
Mr. Darcy’s Ten Thousand a Year - well_i_never
https://notesonliberty.com/2019/04/16/mr-darcys-ten-thousand-a-year/
======
devchix
_Consols schmonsols!_ The modern prospector such as Mrs. Bennet would want to
know how much is that in today's money. Using the Bank of England's trusty
inflation calculator and plugging in 1813 (the year _Pride and Prejudice_ was
published), Darcy's worth £681K a year and his friend half that. In the Valley
or London, what's that, a director level at a FAANG, and a tech lead? Using
the annual yield to derive asset, the author in another paper put Darcy's net
worth at £16.8m - £28m. Pathetic! Not even a one-percenter. I would not walk
three dirt miles and muddy the hem of my dress and suffer a terrible cold for
half that.

I have a stupid fascination for historical finance tidbits like this. I once
wrote a price comparison paper for _Les Misérables_ , Thénardier accused
Valjean: "You eat forty-franc bunches of asparagus in January!” I have lost
all my sources (it was likely wildly inaccurate and didn't take into account
GDP, cost of living, relative wealth) but my paper says one franc in 1830 was
about £2.2 (correct me please) - so a bunch of winter asparagus was £88?
Sounds excessive. Cosette was purchased for a mere £3300, and her inheritance
from Valjean was £1.32m.

~~~
conjectures
Inflation figures over 200 years are pretty dodgy. How much was a dose of
penicillin, an iphone or a flight to New York in 1819? There's a very real
sense in which very average Westerners now are far wealthier than Darcy.

Conversely Darcy would have had far more power than the someone with net worth
£16.8-28m would today. He'd probably have had a large say in who the local MP
was, the local priest. Probably could turf a large chunk of the local
population out of jobs and homes. Likely had a small army of servants.

~~~
danans
Your examples have an interesting pattern.

> How much was a dose of penicillin, an iphone or a flight to New York in
> 1819? There's a very real sense in which very average Westerners now are far
> wealthier than Darcy.

One's wealthiness is always relative to others. The items listed here are
goods that are broadly available today across wealth bands, and are therefore
not markers of wealthiness.

> Conversely Darcy would have had far more power than the someone with net
> worth £16.8-28m would today. He'd probably have had a large say in who the
> local MP was, the local priest. Probably could turf a large chunk of the
> local population out of jobs and homes. Likely had a small army of servants.

Power is a great (the ultimate ?) example of a resource whose access and
distribution can be compared over time.

Power over others has never been quantified like monetary wealth has, yet it
is intrinsic to humans given we are a highly social species. For people like
Darcy, such power over others was a hereditary birthright. You couldn't buy a
share of that power as an investment. Therefore, there was no market that
could estimate the monetary value of that power.

~~~
roenxi
> One's wealthiness is always relative to others.

That isn't the case, wealth is an absolute measure. _Inequality_ , _power_ and
to some degree _satisfaction_ are relative to others, but wealth can be
created and destroyed independently. Which is the major argument against
socialism, incidentally. If wealthiness were a relative measure, full blown
communism would be great for wealth. Which it most certainly is not.

Modern inhabitants of the first world are insanely wealthy.

~~~
danans
> That isn't the case, wealth is an absolute measure

That's why I used the adjective "wealthiness", as in "He is wealthy" vs the
noun "wealth" as in "His wealth is X".

The adjective is relative, and implies more wealth relative to a population.
The noun is not relative.

------
hirundo
“My dearest sister, now be serious. I want to talk very seriously. Let me know
every thing that I am to know, without delay. Will you tell me how long you
have loved him?"

"It has been coming on so gradually, that I hardly know when it began. But I
believe I must date it from my first seeing his beautiful grounds at
Pemberley.”

Elizabeth already knew Mr. Darcy's income and despised him. It was upon
learning of his wealth that her love bloomed. A practical woman, Miss Bennet.

~~~
kirrent
I'm not sure if you're being serious or not, but Elizabeth is still being
sarcastic here, as is very much in her character, despite Jane's request to
the contrary.

~~~
TheOtherHobbes
It's not simple sarcasm. There's plenty of truth in it, so there's an element
of knowing self-deprecation - not just on Elizabeth's part, but also Austen's,
because the sentiment that would have been recognised by many of her readers.

Austen herself was in the same position as Elizabeth, with a tiny inheritance
that provided no financial security. So P&P is as much a fantasy about finding
financial safety as it is about finding a man.

For all the landscaped country houses and bonnets, it was a very brutal period
for many women - and for men too, in other ways.

~~~
neaden
It's also because she sees how Darcy's servants and tenants view him. He is a
popular man and treats the people who depend on him well which speaks
positively to his character.

------
neilwilson
What's really interesting about this Napoleonic Time Period is not so much how
much the wealthy earned, but how little they paid their servants.

Much like modern fading businesses they had an addiction to cheap labour to
prop up dated capital. Then when the mills and the mines and the factories
turned up paying better wages, most of them failed to adapt. If they were
lucky they sold out to the National Trust.

------
tmaly
In the same respect as this post, the Golden Age made some insanely wealthy
people. If you have ever visited the mansions in Newport, RI, the Breakers is
something to marvel at.

But what fascinated me more was how Cornelius “the Commodore” Vanderbilt
actually built his wealth. If you visit the mansions, they only talk about the
social life and everything about the mansions.

But Commodore amassed some like 200 million in that day and age. There was
very little regulation, and he fits the mold of someone who with very little
education, excelled at business.

~~~
joncrane
At The Breakers, all the bathrooms had hot and cold running fresh _and salt_
water. I believe many of the fancy mansions in that area had.

I remember visiting on a field trip from nerd sleepaway camp in Massachusetts.

As an adult, I could see myself splurging to get running salt water in my
seaside mansion. I've always loved salt water.

~~~
dsyko
I'm curious what is the reason for having running salt water? For taking
baths?

~~~
joncrane
Originally, probably the combination of supposed health effects of bathing in
salt water and to flex on the less wealthy.

Later, to keep up with the Joneses aka Vanderbilts.

------
billfruit
I think perhaps french novels have more fascination with money than English
novels. The monetary calculation than brings Madam Bovary to ruin is worked
out to exact detail by Flaubert. Also Stendhal, in Charterhouse of Parma,
almost all characters are expressed in terms of so many francs and sous per
year.

Amongst the English, I think Trollope did have a particular engagement with
wealth and money matters in his novels.

~~~
nradov
Dickens?

~~~
bryanrasmussen
Dickens had a fascination with poverty and its effects, but he did not have a
fascination with wealth and its technical details. For him a wealthy person
was someone who could, on a whim, help out a poor child or go on a merry
adventure.

~~~
pvg
Is this really true? Mr. Pickwick is a not-poor man who ends up in debtors
prison for alleged "breach of promise" to marry his landlady. Wealthy
Steerforth is a central character in _David Copperfield_ and so on.

~~~
bryanrasmussen
I would say yes it's true, other than I didn't talk about the villains where
their wealth is generally seen as a constrictor of their moral nature.

But essentially the wealthy characters have no focus on the mechanics of their
wealth, other authors might say how much a character makes per year, what they
are primarily invested in, how much of the wealth came from what things, what
the coming war means for their investments. For Pickwick it is enough that
they are wealthy and can do what wealthy people do. Pickwick in debtor's
prison is a chance for him to focus on how the poor are generally treated from
the viewpoint of a sympathetic rich character, as well as having an amusing
situation "rich man in debtor's prison".

Even Scrooge, he lends money at exorbitant rates, underpays his employee, and
does not use any money for his own enjoyment. No focus really on how the
business works.

~~~
pvg
Pickwick is not a villain. But yeah, I suppose we can reasonably hairsplit
over 'mechanics of wealth'; to me 'did not have a fascination with wealth'
seems almost axiomatically impossible for a Victorian writer.

~~~
bryanrasmussen
I did not say Pickwick was a villain, I said that my original statement was
true except I did not talk about the villains. I wrote "did not have a
fascination with wealth and its technical details." the AND in the sentence is
meant to combine the two as I thought was clear, sure he had a fascination
with being wealthy in the same way that I do about having enough money to
never work again, travel the world, and have heaps of fun.

------
aniham
One thing I don’t see pondered upon as much as Mr Darcy’s wealth is what did
their expenses look like (other than Lydia’s dresses). How much was the upkeep
of Pemberley? How much did the housekeeper earn? Bingley is generous and a
spender. Every re-read (and there have been many) I wish I had more detail on
their budgets.

~~~
oh_sigh
I looked into buying a small estate in the midlands about 6 years ago and the
price was around £1.5mm and upkeep was something like 500k/yr.

I passed.

~~~
adamson
Why was upkeep that expensive? Would you be maintaining the entire estate as a
perfectly manicured garden?

~~~
steve19
What would be the point in buying one and letting the gardens go, not
maintaining a stable and all your neighbors laughing behind your back.

~~~
puranjay
"He doesn't have even a single thoroughbred stallion...pffft"

------
pvg
One striking thing about Mr. Darcy's income is you could still survive on it
(not inflation-adjusted) in a developed country today. It's right around the
individual poverty line. It's also close the median household income
worldwide.

~~~
ghaff
Assuming, at a minimum, health care and other social social safety net
services. But, yes, Mr. Darcy was very wealthy by the standards of the time
and would be today. (Although, as others have pointed out, comparing wealth
across such a long time period is difficult in many ways.)

~~~
pvg
_comparing wealth across such a long time period is difficult in many ways._

If it can be done for dance⁷, it can surely be done for wealth.

⁷ _Ibid._
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gTchxR4suto](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gTchxR4suto)

------
Animats
"Never sell consols." \- The Forsyte Saga.

The British government finally redeemed its last consols in 2015.

~~~
C1sc0cat
I had thought about buying some consols for my ISA (tax free investment
account) the year or so before - my ISA was/is a bit stock heavy.

They where at around £80-85 and where redeemed at par £100 so would have been
a nice little earner.

~~~
pmyteh
Interesting. Do you know why the government didn't simply buy them on the open
market when they came up and retire them? A 20% premium seems like quite a
lot.

~~~
C1sc0cat
Yes did seem odd - it might have been they wanted to get rid of consols - they
are perpetuals so they never expired BTW

Though as it would have been old money and savvy investors who had them and
would benefit does make you think eh

------
misja
Nice article but I don't think this part of the conclusion is correct:

'Wealth, in Piketty’s view, perpetuates itself, and effortlessly earns its
return (never mind the work, risk and selection issues involved). By
continually paying the interest on its debt, the governments of Austen’s
Britain financed the leisurly lifestyles of the rich, just as the “natural”
return of the modern-day rich contribute and maintain today’s inequality.'

This completely disregards inflation. E.g., if government bonds guarantee a 3%
payout but inflation is at 3.5%, your wealth is not perpetuating but leaking
away.

~~~
orkon
I think I have read somewhere that inflation in the end of the 17th - first
half of 18th century was almost zero or there was even a deflation. I may be
wrong. Maybe someone has a good source?

~~~
dtjohnnyb
The book mentioned in the article, Capital in the 21st Century, shows this in
really interesting detail. I can't remember the details myself, but the idea
we have of inflation being normal is actually highly abnormal in the history
of humanity. Can't recommend the book enough, really interesting to see how
unique the last 100 years of high growth is compared to history due to the
world wars and how we may be returning to "normal" levels of inequality.

~~~
orkon
Yes, it was from this book I believe. Also found this
[http://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/RP03-...](http://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/RP03-82/RP03-82.pdf)
where it seems like retail prices where relatively stable at that time.

------
computator
I want to understand the fascination with Jane Austen's works, especially by
hackers and designers (and an economist in this article). Paul Graham (founder
of Hacker News) mentions Jane Austen in at least 5 essays, see below. I
haven't read any of Austen's books, but I think I'll need to.

(1) "Everyone admires Jane Austen. Add my name to the list. To me she seems
the best novelist of all time. I'm interested in how things work. When I read
most novels, I pay as much attention to the author's choices as to the story.
But in her novels I can't see the gears at work. Though I'd really like to
know how she does what she does, I can't figure it out, because she's so good
that her stories don't seem made up. I feel like I'm reading a description of
something that actually happened." \--
[http://paulgraham.com/heroes.html](http://paulgraham.com/heroes.html)

(2) "One of the reasons Jane Austen's novels are so good is that she read them
out loud to her family. That's why she never sinks into self-indulgently arty
descriptions of landscapes, or pretentious philosophizing. (The philosophy's
there, but it's woven into the story instead of being pasted onto it like a
label.) If you open an average 'literary' novel and imagine reading it out
loud to your friends as something you'd written, you'll feel all too keenly
what an imposition that kind of thing is upon the reader." \--
[http://paulgraham.com/desres.html](http://paulgraham.com/desres.html)

(3) "What we can say with some confidence is that these are the glory days of
hacking. In most fields the great work is done early on. The paintings made
between 1430 and 1500 are still unsurpassed. Shakespeare appeared just as
professional theater was being born, and pushed the medium so far that every
playwright since has had to live in his shadow. Albrecht Durer did the same
thing with engraving, and Jane Austen with the novel." \--
[http://paulgraham.com/hp.html](http://paulgraham.com/hp.html)

(4) "Like Jane Austen, Lisp looks hard. [...] Indeed, if programming languages
were all more or less equivalent, there would be little justification for
using any but the most popular. But they aren't all equivalent, not by a long
shot. And that's why less popular languages, like Jane Austen's novels,
continue to survive at all. When everyone else is reading the latest John
Grisham novel, there will always be a few people reading Jane Austen instead."
\-- [http://paulgraham.com/iflisp.html](http://paulgraham.com/iflisp.html)

(5) "Good design is suggestive. Jane Austen's novels contain almost no
description; instead of telling you how everything looks, she tells her story
so well that you envision the scene for yourself." \--
[http://paulgraham.com/taste.html](http://paulgraham.com/taste.html)

~~~
nilkn
Point (4) strikes me as a bit off because Jane Austen is generally among the
easiest classical authors to read. _Pride and Prejudice_ in particular is a
simple romance story that can easily be read and appreciated by almost anyone
with little to no preparation. Compare this to, say, William Faulkner or James
Joyce and calling Austen an example of difficult literature seems almost
absurd.

~~~
TheOtherHobbes
She's very easy to read, but she's not so easy to understand. There are
multiple levels of irony and character insight in all of the books.

You can take them at face value as superficial and nostalgic proto-Harlequins,
and a lot of readers do. She practically invented the surly and arrogant
romantic hero who actually loves his mother and is kind to children, small
animals, and feudal tenants.

But the books are actually blisteringly insightful and perceptive social and
psychological commentary, written by a fiercely modern spirit trapped rather
unhappily in a superficially elegant but oppressively limiting social scene
she both loved and hated.

Most contemporary authors wrote as if they were outside the scene and looking
in, so you don't get the same sense of ironic but intimate self-disclosure.

Austen wrote as someone inside and looking out, describing her own perceptions
and reactions - many of which are contradictory and complex. So as a writer,
she's both sympathetic and uniquely fascinating.

~~~
nilkn
I still think her work is at most middling in terms of difficulty and likely
not even that. Multiple levels of character insight is nothing compared to
_Ulysses_ parodying in sequence the entire development of the English language
in stream of consciousness mirroring the gestation of a baby in a woman's
womb, or the first chapter of _The Sound and the Fury_ which tries to
represent the internal experience of a severely mentally handicapped nonverbal
33-year-old man for whom past and present cannot be distinguished and who
cannot understand simple phenomena like the movement of a horse-drawn carriage
through space, or the second section of that same book which follows Quentin's
turbulent and troubled mind through his final moments leading to his suicide.
These sections are not just difficult to read, but also look outward from
inside a character.

Jane Austen is a great author, and her works can often be appreciated and
analyzed on multiple levels. But I just don't think she's a reasonable example
of a difficult author when one considers the full spectrum of literature
available today.

------
vl
In addition to money, there are a lot of things that are unclear in the Jane
Austen’s novels for the modern reader. One such thing is time: when Mrs.
Bennet asks Mr. Bingley “to dine with then”, at what specific time Mr. Bingley
is supposed to show up (he seems to know implied time without asking)?

~~~
xkr
Is there a chance you know an article that covers timing aspects of the novel?

------
godelski
So £10000/yr is equivalent to $22.35 million a year. [0] That's quite a bit of
money.

[0]
[https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=10000+1792+british+pou...](https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=10000+1792+british+pounds)

~~~
azernik
Wolfram Alpha is interpreting that as £10000/yr * 1,792.

As the top comment notes, according to BoE's inflation calculator [1], that's
£680K/yr, or $850K/yr.

[1] [https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/monetary-
policy/inflation/in...](https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/monetary-
policy/inflation/inflation-calculator)

~~~
godelski
Ahhh thanks. I didn't notice that because if you do searches like "100 1950
dollars" it does the inflation calculation for you. Guess it doesn't do well
with pounds. I trusted the engine too much. Thanks for the catch.

