Napoleon Had His Own American Dream

> Today merit means working and generating value for others. In the past, specially in the US it meant killing other people and stealing what they had.

Right, and I don't mean to claim that the US was equitable by any means. But in the US, if you had money, that money gave you a certain amount of power over your own destiny. In Europe, being wealthy was not enough; you had to be born into the right family, or be wealthy enough to marry the daughter of a lesser noble family that had fallen on hard times so that maybe your children would have access to some form of power. But there was no social mobility; for the most part, you would die in the same social station you were born into.

> The British were not nervous. They knew that Napoleon could not be trusted if left alive, because he could go back to France in order to take the power, like he actually did.

Yeah, this much is true. But IMO Napoleon gets too much credit -- these ideas had been stewing in the populace since the beginning of the Reformation, and they needed to come to a head before the Industrial Revolution could really take off. The British never really addressed this underlying issue either before or after deposing Napoleon, and IMO this led to a century of war in Europe culminating in WW2 -- where the ghosts of the old kingdoms of Europe were finally laid to rest.

> While proclaiming himself emperor and putting all his family in charge as the new nobility, including his son as his heir ...

Yeah, there is no doubt that he was a dictator. I would argue that he couldn't bring law and order to France without declaring himself Emperor, simply because European political culture was structured around a single ruler. He was able to use his simple origins to build a cult of personality around himself. He saw himself as a self-made man -- and he believed he would be a better emperor because he seized the position for himself. While he predates Nietzsche, he is the perfect embodiment of the "ubermensch" that Nietzsche espouses in "The Will to Power".

His goal may have been to merely "reset" the European monarchy with men of quality who rose to power through their own abilities. There is no doubt he did this within his military officer corps. The main key to his success in Europe was that his officers were smart, motivated and well-trained -- which he ensured by promoting men based off their actions rather than their heritage. His officers (and their men) were literally fighting for a better life for themselves and their families; which motivates a little better than fighting for king and country. But there's little doubt that the core of his motivation in conquering Europe was to destroy the peerage system as it existed in Europe at the time.