I Know A Place

So Roger Ebert is a fan of Downton Abbey.  He's an Anglophile, and this is the sort of show he watches when he bothers to watch TV.  I've always been fascinated how others are fascinated by the whole upstairs/downstairs thing.  Shows like Downton Abbey are popular because they create an odd sense of nostalgia--odd because it's nostalgia for a time and place viewers have never directly experienced.

...although my politics are liberal my tastes in fiction respond to the conservative stability of the Downton world. [...] To be sure, there is monstrous unfairness in the British class system, and one of the series themes is income inequality. What must be observed, however, is that all the players agree to play by the same rules. In modern America the rich jump through every loophole in the tax code.

Well, sure the rich played by the rules back then.  They made the rules, which were designed to keep them on top. (That's why they were called the Ruling Class.) The entire system was a loophole. The servants may not have been quite so thrilled, but they had no say.

True, sometimes the rich followed the rules even to their detriment, but let's not get too sappy--they not only were in charge, they didn't have to work!  In fact, Gentlemen looked down on those who had regular jobs. Today's rich, not to mention all the other tens of millions who enjoy tax loopholes, generally earn their money.  And those loopholes?--they're also known as laws, and are voted on by representatives of the popular will.

I think people enjoy stories about a well-run English home because, as Roger notes, everyone had their place, and had a sense of pride about their position. (Of course, let's not forget back in those days people idealized the lord/serf and master/slave relationship, claiming they were harmonious systems.) But part of that is being in service was a great gig back then.  Poverty was the rule, not the exception, and getting a job as a valet or butler or footman or chef or maid in a great home was a nice sinecure, and so I wouldn't be surprised if many of the empoyees identified with the Lords and Ladies who ran things, happy to live in their reflected glory.