Not completely. A lot of it was built by explorers and entrepreneurs. There is a difference nowadays; but lots of parallels too.

Admirable as they may be individually, they were part of a very tiny social class and their funding came from the ruling cleptomaniac families.

You dont see this today either?

I do see it, but access to opportunities is now much broader than it was in Europe's aristocratic past.

What, like the Bushes?

I'm afraid it used to be much worse, even if it's hard to believe after having just suffered through the Bush years. I grant you that ;-)

Today's empires are built on the megalomanic greed of a bunch of predatory chief executives and their political stooges.

Only if you think that our democracy is a sham. I don't think that's entirely the case, and I don't see how that prevents broad access to the resources needed to start a startup.

Our democracy is at most only 50% a sham. I think if we're looking for scapegoats for all of the problems of society, we should go a higher level and blame corporate personhood itself rather than individual sociopathic executives.

Corporate personhood is a worthy discussion. But it doesn't mean that corporations lack legitimacy as bad as the kings and queens of the past.

America's startups are an epiphenomenon.

Chevron had a 10 BILLION dollar profit last year. This was a disaster- it earned 24 billion in 2008.

All existing companies were once startups and almost none of them were started by aristocracy.

You are correct, the aristocracy didn't start these companies, they just bankrolled them

The British Empire was largely built from commercial interests - look at the East India Company and the Opium Wars.