Scott Adams is just talking about moving towards a visible aristocracy. These are the first baby steps.
Soon the rich will have special privileges just like the old days.
Soon the rich will have special privileges just like the old days.
If we could offer packages that would be available to everyone but easy to buy at the same time, wouldn't it be good for everyone? For example you can pay $X for the "lexus lane", $X for another privilege, etc. - this way if someone actually wanted the privilege, but wasn't "really rich", they could still get it - not a total aristocracy and noone is forced to do anything.
Private companies have been doing this for a really long time as small benefits. Think about airport/travel if you pay extra: you can get express checkin on the airport, no security queue, better comfort of travel (business class), better quality food, pick-up service on arrival, luggage transport taken care of, complete booking / planning from a third-party. I have never heard of people complaining about "visible aristocracy" when travelling though. Could the taxes work as a payment gateway for small luxury services?
Meanwhile - it doesn't prevent anyone of us from getting the same. Want a better place on the plane? You can still get it without going for the whole "rich person package".
This is completely different because everyone would be eligible for the Lexus Lane. It's very likely that plenty of middle-class people would choose to pay for it. The defining characteristic of an aristocracy is special rights under the law for an elite class. All you're talking about is a service the government is offering with an aim to profit.
Scott Adams on the other hand is talking about restricting to the top 2%. That's what makes it an aristocracy.
I'm not saying a visible aristocracy codified in legislation is bad.
Also I don't think your concept "full aristocracy" has meaning. All aristocracies exist on a sliding scale somewhere between "Lexus Lanes" and "slavery".
Anyway personally I'm not really against a visible aristocracy. I actually think it probably makes sense to recognize power, because at least then there would be accountability.
If Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, and George Soros are unofficial Kings due to their enormous wealth, it's probably actually a good thing to make them official Kings because then they become accountable for getting results. Everyone would know who to blame - King Bill III.
That puts all the incentives in order.
I kind of suspect that our current elected officials are mostly just a trivial front-end for the true deciders who prefer to remain invisible because then they can't get lynched. Making them visible doesn't seem like much of a negative to me.
In the UK, JK Rowling, even though she is richer than the Queen, is not an aristocrat. She is, in fact, upper middle class. Someone who's born into the aristocracy, even if they're not especially wealthy, is an aristocrat.
The historical exception is the U.S. from 1945 to 1973, as well as perhaps a few other examples (maybe Scandinavia today, or the U.S. in the early/mid 1800s?). In that time period - really, no more than a generation - we saw a big leveling of income distribution, where people born to modest families suddenly had the creature comforts that a generation before had been reserved for the aristocracy. I think most people would agree that this is a generally desirable state for a society, so it might be worth asking what was different about those time periods that made them the historical exception?
Entrenched aristocracies happen when you have old money that looks down on the "nouveau riche". Every country has an old money class that considers itself more elite than the nouveau riche, of course, but they aren't really an entrenched aristocracy unless the rest of society agrees with them.
That's not the cause of aristocracy, that's the effect.
Aristocracy always begins with a way to define the elite. Over time social mobility will decline and people will start to notice that it's mainly the children of elite who become elite. Eventually this will lead to the belief that only the children of elite can be elite. Once this belief is entrenched, it's natural for the new reality to be codified in law.
Do remember that even in England there was social mobility. If you performed a great service for King and Country you would be granted land and title.
Social mobility exists in all societies. Just some more than others. In America we are observing the emergence of a natural aristocracy - a story as old as history itself.