@marick i think it’s more a normative claim than an empirical one. emperors often fail to secure power through a lineage.

but they insist that it is right to do so, and vigorously propound a politics under which privilege based on “nepotism” and inheritance is legitimate, and, conversely, where deprivation based on circumstances of birth is also legitimate.

@marick (it probably is worth a separate post sometime. it just emerges in this one from my observation that people who support plutocratic politics often seem to make justice claims in terms of families or ones “people” — something more than direct lineage but less than race — rather than individuals.)