Comment by le-mark

This is an especially vacuous article. The elites the author lauds clearly did very little and the “great men of yore” trope is more than a little tired at this point.They did one thing well; ride the wave of technological innovation and utilize security provided by the British navy to conduct commerce. Sarah Pain credits Englands success as the result of mature institutions and a maritime order the royal navy provided ie access to markets. Even today the some of the most profitable enterprises place themselves between transactions (ads, payment networks, etc).

Crediting Britain's elites with the nineteenth century is like crediting Visa with inventing shopping.