As the COVID-19 pandemic worsens income inequality in Britain, recent government memos revealed that the Queen lobbied the British government to conceal her 'embarrassing' private wealth. This book argues that we cannot talk about inequalities in Britain today without talking about the monarchy. Although the monarchy is usually positioned as a backward-looking, archaic institution and an irrelevant anachronism to corporate forms of wealth and power, Clancy powerfully argues that the relationship between monarchy and capitalism is as old as capitalism itself. This book frames the monarchy as the gold standard corporation: The Firm. Using a set of case studies - the Queen, Prince Charles, Prince Harry, Kate Middleton and Meghan Markle - it contends that The Firm's power is disguised through careful stage management of media representations of the royal family. To understand why the monarchy matters, Clancy argues, we must understand The Firm as a corporation committed to the accumulation of wealth and power, at the expense of millions of others. -- .

Book Information
ISBN 9781526149336
Author Laura Clancy
Format Hardback
Page Count 312
Imprint Manchester University Press
Publisher Manchester University Press
Weight(grams) 138g