The Old World of course had its flaws and injustices, but the noblesse oblige present in a system of rule by gentlemen was far less harsh than that of Neo-feudalism by tech, consulting, and banking oligarchs Take, for example, this quote from Carl Bridenbaugh about the Old Dominion and Maryland gentry's relationships with the local yeomen and small tenant farmers: “Noblesse oblige was as much a part of the creed of the Chesapeake gentry as it was of the old regime in France. The inferior and middling sort of people generally found the owner of the big estate courteous, kind, and the fair and understanding judge on the quorum, ready to extend a helping hand before his aid was sought. A gentleman knew his neighbors of every rank and called them by name. Above all, the leading planters were imbued with the belief that they constituted a class whose obligations to serve and to govern well must be fulfilled in return for the privileges which were their birthright.” Similarly, here's how Skidelsky described what such a relationship looked like for the gentry in his biography of the infamous Oswald Mosley. He noted, of Mosley’s grandfather, a wealthy and powerful landed gentleman: "Mosley's adored and adoring grandfather was clearly a paternalist of the old school, who took his obligations and his rights very scriously. He was not without enterprise: the diversification from arable to livestock farming to counter the North American grain invasions of the 1880s saved the Rolleston economy for another generation, As a young man, he worked with his labourers in the field from dawn to dusk. He raised a prize-winning shorthorn herd, placed his pedigree bulls at the disposal of his tenants for a nominal fee, and remitted a portion of their rents in hard times.He built cottages and a recreation hall for his workpeople, maintained a school for their children, an almshouse for the aged, a church for their spiritual health, and threw open his grounds to fêtes and fairs for their entertainment. His solicitude on one occasion took a positively Tolstoyan turn when he started baking a special wholemeal bread at the stone mill of Rolleston: ‘Standard Bread' provided Northcliffe's Daily Mail with one of its carliest journalistic stunts, and Rolleston was deluged for samples of the health-giving loaves." Could the same be said of Bezos? Of Zuckerberg? Of Jamie Dimon? Lol, no The only one who even comes close to the mold of Anglo-Norman gentry and noblesse oblige, as @GraduatedBen has well noted, is Tim Mellon. But most of our oligarchs are not Tim Mellon