King Charles III is the cutting edge of rentier capitalism

If he had to govern who would keep track of all that fabulous capital?

It’s very true that British monarchs no longer possess any power to govern, but in the modern rentier economy this is an enormous advantage. If the big brass ring is to possess capital and watch it grow (trading assets along the way), you really don’t want the distractions of writing laws or reviewing petitions or sending your army into battle. Your broker requires your undivided attention. King Charles III (or “Chuckie Three Sticks,” as my friend Tom Ricks imagines him as a character on The Sopranos) just inherited about a billion and a half bucks, tax free, plus the biggest expense account in this galaxy. His task is to prevent royal procreation and expensively bad behavior from undoing the accumulation of compound interest—and with relatives like his, that’s a full-time job. Such is the subject of my latest piece in The New Republic. Come for the Shavian critique of Bernard Shaw’s The Apple Cart, stay for the recycling of tabloid trash and a revision of Thomas Piketty’s r > g. Read it here.