Why were Victorian elites so effective?
Points and comments are a snapshot, not live.
Victorian elites succeeded despite prioritizing soft skills and networking over rigorous academics.
Elite Victorian schools had little STEM, emphasizing classics, sports, and character formation. Students had shorter classroom hours than modern or continental peers, with heavy focus on team sports and student self-government via prefects. Oxford and Cambridge offered pass degrees for aristocrats; even honors students avoided practical subjects. The system fostered loyalty, networking, and team building. The author argues this may have contributed to Britain's global dominance, though acknowledging exploitation of empire and servants.
The essay explores whether this focus on soft skills and intra-elite cohesion was effective, rather than assuming success came despite, or parasitically from, the Industrial Revolution.
What commenters are saying
Many commenters criticized the article for ignoring the role of exploited labor and colonial oppression. Top comments noted the "legions of servants" and millions of colonized people whose suffering enabled elite leisure. Others argued this exploitation doesn't fully explain British success, pointing to legal frameworks, Navy, investment culture, and physical isolation. A split emerged between those seeing elite success as mere luck/morality-free extraction and those arguing the educational system was genuinely effective at producing loyal administrators. Some noted servants had relatively desirable jobs compared to factory or mill work.