I don’t think that’s a helpful explanation. This period was the age of empires. Why were the Victorian elites so much more successful at it than their counterparts?

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cafebeen 6 hours ago | parent [-]

One way of thinking about it, the success of the elite (meaning the aristocracy) may be separate from the success of the empire. Most of the work behind the latter was done by the industrial bourgeoisie, engineers, workers, colonized people, etc., so the question is, how big a direct impact did the elite have on the empire? How successful they were individually is a different question.

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0xDEAFBEAD 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

In most corporations, most of the work is not done by the CEO. Yet a good or bad CEO can still have a big impact.

	▲	cafebeen 12 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		True, but not universally, depending on whether they are involved day-to-day management or just acting as a public face to the org. Of course there's always just being in the right place at the right time. So I think it's worth looking at the specific decisions, policies, culture, etc.

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frutiger an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

This whole article is not about the aristocracy.

	▲	cafebeen 17 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		I guess the author doesn't cleanly define "elite", but it does lean heavy on the upper-class, and the depiction of social life seems to suggest that as well. But I guess during that period the makeup of upper-class shifted a bit from entirely aristocrats / nobility to include others too