Wednesday, August 18, 2004

Duke William Gates? No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States: And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince or foreign State. U.S. Constitution, Article I, Section 9. Ben Stein has a revolutionary, or maybe counterrevolutionary, way to help the rich accomplish their desire for others to know they're rich and to help the U.S. government pay off its debt: have the government start issuing titles of nobility, for a sum. In ancient times, kings gave out such titles in return for loyalty in wars or heroism in combat or some service to the state. Times have changed. Now, in Britain, our close cousin and good comrade in arms, titles of nobility are - and long have been - handed out for gifts of money to the ruling political party. So many of these were given by brewing magnates that Burke's Peerage, the main registry of nobility, came to be called "Burke's Beerage." This may be changing in the "Cool Britannia" of Tony Blair, but the basic principle still applies. Here in the United States, the government can take ordinary multimillionaires - shopping-center owners, oilwell owners, real estate developers and plastic surgeons - and suddenly lift them above the peasants waiting in line at Alain Ducasse or trying to get a ticket to a Broadway opening. Suddenly, a Joe Blow who developed a skin-care line that sells and is a nobody in Biloxi can - for, say, $10 million - be Baronet Blow of Biloxi, entitled to the homage that a title brings. Dr. Morton Cooperman, orthodontist to the stars' children in Beverly Hills, can for $5 million be Sir Morton of Crescent Drive. [T]he really big titles, like duke, will go for, say, a billion dollars - chump change to a Microsoft zillionaire. From then on, he can join an incredibly select few who can call themselves dukes - and whose wives can ask for hair appointments for Duchess Ballmer of Seattle. A title of marquess may cost $50 million, and earl, say, $10 million, and maybe lowly millionaires can become knights for just that paltry mill. Of course, Ben assures us that this would not give the new nobility any special legal rights: There would not be a House of Lords, for example. We already have the United States Senate, a very rich man's club. This system would sell just prestige, but on a huge scale. I think that Ben is on to something here. From the NY Times [free registration required]. File under Stuff That Don't Fit Anywhere Else. 8:08:04 AM