person

who's elected had to be dignified,
kinda like you think of Washington

or you think of the Lees, but also
couldn't be overly haughty because

if he was a jerk to people on the
road, then they wouldn't vote for him.

So it had to be the sort of guy who
could do both, the guy who was actually

a good leader, actually possessed
the habit of command and leadership

rather than just being an oligarch.

Um, and that really,
really winnowed the crop.

And you see a lot of the First Family
types after a couple generations, one

or two sons will lose elections, and
they have to reorient themselves and

run again after being a bit nicer for
a couple years, and then they'll win.

It's this kinda interesting cycle where
the fathers will make fun of their sons

for either being too accommodating to the
body public or not accommodating enough.

Um, and so th- there're some
hilarious letters exchanged about,

um, you know … Uh, you, you can
imagine what they said to each other.

Um, in any case, w- once elected in, in
the House, those who were there as young

men were expected largely to sit, listen,
do the, um, administrative things that

were headaches, learn how it operated.

And as they did that, the older members
of the House were expected to pick

out those with special talents so that
they could go on to do great things.

And you saw this particularly
during the Revolution.

Like, the reason Thomas Jefferson
wrote the Declaration of In-

Independence was that a couple guys
in the House of Burgesses noticed

that though he was terrible at public
speaking, he was actually a really

good writer and could do this well.

And so they sent him to the Continental
Congress with kind of the, you know,

behind-the-scenes letters to that body
and its leaders being, "Hey, uh, don't

try and get this guy to talk, but he can
write quite well, and, you know, you might

wanna use him in that position." And th-
that sort of thing happened continually.

So it was a way of continually molding
skills, continually molding personal

development, and producing the best
leaders, uh, that could be produced as

part of this general society, and also one
in which, um, the interests of the voters

were generally aligned with the interests
of the politicians because they were

all planters, just at different scales.

Uh, and so it, they had the same
general, uh, interests in mind and w-

you know, what was good for the state
was good for the politicians and was

good for the people who elected them,
which created this union of interests.

Then the particularly notable people could
be leaders in the House, or they really

aspired to be members of the Council of
State, which was appointed by the governor

and was something like a Supreme Court
mixed with a Senate, um, and that it

had a veto over legislation and is also,
so was the court of highest appeals and

dealt with foreign policy regarding the
British state and its colonial officials.

And then there was the governor, who
other than Thomas Lee was never a

Virginian, uh, up until the revolution.

Um, it was someone sent from Britain.

And so that was how the
political system functioned.

And in it, I think you see that, uh,
triune, um, organization of society

between the union between church,
state, and land, and how they used that

to cultivate virtue and to cultivate
political leaders who could, you know,

actually have the potential because
of their capital and because of their

training to exercise that virtue in, uh,
service to the state and continue to do so

because they were both socially obligated
to do so and saw that as being the highest

good rather than just always wanting to
accumulate more land or whatever it was.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah, so I mean, I think the-- thank
you for that and that, that, you know,

this is, this is, again, to the-- this,
this, these are the kinds of people that

I, I, I try to surround myself with.

Uh, Will's got an incredible
wealth of knowledge on this topic.

So you had another article, um, about,
you know, embodying aristocratic

excellence in modernity, what would
a rebuilt American gentry look like?

So, you know, I think, I think
we're, we're at the cusp at least.

You know, I've, I've
done several episodes.

I, I think we're on the cusp.

I mean, I, I think generally w-we, we
had gone so far on the side of, you

know, egalitarianism and trying to break
things down to the atomistic individual

level, uh, you know, d- to the point
where people are, you know, engaging in

the trans stuff where they're, they're
trying to redefine what gender means

for themselves and this, you know, that
e-every single individual person gets

to negotiate literally everything about
their relationship with the rest of the

universe, you know, a-ad infinitum, right?

Sort of in that, that, that kind of
Patrick Deneen sort of, uh, sort of

recognition that, that there something,
something has gone wrong here.

And so I think there was always
going to be, there always had to be

a, a, a, a swing back the other way.

Um, but, but I think that there's s-
you know, what I've been talking about

for the last couple weeks has been these
new technological improvements, these

new technological shifts, um, l- with
like such as robots and AI and, and, and

some of the, some of the, the, the, the
rockets that, uh, that Elon is doing.

We're, we're about to have much more.

I don't know that we'll actually get to
Mars or anything like that, but we, we

are about to have much more control over
the space, say, between here and the moon.

Like, that's about to become a
commercial space in a way that it hasn't.

And, and, and, you know, maybe by the,
by the time, you know, we're, we're,

we're old, we will be start sending
ships, you know, pretty far out.

Um, you know, somebody, you know, one
of the, one of the things that, that

is we don't really understand how much
wealth would be generated if we could

actually get to the asteroid belt and
start engaging in asteroid mining.

Like, that's the sort of thing that would,
you know … W-we would look obviously

to, like, the Spanish exploitation or
the, the Spanish, you know, getting

the silver from the New World.

And, uh, but it would be a-another order
of magnitude greater than that, the kind

of resources that we would suddenly have
access to, uh, the, uh, an abundance

of, uh, of, of metals and, and, and rare
elements that, that we, we really have

no idea what would, that would look like.

So, um, as, as we're thinking about this,
again, I think, I think the, the, the

broader context is we, we've swung so far
to the one side, we have to swing back.

So what do you think that would
look like as we, as we start to

try to rebuild an American gentry?

And then a-as you have thoughts,
I'd love to hear about what do

you think in terms of, um, um, how
these new technologies impact that?

Yeah.

Uh, so I, I think the basic framework is
if you look at y- what's the difference

between a plutocracy and an aristocracy?

I, I would argue the main difference
is that a plutocracy is where the, you

know, the, the important people have
one skill, and that's their ability

to use money to make more money.

Uh, just the ever-expanding riches
is their reason for existence

and the one thing they can do.

Uh, on the other hand, an aristocracy
is dominated by people who, uh,

have cross-domain excellence.

They might not be the best money makers,
but they can do that well, and they can

do a thousand other things well as well.

Uh, and y- that does trickle
down through society.

I- if… This is a point, um, like, uh,
The Aristocracy in England, 1660 to 1914

is one of my favorite books, and in it,
the author makes the point that if you

look at the British middle class and
the upper gentry, the upper yeomanry,

kind of all those people, uh, before the
Parliament bill, they aspired to be like

the aristocracy, which meant they sent
their sons to learn classical educations.

The Virginians did this as well.

Uh, even if, you know, the father
was a successful accountant, he

wanted his son to do other things.

Even if he ended up being an accountant,
too, he, he was kind of expected to be

excellent across domains, be able to
ride a horse, to hunt a fox, uh, maybe

do something in the colonies for a bit,
make money, certainly know how to speak

Latin, be able to do all these different
things rather than just being neurotically

focused on expanding his wealth.

I- on the other hand, now, really
in America since whenever, you know,

whenever you pinpoint the bad time as
being, you just get the trickle-down of

plutocracy, which is I think epitomized
by that stupid book, The Millionaire Next

Door, which, uh, probably has the worst
selection bias of any book in existence.

I mean, it made it into when, uh,
made it into a book of, of bad

statistical analysis, bad sta- Like,
it was the example that they gave

for this is a statistically invalid
selection biased, you know, pool

But, you know, th- that aside,
the other issue with it is, well,

you know, what's the point of
the existence described in this?

There's the Heinlein line that
specialization is for insects, and

that's clearly demonstrated by that
book where you have, like, the guy worth

$10 million who, you know, does nothing
at all ever because he just wants to

turn it into $11 million and so on.

And I, I, I think…

he's hyper-specialized,

Yes, exactly.

And he can do nothing else, and he
doesn't really aspire to do anything

else, wh- which I think is a big problem.

And so I think when you look at these,
uh, technologies that have, you know,

re-sparked, uh, innovation and, you
know, innovation that's applicable

to the real world rather than just,
you know, making fun of each other

on the internet, which is fun for
a couple years but then burns out.

The, uh, you know, like, for one,
being able to build a nuclear

power plant or build a rocket
requires more than one skill.

You can't just be good at coding.

You have to be able to know
how to manage, you know, uh,

construction and subcontractors.

You have to generally understand
what's going on with it, inside it.

You have to understand supply lines.

You have to have some commercial purpose
in mind that's gonna make this worth it.

You need to know how to deal with
the government and kinda handle

cutting through bureaucratic red tape.

You, you need to have a, a bevy
of skills that you're able to

exercise well, both as necessary and
preemptively to make that a success, and

particularly if you wanna do anything
with it that's r- really of worth.

Kinda like you see, uh, whether
it's Microsoft or Google

restarting Three Mile Island.

Y- you, that's all interconnected, where
you need to know how to do the AI thing,

the data center thing, the nuclear
power plant thing, the government thing.

Microsoft has its problems, as
we've all seen on the internet, but

regardless, there's something there.

And the sort of people who can
harness that I think will be people

who, like the Virginia gentry or the
British landed elite, have this, uh,

cross-domain excellence kinda built into
them and are able to, um, uh, exploit

opportunity as it pops up, and do so in
a way that continually builds, uh, th-

their ability to do so in the future
i- in more ways than just earn money.

I, I think the question is whether
the kinda plutocratic mindset is

baked in so deep that they don't
think about legacy because, uh, these

projects are multi-generational.

And so what we'll see with Elon is, well,
if he wants to, like, do anything on Mars,

that's gonna be a 20-generation project.

And so the Grosvenor family of England
could have colonized Mars by now.

They've been around for 1,000 years
pretty much in the same spot, Chester.

Um, you know, although they
have the property in London

that's quite valuable now.

Uh, but, you know, e- they've
been rooted in the same territory

for 1,000 years, as has the Percy
family, the Fitzwilliam family.

Uh, up until semi-recently,
the Lee family of Virginia was

here for a few hundred years.

You, you have people who think
about legacy and who are able

to continue demonstrating skills
over generations across domains

because they've cultivated it.

In the past, that was military,
economic, and political.

Now it's probably more political,
economic, and social with kind of

the military aspect being, uh, a
side part of technological excellence

or kind of ability to harness that
just 'cause of the scale involved.

But regardless

Right

Yeah, they talk about, they talk about the
pharmaceutical media complex as opposed

to the military industrial complex, right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

So there's all of that, um, plus
being able to drop rods from God

kinda helps obviate some of the

Yeah, it, it's a totally
different … Yeah, it, it, it

changes, it changes things, right?

Yeah.

Couple of tungsten rods in orbit and,
uh, that's a different … He who,

he who controls the orbitals, right?

Something like that.

Um

Yeah.

A- anyway, th- that's how I would predict
that going, and I think we'll, we'll

just have to wait and see on that front.

But it's why trying to inculcate this
mindset and teach the importance of

these things is so important, um, because
if we're gonna succeed in any of these

endeavors, it really requires the…

It requires the effective union of
church, uh, productive property, and

state to make happen, and it's only
aristocracy that can make that happen

Well, there was an interesting
post from, uh, Marc Andreessen.

Or, well, it wasn't from Marc, but it was
a, it was an interview of Marc Andreessen,

and he, he, uh, he talked about there's
this three-way Mexican standoff between

coders, project managers, and designers.

And, uh, so he says, uh, the quote is,
"I'm seeing it in a bunch of the early

leading-edge companies in the Valley.

They're circling around a job title
loosely called builder or something

like it." And basically, the idea
is you had these separate jobs in

the past of programmer, project,
product manager, and designer.

And I've been describing what's
happening in the Valley, um, w-

where the programmers think that they
don't need the product managers and

the designers anymore because they
can't, they can have AI do that, and

then each of the other two doesn't
think they need the other two either.

Uh, and, and, and Marc Andreessen's
take is that he thinks they're

all, they're all right.

He thinks that they're all correct,
that, that the new job is builder,

and all three of these formerly
siloed groups are now builders and,

and, and are gonna compete and be
expected to compete against each other.

You know, one of the things that
I've really been, been doing some,

some thinking and talking about is
this idea of having unified games.

You, you mentioned that the, the
unified game, the, the, the kind of

the entry game that people had to play
in the Virginia context was what was

the quality of your tobacco, right?

And, and that was something that anyone
basically could look at, and if you

had domain expertise, you would know
what… I mean, even, even as you said,

riding past the fields, you could look
and see, oh, is this person good at

this or is this person bad at this?

Um You know, it's so, it's so
important because there's kind of

a, a man in the arena, you know.

Um, I, I just did an article, uh,
uh, called The, The Modern Tower of

Babel, and, and one of the things I was
mentioning was that people, you know, the,

these modern kinda siloed groups, uh, you
know, where you become a billionaire in

one hyper-specialized industry, right?

And that's all you know how to
do, and that's all that you have.

And then, you know, y- you
can't compete with anyone.

No one else can evaluate you.

You're the best in your teeny, tiny little
field that, that, that, you know, isn't,

isn't actually able to generate a society.

Like, the, the thing about, like, the
great estates, the plantations, like,

their opinion was that they could
survive quite comfortably if the rest

of the world, you know, vanished in
a, in a, in a ball of fire, right?

They might need to send some ships
out to get salt from somewhere, but,

but their, their broad opinion was,
"Yeah, the rest of the world could

go to hell. We'll be fine." Um,
and, and that is just not the case.

Like, all of these people are, are
crazy interdependent in ways, uh…

But they're also, paradoxically, super
inter- interdependent, but unable to

fairly compete with one another, right?

There's no, there's no common domain that
they… I mean, aside from, I suppose, raw

pol- power politics and finance, right?

Which is kind of the places where
they're competing right now.

So I think it'll be really interesting to
see if, if AI starts to break down silos.

And it's not, this is not the n-
the, the, like, the number of jobs

in terms of the number of jobs
created that people are working in.

The number of different specialties that
people have, if that starts to shrink,

if that, if, if instead of the, the,
the plan for everybody is to become

hyper-specialized in some niche, if
it's, no, there's actually fewer and

fewer with every new iteration of AI,
there's fewer and fewer specialties

and we're all kind of defaulting to,
to a, a, a smaller number of skillsets,

well, that gets very interesting.

That gets very interesting, so.

Well, and you know, if, if you look
at even the Gilded Age, uh, who was

it that actually exercised power and
was able to shape things in that era?

It wasn't really the railroad
barons nor the steel barons.

It was Andrew Mellon and JP Morgan in,
in the American context because they

were able to marshal resources in a
way that allowed them to utilize their

understanding of different sectors and
different issues in different sectors

to then, you know, shape the direction
of those, whether through JP Morgan Bank

or Union Trust Company or Mellon Bank.

Uh, th- they were the people who
mattered in a way that those who

were of more wealth really didn't,
which I think will come up again

and w- we'll see how it plays out

Yeah.

Well, any, uh, we, we, we're gonna,
we're gonna kind of wrap up the

public version of, of this, and then,
and then, uh, hopefully you have

time to stick around for a little
bit of Q&A, uh, with the audience.

Um, so any, any final thoughts?

We've, we've covered a bunch of topics,
and, uh, sometimes I, I, I bounce

from thing to thing, and so any,
any other comments or thoughts you

had, uh, that, that you wanna share
kind of with the public audience?

I, I would just say, um, you know, it--
the-- though this is a more democratic age

in a lot of respects and certainly a more
plutocratic one in a lot of respects, I,

I think if you plan on building anything
important, uh, these aristocratic virtues

and mindsets still matter a great deal.

And just to harp on the Gilded
Age example, you know, J.P.

Morgan loved it in Britain and
had an estate there and tried

to apply that mindset generally
to his American business.

And similarly, the Mellon family had a
lot of the same Anglophilic tendencies

and tried to apply that to the
American context, and it made them more

effective because it made them willing
to look at the long term rather than

just what was right in front of them.

I-- and, uh, that I think is
more important now than ever.

And examining, uh, you know, great men
of the past who were aristocrats of the

soul and typically of blood as well,
um, it allows one to kinda see how

that worked out and start implementing
it in personal life, which I think

is important and is what makes it
applicable rather than just interesting.

Yep.

You know, it's really interesting.

W- w- in one of the recent government
shutdowns, there's been so many that

I can't quite remember which one it
was, but in one of them, um, in, in

the last I think six to nine months,
there was a period of time where we

were not paying our military, and it was
actually the Mellon family personally,

I be- I believe it was one of their
very old trusts that they have that

stepped in and fronted the funds.

Which, which if, if it was one of their
trusts, uh, then that's really interesting

because those old trusts, you have to
have a provision in the trust that says

you're allowed to spend money this way.

It was, uh, e- so it, what happened was
it was Paul Mellon who had used original

investments the family made in, I think
Gulf Oil, which got bought by Chevron,

and then had grown to a huge amount.

And he had been the one that managed
that, along with building a railroad

based on old family railroad holdings.

Uh, so he had money that wasn't
included in one of the trusts

Oh, okay.

Mellon had set up that
enabled him to do this.

Anyway, uh, it's

But it's, but, but still, I mean,
that's, it's a really interest-

like that, that's, it's a very
aristocratic kind of thing to do, right?

To step in and s- and obviously
I think he got paid back, right?

Probably at a fairly, fairly
generous interest rate.

But, um, but you know,
they, they, they stepped in.

They said, "Hey, our, our, our soldiers
need this, and, and this, this money is

going to solve this problem until the,
the, the public purse can be restored,"

which I, I just, I find, I find that, that
really interesting that that's happening.

So yeah, it's a, it's,
it's a fascinating time.

Again, my, my take is that,
that we, the pendulum swung

way too far in one direction.

You know, woke was this aberration.

A- and I think, and I think even
in many ways the, the plutocratic

thing has, has run its course.

People are not happy.

You know, when you talk to, like,
when recruiting, if you have a

straight plutocrat company, they
can't recruit very well, right?

You know, famously millennials wanna
know what, what, what purpose are you,

are you, uh, are you aiming for here?

Um, and, and, and so I think that, that
when you talk about the, the purposes

that can make money, the purposes that
can endure and be profitable, so you've

gotta, you've gotta satisfy those,
those high-minded ideals, and you have

to survive by being profitable and
productive and useful in the world.

I think the, the thing that
does that is something more

like an aristocratic mindset.

Well, again, thank you.

Oh, yeah?

could I add one more anecdote
just kind of showing the, uh,

the way this remains relevant?

So there's this great book called
Aristocrats by a guy named Robert

Lacey who tracks really the few
thousand-year families in Europe, and

one he talks about is the Grosvenors.

And in the '80s, the gov- the
British government was trying to

actually just expropriate their
London, you know, houses, not through

death taxes or income taxes, but

straight raw

just straight expropriation.

So then they bought themselves
some time by suing and going

to, like, the International
Humanitarian Court or whatever.

But the big thing was that, uh, I think
his name was Gerald Grosvenor, uh,

whichever duke it was, he was hyperactive
in his county militia and, you know,

he still had all these feudal rights
that he actually exercised, um, to make

himself a man of local note who hundreds
of people trained with every weekend,

and they, they did all the things.

And then eventually the government just
decided it wasn't worth it and backed off,

and I, I don't think they lost the case.

They just kind of dropped the law and
dropped the whole situation because

they didn't wanna deal with it.

And had he not been that guy,
had he just been Mark Zuckerberg,

the government would have taken
everything 'cause no one would have

sure.

Steamrolled him.

Yeah, exactly.

But because he was the guy, because he
actually did it and it was well-liked and

in, like, a just slightly martial tone,
it's not like those hundred guys could

have taken on the Cold War-era British
Army, which was better than it is now.

Perhaps today they could take
it on, but regard- regardless.

He was just… It was, it was enough of
a hard target that they didn't feel like

dealing with it and let the matter drop,
and it kind of just ended there and moved

on, and the tax situation and everything
got a lot better from that point forward.

And so it, it's, it's, it's just
worth remembering that though things

have changed so much and the scale
of life is very daunting, a lot

of this stuff, including at the
community and personal level, is still

exceedingly relevant and can actually
matter even in such a enlarged world

Yeah.

I mean, when you think about things like,
like the Bundy Ranch in Nevada, I think

that was sometime during the Obama years.

I can't recall quite when.

You know, it's not like those guys
could have actually taken on e- even

an institution as small as the, the
Las Vegas Police Department, right?

Um, let alone, you know, the, the forces
of the Bureau of Land Management, which,

which has effectively a private army.

But, but they didn't wanna do that.

Uh, you know, in fact, when you, when you
look into it, if you can get organized,

if you can have local loyalties, if you
can have people … It's not that they're

gonna be capable of fighting a modern
military, but if you just have people

that stand up and say, "No, this is wrong.

We, we, we, we don't like this," it is
shocking how often these big, bad, you

know, infinitely powerful sovereign states
will, will back down and leave you alone.

Um, which, you know, I suppose is,
is what the American constitutional

experiment is all about, really.

Um, so thank you so much and, uh, for,
for this, Will, and this concludes the,

uh, the public part of this recording.

So let's move into the Q&A.

Oliver?