If we are proponents of hereditary roles, why not go full hog, and just have the monarchy control the show?
I had the same question.
> Whatever qualities or services performed by the original person probably didn't pass to the children
Maybe if you subscribe to the hard times theory. There’s plenty of reason to suspect that certain aptitudes can be genetically heritable, and that doesn’t even address the issue of skills transferring by osmosis or deliberate instruction in the household.
What we are discussing, however, is the existence of a man who has been identified as possessing some competency, and his office passing to his offspring on his death, on the basis that his children may have inherited the competency genetically or via an informal education. Heredity isn’t as simple as that, but at the same time, it isn’t clear that competencies “probably” do not pass between parent and child.
We have several thousand years of history recorded where people tried this and the failures vastly outweigh the successes.
Tried what?
So did the majority of unsuccessful civilizations (whatever successful even means here), whats your point?
Far better than that option, would be for a random family to inherit that power forever, than for a different random family be chosen every 4 years. Because at least then the “royal” family has some accountability to govern for long-term success, lest their descendants be dragged into the street and hung by an unhappy mob with pitchforks.
Whether that's a point for or against depends on whether you think policy thrashing every 4 years is a good idea.
This isn't some kind of super hypothetical what-if scenario. We have historical records.
It went poorly.
I think randomly selecting a president is probably a bad idea but randomly selecting a parliament and then having them elect a prime minister from within that group would work well.
Is it? Plenty of wars have been fought over succession.
Imagine a system whereby you could pole everyone and get a dud leader removed, rather than keep them until they die.
There have been a fair few elections with orderly transitions between governments.
The idea that a monarchy sees itself as accountable to the people is hilarious. They have a record of ruling with an iron fist and killing opposition.
“ When people witnessed our first struggles in the war of independence, they little calculated, more than we did, on the rapid growth and prosperity of this country; on the practical demonstration it was about to exhibit, of the happy truth that man is capable of self-government, and only rendered otherwise by the moral degradation designedly superinduced on him by the wicked acts of his tyrants.”
That being said it is comparatively a terrible way of doing things vs a more mathematically and psychologically sound system. Electing people really is the way to go, all these "stable" political systems are stable at being worse than just letting people vote for everything. As the saying goes, dead is stable. Stable isn't great if unstable means the capacity to rapidly improve.
IMO the quality they have is not being career politicians or business people.
The same goes for the remaining bishops and other representatives of religious groups.
They are also not under the control of party whips as the house of commons is.
You could probably do better by appointing a bunch of random people instead, but what we have is better than an elected second chamber that would just replicate the Commons.
Quite like the European Council. Well if it was the state governors flying in to DC once a month, so maybe not exactly like it.
It’s monarchy-lite.
I’m referring to the House of Lords. They are affiliated with political parties.
In terms of them not being swayed by ‘movements of the moment’, you are quite right. They are stuck in the past. 6% aren’t white. 26% are female.
https://www.democraticaudit.com/2018/10/02/audit2018-how-und...
If you excuse me, I just don't understand the implication here - if they were exactly representative of British racial demographics and exactly 50/50 men and women, they would not be stuck in the past?
Ironically the the post appears stuck in 2021
You can’t think of anything better?
Why have anyone elected at all?
I can't think of a more arbitrary or irrelevant personal characteristic than being born to a family that inherits a political post.
Having political control of the country being hereditary, male and white is something that does not represent the make up of Britain. It represents the way Britain was run a long time ago and the current political infrastructure is not a strength.
If political control was actually democratic and representative of the country, I don’t think the situation would be worse.
You think this is an argument against the lords but for the people on the other side they think you are supporting them with these points.
Britain was white country for the last 12,000 years and had primogeniture for the last 1,000+. The UK today is a proverbial pale blue dot on the timeline
But they don't so it's not.
Or was it that one has to be a hereditary peer in order to be a government appointee?
Either way, the greater the barrier to the house of sober second thought being stacked by whoever is currently in power, the better. I’d also favor people being randomly appointed for life.
Before 1993 all of them could hold seats.
The majority of the house these days is made up of life-appointed peers, who are nominated to the house by the commons. There are also 24 bishops.
There are moves afoot to remove the last hereditary peers, though I’m not sure of the current status of that bill.
If Labour get re-elected in a few years, they have made muttering about further second-house reform, but no plans or commitments at present
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Lords_Act_1999
Labour had campaigned for years to abolish the Lords but when they got the chance Tony Blair decided on a watered down reform instead. Now the bloody place is just packed with political stooges and party donors. Over 800 of them. It's corrupt as hell.
Correct, they instead have a 100% chance of being correlated with what is good for the aristocracy.
Then just have people chosen at random from birth to become lords. That makes as much sense, unless what you're interested in is a mechanism that helps powerful families to remain powerful
I'm very curious about comparisions between governing systems. But am noob, so haven't gotten very far.
I too value -- without evidence pro or con -- some balance between fast, slow, and middling.
Senate was designed to counter balance the House. I'm very skeptical of its benefit; both in principle and in practice.
Our State's patchwork of arrangements is probably informative, in the small. Somehow rank States by legislative output, (their) Supreme Court's actions, lag time in pivoting to adopt norms (marriage equality), or some such.
There's a Harvard researcher (on mobile, can find cites later if needed) who concluded that most all national (democratic) govts eventually adopted norms. On the time span of decades and generations. Regardless of their system. Strongly suggesting that public pressure and need to maintain legitimacy do matter.
I've since wondered if we're just too impatient. I certainly am. Or if that thesis is even true. For example, the USA's Jim Crow era endured for 100+ years. And still remains contested.
Would appreciate any insights any has to share.