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Bad, compared to what? At one point in history, monarchy was a step forward from what came before (presumably some kind of tribalist warlordism, slash anarchy).
I sure hope that, centuries from now, we will have a form of government that will attract similar comments when historians write about the time we live in. There might be an article like "Was Nelson Mandela a good president?" (substitute the name of some political leader you actually think did good), and someone will write: All "democratic" leaders in the 20th century were bad leaders, given how, in the 20th century, they didn't have even the most basic grasp yet of how to make government, democratic or otherwise, actually work to the benefit of the people.
They're making one about those values. The goals of a king do not include the benefit of the people. This is an economic-political system that depends on the deep, permanent, and inescapable immiseration of nearly the entire population to maintain security for an incredibly tiny minority of military aristocrats.
It is the tribal warlordism that came before.
Even the most absolutist of monarchs can't get anything done in government without being surrounded by others who will execute his wishes, and in order to get them to execute his wishes, a monarch will have to make it in their best interest to do what's in his best interest, and that, by definition, puts boundaries on "immiseration". For example, clergy were generally treated pretty well in medieval monarchies, simply because the pulpit gave them political power which the monarchs had to contend with.
The relevant metric is actually a simple number, namely: Share of population needed to make a leader's life difficult. I got this idea from the books "The logic of political survival" and "The dictator's handbook", and found it quite convincing. The authors distinguish "small coalition regimes" from "large coalition regimes".
Values simply do not enter into it, only political calculation, and it's a mistake to think that today's leadership ranks (or society, in general) are somehow permeated by more noble values than existed back then. We've simply gotten better at making it in everyone's best interest to get along.
Medieval monarchies are smaller in coalition size than modern democracies. And the "tribal warlordism slash anarchy" I'm speaking of is simply a system where the number of people who can make your life difficult based solely on having more muscle is even larger than in a monarchy, while the number of people that they (the ones with the muscle) are forced to treat nicely is conversely smaller.
If I'm a fief in a well-established monarchy and I can live in (relative) peace in exchange for paying my taxes and rendering my services, then that's a step forward for me if my life, previously, was getting my crops stolen and head kicked-in whenever someone stronger than me wanted to treat me that way.
What it really all comes down to this assumption: "then that's a step forward for me if my life, previously, was getting my crops stolen and head kicked-in whenever someone stronger than me wanted to treat me that way."
Early modern european monarchies simply did not prevent that outcome, and in fact guarantee it. They are a formalization of that relationship. Tax burdens on peasants were high enough that starvation was a constant danger and common outcome. If you or a member of your family was beaten, killed, raped, or stolen from your only likely recourse was mediation from the landowner, so staying in their favor is a matter of life and death. If the landowner does any of those things, you have no recourse. These abuses are routine in the historical record, the people committing them mostly didn't think of them as crimes and so wrote about them freely, though often euphemistically.
Whether you were better off under than than in precursor systems is not clear at all. Historians mostly refrain from making judgements like that, but when they do there isn't consensus on this point.
I also don't think there's anything inherently more noble or smarter about modern people or whatever. We like them are created by complex processes and subject to constraints and incentives. But the idea that premodern and early modern european aristocracies were an improvement on or evolution of anything is pure propaganda due to us living in the successors of those states. Again, this was the tribal warlordism.
Citation very much needed. There's no reason to believe what came before was worse.
> presumably some kind of tribalist warlordism, slash anarchy
So you don't even know what came before?
"Tribalist warlordism" is just a form of monarchy described from an outside perspective. Anarchy is the literal opposite of "warlordism" as it describes the absence of (power) hierarchies, i.e. an extreme form of direct democracy.
This Sith like attitude of “there are only bad kings” is indicative of a mind lacking in nuance or critical thinking.
Quite a rush to judgement there.
"Subjects" is the correct term here as they are not just citizens of single country.
You assume forelock-tugging attitude and royalist brainwashing where there clearly is none.
None the less no ill will is born, such ignorance is expected from those that spout of their freedumbs when they cannot even fire or prosecute their own elected civil servants.
Nothing stops Canada from severing those ties completely by the way, if they wanted to they could do this easily, and the same goes for Australia and NZ.
Give it a couple of years as we've got another one in the pipeline and we don't put them too close together.
But tacitly admitting a poor cost/benefit with a reductio ad absurdum argument is not a great start anyway, because the actual situation is not an absurd one and margins matter.
Stripping most of that funding from the useless crown representative and entourage would be a great idea. Could be done tomorrow with acts of parliament and executive with no fanfare and no need for constitutional grandstanding. The fact they don't gives the imagination a good starting point for how much it would cost to be a republic.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/jun/02/buckingham-p...
(They still refuse transparency on that, so it might still be ongoing for all I know)
As for democracy, the arrest of Republic protesters during the coronation shows how hollow that claim is. The UK is still a nation managed for the benefit of its feudal elite, as seen with institutions like leasehold or the fact there is no property tax on their holdings.
You’d have a much less risible case with the Scandinavian or Dutch monarchies.
(Brit here). Conceptually I agree with you. We've dodged a couple of bullets recently. The allegedly Nazi-sympathetic Edward 8th took himself out of play just before WW2 by marrying Wallis Simpson. It's only due to lottery of birth that we have King Charles now rather than King Andrew (who has a dubious reputation).
But in practice I can't see how the UK could develop a credible alternative, without it being severely compromised in some way, either technically by having too much or too little power, or by being 'bought' by oligarchs or similar. The media hysteria would be horrendous. We would also have to agree on what the overall purpose of the replacement would be. Actual explicit power, some sort of governance role with respect to the UK parliamentary system (which is sort of the current set-up), or what. There are also practical issues like what to do with the existing Crown Estate, which owns a surprisingly varied range of things (including most of the UK's territorial seabed) and is one of the UK's largest property manager [0]. And the allegiance of the armed forces, etc.
So for those reasons I don't think replacing the monarchy is the most pressing issue for the UK. YMMV, of course, in other countries where the UK monarch is represented by a locally chosen Governor.
My impression was that Edward VIII's "loyalties" themselves were inspiring some credible plans to ditch him - consider the circumstances under which his family name had changed to Windsor.
Sadly, that problem is hardly unique to monarchy. We colonists didn't ditch Pres. Trump when he started bragging about his awesome Russian friend Vladimir.
Feudalism and monarchy are awful and oppressive, but both are still better than being raided.
The Roman republic became too large for an effective administration, which led to a lot of power staying in the hands of the few, and had a lot of flaws and blindspots. But despite that, it was still a way better system than what came next.
As for Romans, they, and most of Mediterranean experienced objectively best living conditions in all of humanity until modern times during 1st and 2nd centuries. Which is exactly the principate period.
Edit:
My point is not that monarchies or empires are better. It is that they are more effective for that technological level.
By what definitions? Just claiming without evidence that something is bad "by definition" does not make it so, or relieve you of the need to accompany your assertions with any reasoning.