"the monarchy should be abolished"
This is such a no-brainer, and I really don't understand why anyone anywhere in the modern world would want someone to rule over them.
This is such a no-brainer, and I really don't understand why anyone anywhere in the modern world would want someone to rule over them.
However I find it hard to reconcile it with the fact that many/most of the nicest countries on earth to live in are constitutional monarchies. Including Sweden, Denmark, Netherlands, Canada, Australia, UK, NZ and Japan.
I don't know why this is, but it gives me pause in overthrowing the monarchy. It might be the existence of a monarch unites society in some way, or it might be that socities that move slowly rather than with revolutions tend to be more stable and comfortable.
I think, as with most things in the UK, we will get rid of the monarchy when it causes a problem that can't be dealt with in an easier way.
A potential explanation for the phenomena you've observed is that it's uncommon for new monarchies to be started in the 21st century, so the countries that still have monarchies are all countries that for the most part have had stable forms of government for many decades if not centuries.
Also there are plenty of poorer countries with monarchies: Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, North Korea, Thailand, Cambodia, Bhutan, Lesotho, Oman, Qatar, etc. (I'll admit it's a bit suspect to label North Korea as a monarchy).
Qatar is absurdly rich, but the wealth is inequitably distributed (unusually so). Although the GDP per capita is ~60k, the median household income (and the median per-capita income) are considerably lower than the countries the parent comment mentioned.
Why are you mentioning nominal GDP, not PPP which is $55 grand according to CIA (which is more than Sweden's and UK's and just a bit less than US's)? If they raise their taxes to the level of Sweden they will have larger nominal GDP although without any increase in the purchasing power.
That's not true. The royal family of Sweden have immunity from prosecution, fines etc.
And not just in theory - there are actual examples of royal family members escaping speeding tickets, investigation into hunting accidents, illegally using the secret service to raid the homes of people suspected of possessing potentially embarrassing photographs etc etc. (see eg https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1326783/How-King-...)
They also enjoy diplomat status while traveling abroad etc etc.
A Crusader Kings mod that would focus on the internal & external struggles of a cloistered totalitarian regime, like North Korea, would be very interesting.
If conformity and deference are a necessary trait for survival that has to have some effect, even if it's a societal effect rather than a genetic one.
Also, you haven't mentioned Antigua and Barbuda, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Grenada, Jamaica, Papua New Guinea, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Solomon Islands and Tuvalu. Are they not nice places, despite sharing the very same monarch?
Yeah, but all separate monarchies.
Also, Japan and the UK were not exactly nice when their monarchs had absolute power...
Because it has nothing to do with wealth?
The detrimental financial costs of monarchies are a drop in a nation's budget.
Just as the prime minister gifting his best friend 1 million euro per year from the nation's budget wouldn't really impact matters much overall in a nation that deals with billions each year.
It would still be quite corrupt, of course.
> It might be the existence of a monarch unites society in some way
Of course not, it is almost always a decisive issue in countries that have a monarchy.
In republics, almost everyone agrees that republics are better, but in monarchies the issue divides the population, and those that are in favor of retaining the monarchy are almost always traditionalists who desire to do many senseless things simply because they are tradition and are afraid of change.
History has always sided with the progressives, for no man wants change for it's own sake. When a man desire change, he typically has thought well of it, and desires a change for a reason, but when a man desires that matters stay the same, he very thought little of it, and wishes that they remain so for their own sake.
There is no survivorship bias here without an argument that conservative societies do not die.
My argument that the progressives are usually right is not empirical, but rational.
disclaimer: I should note that with “conservative” and “progressive”, I do not mean the U.S.A. identity politics terminology, that has little to do with either conservation or progression, but the simple definition of aiming for change or for inertia.
When a person desires change, they either want it for their personal gain, or have seen the shortcomings of the current system and want change to get rid of them. Yet no system is perfect, and most changes have some tradeoff. When a person desires that matters stay the same, they are either profiting from the current state, or believe that the current system is better thought-out than it might seem at first glance, and are like this for a good reason.
This line of thought is based on Chesterton‘s fence [1]. Of course, a well thought-out change is still a good thing, and not all reasons for the current system are sensible. I count myself as a progressive as well, but it is not as clear-cut as you make it out to be.
[1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/G._K._Chesterton#Chesterton'...
The difference is that a man can rarely convince the others of a chance that is not in the interest of the many, but only in his own.
If there be legitimately flaws in the system that he wishes to address, it will be far easier to convince the collective by pointing out said flaws.
> When a person desires that matters stay the same, they are either profiting from the current state, or believe that the current system is better thought-out than it might seem at first glance, and are like this for a good reason.
And the big thing you leave out: that many, many men simply desire inertia for it's own sake and are afraid of change for no other reason than that it be change.
There are almost none in comparison who seek change for it's own sake, simply because they are afraid of matters staying the same.
So political propaganda rarely works? Every political action is sold as beneficial to the many, but how many of them actually are? I feel like political dynamics are rather a bit less straightforward than you're portraying.
Have you ever seen a republic successfully transition to a monarchy by will of the people because someone sold it as an idea in the people's interests?
You can probably squint at the Cambodian restoration and describe it that way.
While not a democratic republic, my understanding of the restoration of the Spanish monarchy to replace Franco’s fascist republic is that it essentially meets that description anyway.
Tradition has always been worth more than sanity or even human lives to many men. — as man will resort to absolute madness, so long as the madness be a tradition that has gone on for long enough.
But I think a symbolic monarchy could serve a useful purpose by giving those people a ceremonial role in return for promising that they will never attempt to actually govern.
Edit: Deleted first sentence per comment below.
I happen to agree with the GP that monarchies should be abolished outright, but it is clear that people feel strongly and build identities around ceremonial roles.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personality_and_image_of_Eliza...
It isn't welfare if the person works in an official capacity.
I have no idea if this is how the British monarchy works in practice, rather just the view from my side of the pond. In the US, we have the concept of career vs political positions in government agencies, but in practice, there is a great risk of interference between the sides.
Almost everyone wants someone to rule over them, or at least over their neighbors.
Do you want someone to rule over you?
You can argue that the doctor is being helpful when they tell a four-year-old "this won't hurt a bit", but the naked truth is that it's a lie, and the child has no actual choice in the matter. Similarly, you can argue that your MP or state senator has your best interests at heart (and some may!), but that doesn't mean they don't rule you.
MPs are supposed to work for us, those with power wish to reduce the scope of "us" and some MPs are there specifically to enable that. But anti-democratic MPs doesn't alter the lack of rulers in a proper democracy it just changes whether our (UK) political system is a proper democracy or not.
I'm not saying it's a good reason, just that it's a reason.
The more absurd thing, in my mind, is that citizens of dozens of countries, including first world nations like Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, consent to having the monarchy, even though it is largely ceremonial. Certainly no one believes it creates stability, nor that turmoil would ensue if they abandoned it.
I gotta say that I find the rabid anti-monarchal take a lot of americans have online kinda weird. I wouldn't say I feel "ruled" in any real sense by the British crown even though it is technically true. The Prime Minister and the House of Commons are where the actual legislative power rests and as much as the Governor-General is technically the commander in chief I highly doubt if she called for a revolution against the civilian government that would get any traction.
Furthermore I gotta say that given a lot of the other options I LIKE the hoky kind of odd but deeply rooted ceremony that surrounds our governmental proceedings.
Is it silly that the prime minister has to be presented to the Governor-General to get invested and leads a Privy Council (and for that matter is called a Prime Minister)? Yeah, but it's been WORKING that way for a long time and that inertia is important, especially I think nowadays with a lot of uncertainty from the largest democracy in the world.
If we just need somewhere for power to divest from, then hand it over to the royal Corgis. If you have to have the fiction of a figurehead to make your government function, better it be something that has no possibility of corruption.
The article disagrees with you. Or at least points out where there isn't always true.
They could just as well polity said to her to pound sand.
Queen asked them, it was up to them to say yes or no. I imagine if some other party was in power back then results might be different
But every time we bring it up for removal there are excuses why it cannot be done. The Governor General et all are a cost center - not just federally but in each province. Or worse two factions aligned to removing the monarchy don't disagree on how it should be done and the measure fails (Australia). At least the Australians managed to remove 'Queen/Heirs' from the citizenship pledge and acknowledged that many immigrants who want citizenship came from countries in Africa and Asia that were colonized, whose people were treated like shit, and had their natural resources stolen.
Cute and hoky to some... but others are being asked to pledge to an institution that subjugated many of their ancestors. For no good reason. Even if you have not been subjugated, there is no reason to pledge allegiance to her.
the UK left the EU in Jan 2020
We should take the opportunity to get rid of the position of monarch since we claim to be a democracy. We could also modernise parliament when it becomes ours - things like ejecting people for jeering and interrupting would be a start, close the subsidised bars, ... make it at least have a semblance of being a workplace.
As an Australian, wtf are we doing with a monarchy? Makes no sense, it's just a holdover from the colonial past, bring on the republic immediately. (Anecdotally, the general consensus amongst my peers is that the Queen's death will be the trigger for this - no-one wants King Charles again).
As an Englishman - it's too deeply part of our culture to remove just like that. What would we replace it with? A President? How would that be different from the Prime Minister? It's not obvious how it would work, and it's not clear what we'd gain from that (except not having King Charles again). Who would the military swear loyalty to? How do we transfer hundreds of years of strong tradition into a new structure without breaking things? I know that smart people have thought of good answers to all these questions, but they're not part of the public awareness, they haven't had time to steep into the public conciousness (unlike republican ideas in Australia, which are pretty well-formed and accepted).
If the crown was directly replaced with an elected president for instance, that would be an enormous amount of power for a populist leader to wield and the lack of policy responsibility would lead to populists leaders. If the president was appointed by parliament then there is opportunity for corruption.
So there would need to be far more drastic changes and many possibilities (like changing from a parliamentary system) would not be popular. Ideologically I don't think anyone should hold such power based on who their parents we're, but in practice I'm a soft-monarchists or conservative on the matter.
Edit - The powers don't have to be replaced, the holders of those powers do.
under the UK constitution Parliament is short for Queen-in-Parliament and all executive and legislative powers come from the sovereign
In practice, all of the powers of the Crown must be exercised, and must only be exercised, by the Monarch as directed by various configurations of notionally-subordinate officials (whether the Parliamentary majority or the Cabinet as executive committee of the Privy Council or...). Simply investing those powers formally in the institutions which direct them in practice would have no noticeable effect. Or investing them, with the same practical constraints, whether together or separately in, like, any random person chosen off the street. The advantage of a ceremonial Presidency in place of a monarch is that they could continue to do the ceremonial functions as well as signing where directed by the Cabinet, etc., without occupying the time of people with real and substantive responsibilities in government.
At this point people who think the monarchy should be abolished get filed under "malicious actor who wishes to put themselves, or their ideological co travellers, as my master instead, or wishes to use the de facto power vacuum to enrich themselves at everyone else's expense", i.e. they put themselves into the "I would probably be better off if this person were to be dead" category.
At least the new rich overlords wont ask me to pledge allegiance to them during a citizenship oath like the do in Canada. Not just the queen, but also to her heirs like the great Prince Andrew The Pedophile.
> The authoritarian personality is a personality type characterized by extreme obedience and unquestioning respect for and submission to the authority of a person external to the self, which is realized through the oppression of subordinate people
Considerably more so-called progressive folks (and others) put their faith in US Presidents they favour, than do subjects of most Monarchs, let alone the UK Monarch.
The level of demagoguery I witnessed around 2008 and 2016 in the US was ridiculous, people were spellbound as if their leaders were Disney characters brought to life.
Most Democratic Heads of State are elected on highly superficial and preformative presentations of themselves, effectively the result of giant PR and communications mechanations.
Other Heads of State - like Von der Leyen in the EU, have barely any democratic legitimacy.
QE2 has a narrow range of power, and she's actually done a pretty good job at it frankly, giving legitimacy to the notion that there is likely a lot that people can be brought up into. It's obviously not something that one would create from nothing in 2020, nor would anyone want more power bestowed than they have, but it works fine.
The US has Kim Kardashian and Donald Trump, the UK is stuck with QE2 and Will and Kate. I'd take the later if I could.
First, I am sorry that you're offended by a statistical figure.
Second, the figure was from research that was done in my grandparents' era, about three quarters of a century ago. About 40% of Americans displayed authoritarian personality traits.
Any assumptions you've made are merely coincidental. Have a nice day.
Any bureaucrat of any government have more power in your life than you think. And over time, we're giving them more and more power to regulate our lifes. (I'm not even talking about politicians here, they're more powerful than any absolutist king of the history).
There's currently a government in Westminster making laws and dictating to us that the vast majority of the country didn't vote for. The public also has the power to change a monarchy, with the only real difference being that the "election" and transfer of power is less peaceful.
Democracy is of course better, but representative democracies in large nations are about as participatory as a monarchy.
There are any number of wrongs that can be corrected. Is “abolishing the monarchy” the best use of the limited budget for societal change?
And is it worth, on top of that, the risks of unintended consequences?
I’d feel similar being implored to surgically remove my appendix and tailbone.
Let us not forget the diplomatic aspect they afford and I'd say from that aspect alone - done more good than the elected politicians. Whilst the media love to focus upon the negatives, you can't overlook the positives and initiatives - the prices trust and other chartable involvements and then tourism. Though the diplomacy aspect is something that you have to respect the Queen and been a national asset in that respect.
So far from a no-brainier as you say if you look at their involvements beyond the headlines.
As an aside - if America had a royal family, the prospect of Trump on legal currency bank notes would be zero.
TFA is literally about how it's actually not just a legacy rubber stamp, and the Queen gets involved more than a figurehead would.
> As an aside - if America had a royal family, the prospect of Trump on legal currency bank notes would be zero.
We don't know that. What if the Trump family was the royal family? I don't think this is an unfair question - Prince Philip is probably just as much of a racist as Donald Trump is, if not more so...