Brand Sussex, Karl Marx and why pitchforks matter.

Harry and Meghan are seceding from the monarchy -- well, except for Harry's inheritance. It's a useful reminder that inherited wealth and not "inventing a better mousetrap" is where the One Percent got all that money in the first place.

Seen in this harsh light, amok capitalism and hidebound feudalism have quite a lot more in common than might be evident. This said, I wish Brand Sussex much luck; someday they may even appear on the cover of Extol Magazine.

But there's really no reason whatever why any of us should give a damn. 

Harry, Meghan and Marx at The Economist

Brand Sussex represents the biggest threat to the monarchy so far

 ... The Sussexes are doing something new. They are embracing capitalism in its rawest, most modern form: global rather than national, virtual rather than solid, driven, by its ineluctable logic, constantly to produce new fads and fashions.

This type of capitalism is the inverse of feudalism. In a feudal society you are bound to your followers by mutual bonds of obligation. In 21st-century capitalism you accumulate followers in order to monetise them. In a feudal society you are bound to plots of land: Harry is the Duke of Sussex while his elder brother is the Duke of Cambridge. In a 21st-century-capitalist society you are propelled around the globe in pursuit of the latest marketing opportunity. It is only fitting that the principal agent of the current debacle, Meghan Markle, is the product of an entertainment business that has done more than any other industry to fulfil Marx’s prediction that “all that is sacred” would be “profaned” and “all that is solid” would “melt into air”.

snip

The daylight that Walter Bagehot said should not be let in upon the magic of monarchy is as nothing to the glare of 21st-century capitalism.