Because it was not any different from any other aristocracy in the world at the time. The question the article is trying to answer is "why Britain?" Of all the competing european empires what made that particular one especially successful?

How's this different from modern-day "aristocracy"? Don't they get servants who do their laundry, cook their food, pour their Port, and generally do all the work?

And also millions of poor and suffering people from the colonized countries. Millions of them died of famine. I'm not sure how much we can learn from those elites.

> Insane that this whole thing never mentions once the legions of servants ...

OK but we're talking about a period where the UK was the world's first superpower.

I understand you want to portray the despicable conditions of servants living in rich people's houses in Victorian britain but...

Wanna have a talk about the living conditions of people in, say, Eritrea at the same time? (Eritrea has never really been colonized btw so the whole "it's because of colonialism" angle doesn't really work).

Or even just the living conditions of poor people in Britain who happened to not have jobs as servants for the rich?

My great-uncle (a radiologist) and my great-aunt (she had a pharmacy) had a servant during a bit part of their lives, Tess: and she was basically part of the family. Sure she did the laundry and cooking and cleaning but she never struck me as some oppressed human being living in misery. What I remember from visiting them was my uncle in his office, always working (analyzing radio from patients, writing (snail) mails to other doctors, etc.) and Tess always working too: just a different kind of work.

People getting paid to work for other people doesn't imply slavery. We could of course also have a talk about actual slavery, what were the last countries to officially abolish it, who were the biggest slavers in the world, which countries still have actual slaves (and sex slaves) today, etc.

I'm really not sure the "legion of servants" of Victorian-era elites were the people experiencing the worst living conditions on earth.

This is addressed near the beginning as the Orthodox view:

> There is a longstanding view that the prosperity of Britain’s elites came at the cost of the hundreds of millions whom they subordinated and oppressed, and no doubt that is at least partly true.