Nationalism and Identity - Part 2 - We’ll Never Be Royals

Whether it was unintentional or poetic irony, introspective pop singer, Lorde wrote one of the most prescient and relevant lines of the modern world. It’s true, we will never be royals. Even today’s royals aren’t really royals anymore. The truth is kings and kingdoms have been entirely overtaken by market forces and globalization. The monarchy is an outdated relic that’s been replaced by a global corporatocracy managed by conspiring oligarchs who maintain the institutions that keep them in power.

For those citizens born in the 21st century and the jaded late 20th century generations (myself included), we know better than to buy the propaganda. There’s no such thing as working your way from the legitimate world of labor and taxes into the orbit of the oligarchy’s reign without an array of compromised ethics, values, morality, and a few broken laws for good measure. Hard work for great success, well that’s just naive.

So how does a citizen of a first world nation become one of these particular oligarchs who have come into so much power they can fund wars, political parties, insurrections, coups, assassinations, and still have time to blackmail most of the social elite that attended their island sex parties?