The aristocracy in Europe was devastated after WWI&II. And their power was in land ownership. And the massive capital destruction was ... lets say very high inheritance tax.
Why do assume that high inheritance tax resulted in massive capital destruction for the aristocracy? In most jurisdictions it's not exactly hard to transfer assets into companies/foundations/trusts/etc to avoid it.
You got it the opposite. If you owned the majority of Dresden ... when the allies ended their jolly fun there - there was not much left for your kids to inherit.
Oh, that way. I was thinking more of British aristocracy
Last time I looked, Europe had more republics than monarchies...
aristocracy != monarchy.
Sure, but they do happen to coincide in general.
and in france almost all of the high level bureaucrats and politicians come from the same school (ecole sciences po)