Started yesterday to read Churchill's "The Gathering Storm", where he describes the follies of the victors after the first world war:
"Wise policy would have crowned and fortified the Weimar Republic with a constitutional sovereign in the form of an infant grandson of the Kaiser, under a Council of Regency. Instead a gaping void was opened in the national life of the German people. All the strong elements, military and feudal, which might have rallied to a constitutional monarchy and for its sake respected and sustained the new democratic and Parliamentary processes were for the time unhinged."
I will not quote further but in essence he speculates that in a still young Germany, a monarch could have provided the stability that it came to lack, and which in time lead to the fall of its young democracy. A monarch may not be the right answer always, but sometimes it may very well be.
Having a king didn’t help Italy too much. However Churchill probably had a point conservatives and monarchists weren’t really ever wholeheartedly committed to the survival of the Weimar republic. They might not had been as keen to undermine at every opportunity had it been ruled by a monarch. Then again , the nazis might just have turned the emperor into an impotent figurehead (as happened in Japan and Italy).
> Then again , the nazis might just have turned the emperor into an impotent figurehead (as happened in Japan and Italy).
I bet that is exactly would have happened. The reality is that the advance of science and technology and general literacy was quickly eroding the traditional notion of the monarch having the consent of God or heaven.
By the turn of the 20th century this was almost complete, and largely irreversible. From that point on, the only value left in the monarch in industrialized societies was as a symbol of a national ethnic identity for societies that defined themselves in those terms.
Today, only the most extreme religious movements around the world see a return to monarchical society as a goal. Even the neo-fascists would prefer a dictator drawn from their ilk, not a king.
There is an observation, though, that most European monarchies that turned into republics or dictatorships in the 20th century did so after losing a major war.
Monarchist countries like the Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, the UK ... that either stayed out of the war mess or ended up on the winning side were more likely to keep their monarchy.
Prior to the military conflagrations that started in 1914, vast majority of Europeans lived in monarchies, even though the democratization and personal emancipation process was well underway. The only republican countries in Europe at the outbreak of WWI were France, Switzerland and (very recently) Portugal. Well, and San Marino, yes.
> Monarchist countries like the Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, the UK ... that either stayed out of the war mess or ended up on the winning side were more likely to keep their monarchy.
If I'm not mistaken, those are also countries that had already significantly diminished the actual power of their monarchs prior to WWI. The UK in particular arguably started that process centuries earlier with Magna Carta. On the other hand, places where the monarch retained the most power, like Russia, saw their monarchs assassinated pretty early in the industrial period.
Since Norway became independent from Sweden as late as 1905, they voted on whether the country should be a monarchy or not that year (80% voted for monarchy). But as you say, the process of limiting the power of the Swedish king was quite important during the 1800's.
Today, 80% are still supporting monarchy [1], also among the young [2]
It was a little sooner, but the first stable French Republic was created after losing the war against Prussia in 1870. Curiously, royalists had the majority in the first parliament but didn't manage to agree on a king, they lose the next election and then monarchists rapidly disappeared from France politics. So 3 revolutions (1789/1830/1848) fail to create a republic but losing a war manage to do it.
The problem for his argument, obviously, is that Hindenburg was the president of the Wiemar republic for the ten or so years that were the meat of the Nazi's rise to power, and he was far more of a hero to the 'strong elements' (far right / conservatives) than the monarchy ever were.
(Obviously, there's a second problem, which is that it's unclear to me if a lack of respect for 'democratic and Parliamentary processes' was the problem with the Nazis. They were voted in, and elections were suspended during wartime, which is normal in a democracy, and were by all accounts very popular throughout the war and after[0]. They also did not substantially alter or suspend the constitution: rather, they used emergency provisions and broadly interpreted resources that were already there).
[0]: Notably, many of the laws they authored, many of the companies and people they elevated or created, went on to successful post-war careers.
The royal warrant system in the UK was very successful at promoting national business and culture, and I remember looking into tracking down some of these other european royals to stand up something similar for craftsmanship. The other use is they have convening power, where if they call, people answer, and toward peace and creating value, that's a huge benefit. That convening role has been taken up somewhat by celebrities, but celebrities don't offer dignity to people the same way nobility can. I can't defend the behaviour of any of them, but there is value in the roles they occupy.
The point of nobility is to be able to take risks for principles, and having royals around provides a basis for that. Another is what can only be described as our modern managerialists seem to offer everything to people except dignity, and royals can wield that. I'm all for republics when you can keep them, but I think setting royals up as symbols just to militate against is a bit coarse. They can provide a source of stability and continuity, legitimate convening power, and dignity for people who have earned recognition. Having nobles and royals around is more useful than I think most people realize.
1. Pedro I declared our independence, and later helped Portugal with some crap and became known there as Pedro the Liberator.
2. Pedro II believed in technology, half of all railways in Brazil was built during his reign, he installed the second telephone in the world in Brazil (the first was obviously, Graham Bell`s one), built a research centre in the same place that produced awesome results (it is not heavily celebrated as launching rockets but most of the food production from Brazil, including exported things, are stuff developed by them at some point) and heavily defended that the education level should rise as whole. Also he, ironically, strengthened a lot Brazillian democracy, he himself believed monarchy to be useless and left basically voluntarily.
Brazil immediately after the coup derailed, the first republic was basically a crappy military dictatorship disguised as republic, it ended with another guy stealing the "throne" and becoming dictator himself, then a period of actual republic voting but with lots of instability and flirting with both fascists and communists, then another dictatorship, and now we have a republic where there were more failed to finish the rule than successes (1 president died, before taking power even, 2 were deposed, and only 2 actually got elected and finished their time in power)
The reason monarhy works, in principle, is because the monarch has to think long term, he can't fuck up the country or his heirs will be screwed. Of course there are always someone that go off rails but this apply to any system of government.
The advantage of democracy, in theory, is that there is less violence to choose who is the next ruler... That said our current president was stabbed during elections, a former president was in prison for a while, and politicians here have a knack of having very weird deaths in inopportune moments...
EDIT: I realized I should explain why Pedro I became Pedro the Liberator: Portugal was basically conquered by someone wanting to return Portugal to absolute rule, with the monarch having all the power. Pedro I despite starting with a heavy disvantage managed to free Portugal from the absolutists and put in power a Liberal government.
> The advantage of democracy, in theory, is that there is less violence to choose who is the next ruler... That said our current president was stabbed during elections, a former president was in prison for a while, and politicians here have a knack of having very weird deaths in inopportune moments...
I think you wanna say “the advantage of a republic” because a monarchy doesn’t mean lack of democracy. Many europeans countries are a monarchy and a democracy.
Monarchy and Republic are one thing. Democracy and Dictatorship is another thing.
Btw, great explanation about Dom Pedro II, many scholars call him “the magnanimous” and one of the best imperator of the modern times.
They are not really monarchies, they are democracies with a small amount of monarchic elements.
Monarchy in my understanding implies the rule of the monarch.
The Monarchs in most EU countries do not rule, through some have some restricted political influence.
I think the UK might be an exception, where as far as I remember the royalty still theoretically holds pretty much all the power just politely decide to pretend they don't know they still rule. But that might be a misconception of mine.
> I think the UK might be an exception, where as far as I remember the royalty still theoretically holds pretty much all the power just politely decide to pretend they don't know they still rule.
I would say that it is the rest of the country politely pretending that the Queen actually holds the enormous power she is legally entitled to. It is the law that is a polite fiction.
In the UK, Parliament is sovereign. As such, the British Monarchy can be abolished by an Act of Parliament. It is the popular will of the people that prevents that happening.
That the British people should choose to maintain the monarchy, or that Canada and Australia should choose to have the Queen as their Head of State, confuses outsiders (particularly Americans) no end.
No, they meant democracy. You are conflating the terms "ruler" and "head of state" if you think their comment is about monarchy vs republic. It's not as if no president has ever been assassinated either: people kill for power, not so much for ceremonial titles.
Going a bit on a tangent here, but it is for that reason that I personally prefer the European monarchies over the directly-elected presidencies of e.g. France and the USA: it's very hard to have a meaningful pluriform democratic society when national elections break down into a single-winner-takes-all outcome. I much prefer the democratic structures of e.g. The Netherlands, Belgium and Germany, where the election outcomes (and, importantly, the media narrative surrounding the elections) are focused on the composition of the legislature, and the subsequent ruler is determined by negotiations between the winning political parties.
Of course, Germany is a good example of how to run a republic and still have a pluriform democracy, and the UK is a good example of how even a constitutional democracy can devolve into winner-takes-all outcomes (namely, by allowing a few large parties to monopolize the entire political landscape). But in general, I'd say that the countries that do not directly elect their head of state are much healthier democracies than the ones that do.
(yes, I'm aware that most countries that elect their head of state also have separate elections for their legislative bodies. But going by the media coverage of US presidential elections and the recent re-election of Macron in France, that seems an afterthought compared to the democratic processes in more representational democracies).
The someone was Pedro's brother Miguel. After losing the war, he was banished and his descendents removed from the succession line, but they now claim to be heirs to the throne of Portugal (which nobody really cares about).
This all happened after the royal family escaped the French invasions to Brazil and Rio de Janeiro became the capital of Portugal. The story of Pedro, the independence of Brazil and the Portuguese liberal wars is really interesting.
In a world where one can be "famous for being famous", where pretenders to titles and thrones can spend half a century pursuing Diplomacy as a semi-professional hobby, and where high-ranking government officials are often out of office within a few years, well-prepared pretenders can occasionally prove quite useful.
And when they're not needed - it's not like they're being paid anything, to keep waiting in the wings.
You may want to remember the moment when the King of Spain successfully preserved the democracy of the country by shutting down a military coup just 40 years ago.
"[...]the King of Spain appeared live on television, wearing the uniform of the Captain General of the Armed Forces (Capitán General de los Ejércitos), the highest Spanish military rank, to oppose the coup and its instigators, defend the Spanish Constitution and disavow the authority of Milans del Bosch. He declared: I address the Spanish people with brevity and concision: In the face of these exceptional circumstances, I ask for your serenity and trust, and I hereby inform you that I have given the Captains General of the Army, the Navy, and the Air Force the following order: Given the events taking place in the Palace of Congress, and to avoid any possible confusion, I hereby confirm that I have ordered the Civil Authorities and the Joint Chiefs of Staff to take any and all necessary measures to uphold constitutional order within the limits of the law. Should any measure of a military nature need to be taken, it must be approved by the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The Crown, symbol of the permanence and unity of the nation, will not tolerate, in any degree whatsoever, the actions or behavior of anyone attempting, through use of force, to interrupt the democratic process of the Constitution, which the Spanish People approved by vote in referendum. From that moment on, the coup was understood to be a failure[...]"
Monarchs still have the same function they always had. The represent a direct connection between the nation and the people, and in times of crisis they can stabilize the nation or put an end to political brinkmanship, even if they only hold symbolic functions.
If there's anything HN threads that deal with history tells us it's - yes, yes it is. Nevertheless people will weigh in with their incredibly strong opinions they have based off of (I presume) hollywood movies. Maybe a lot of people just got finished watching that one where Leonardo di Caprio was Louis XIV, or maybe it was Braveheart.
Clearly the person you responded to wasn't asking what Franco did for that particular coup. Having ceded that one king did one useful thing, they pointed out that another was...perhaps less helpful.
Spain had been a republic for almost 10 years when Franco took power. For most of the years when Franco was in power the king had no real powers even though Spain was again formerly a monarchy. Once Juan Carlos was named heir to the throne, he publicly supported Franco while secretly planning the return of exiled politicians and resumption of democracy. He was pretty badass overall.
I was using "king" as a catch-all term for rule by a single individual. Probably lazy in a discussion about actual aristocracy, but in my defense any sole person in charge of a nation could claim to represent a direct connection between the nation and the people.
Also note the King of Denmark's role in opposing the Nazi occupation.
And even in England, in A Man Called Intrepid, William Stevenson notes that it was important that the secret services swore their oath to the king rather than the prime minister. That way, if Germany had conquered England and replaced the prime minister, the secret services could have continued fighting without feeling like traitors.
Replacing a king is much harder than replacing a prime minister, especially if the old king is still alive and disagrees.
Public officials can be easily replaced against their will – the system is designed for that. A king, on the other hand, remains a king until they die or abdicate. When that happens, the throne passes on according to an established line of succession. Any other king installed by a conqueror would be an illegitimate pretender. The conqueror could in principle force the parliament to alter the line of succession. But because the UK is a common law state without a written constitution, it's far from obvious if the parliament can actually do that under such circumstances without consent from the monarch and their heirs.
They also can to the opposite, i.e. actively destabilizing the country, preventing needed reforms, call for coups etc. In difference to politicians you can't as simply remove their authority on misbehavior because royalty is not something you are elected to.
The fundamental flaw of monarchies is that they raise or fall with the character and competency of a single person (or very small group). (This also applies to system where a single person hold a lot of power mostly unchecked, like e.g. a democratically elected president with way to much power).
Anyway the role they still play differs hugely depending on country. In some it's close to none, in some they still have a bit of old money in some they still have some political influence.
In the end Spain 1981 was lucky, lucky in that the King respected the choice of the people which had removed most of his families power from them. If the King instead would have wanted to reestablish royal power things probably would have ended pretty bad.
Comments like this irritate me to no end. The OP hand waves away centuries of good, bad and indifferent history, in many countries, with a single pithy comment, and people act like that's insightful.
It's barely even worth acknowledging. Don't encourage sassy reddit one liners.
In fairness to myself, as someone who holds to individual sovereign autonomy as the only morally acceptable governing principle, I was being consistent!
I don't accept the assumed right of government or of kings to rule over another, or me specifically. Our deferral to people we are taught are our betters, whose pronouncements we unreflectively accept as akin to the word of God, has always been the problem. The solution is individual autonomy.
You may disagree with my view of course, but my one line 'sassy' comment was earnest and in keeping with my position!
There are many low-quality populist websites which will be more receptive to your cringe one-liners. Someone already mentioned the R word, also suggest you try T.
I don’t know if they offered nothing. But European monarchism is a government structure situated in the past. It arose out of the material conditions and culture of a certain place and time, that no longer exist. Further, it’s ideological justification, the Mandate of Heaven, would be strongly contested by contemporary people.
So I don’t think it’s rational to transpose the historical benefits or flaws (if it’s even possible to disentangle the causal relationship between government structure and societal outcomes) into the political discourse and assume they would remain the same. One salient massive societal change has been the de-mystification of the aristocracy due to increased transparency. Instead of reverence, commoners view these people with contempt or even pity.
Speaking generally, I think way too much emphasis is being placed on the importance of government structure on outcomes. I understand why programmer types would be drawn to this analysis. But there are more salient dimensions: societal trust, peoples sense of stake in outcomes, the integrity of institutions, and material conditions.
"what do the ex-royals have to offer Europe?" tldr: nothing, for the most part, with the exception of a long profile in the middle of the Albanian pretender, which discusses his argument that Albania is still so impoverished and shattered by the legacy of Communism that some sort of constitutional monarchy would help repair it and enable it to recover and reach its potential. That part is interesting.
highly recommend Noble Blood podcast if you like this kind of stuff. totally changed my views on history. the narrator does a great job of showing that people are, and always have been, people - noble or not. part of the reason so many nobles died in the past is that people then didn't know what to do with ex-nobles either
Small correction to the article - Alexander Karađorđević is not crown Prince of Serbia, but of Yugoslavia. I went to school with his sons, we were in the same house, same year - they went by “Prince” rather than Karađorđević - quite a few kids had fictitious surnames to avoid attention. They were regular and likeable dudes, liked skating, cars, hip-hop, bad 80’s movies, games. Nobody cared that they were princes, or treated them differently, as it wasn’t all that unusual at the school, and typically, the higher your rank, the less airs and graces and nobbery you bothered with.
Me, I’m a baronet - not that I ever use the title, or even tell anyone (these days - as a kid rubbing shoulders with outranking aristos it mattered far more to me) - I’ve grown to think the whole thing bloody stupid, as my politics careened wildly off to the left after a tumultuous start to adulthood - and as I realised I really didn’t want all the perceived responsibilities and expectations of an aristo - there are only so many balls and parties and royal enclosures you can go to before you’re sick to the eye teeth of it.
I guess the main thing that I saw among those heirs who were expected to actually take a throne, or were the primogeniture of a non-ruling family, was an overwhelming sense of obligation, the anticipation of a life run on rails, the desire to live absolutely wild here and now because later is a gilded cage. It’s hard to be an isolated and aloof aristo in the modern world - nobody is raised in court any more.
I can tell you that the millennial heirs of several European thrones are seriously sitting on the fence over whether they’ll take the baton - one, I know, definitely won’t - another probably will, but intends to fundamentally reshape the monarchy.
As a bona-fide commoner, I'll say that it's been at least a couple of centuries since European royalty has been more than at-will employees of the republics ruling the land.
The English went first, poor Charles I was terminated with extreme prejudice when he got ideas.
'Tis a pity, us commoners could use a good monarch to keep the blood-sucking senators in line.
Thanks for this post. Not standard fare for HN. May I ask - do you ever laugh at the weirdness of it all? That hundreds or even thousands of years ago, a bunch of cut throats and thugs started to give themselves cute names, and - cut to the present - all of the United Kingdom bows and scrapes in deference to their descendants who still sport those made up titles? From the inside - which more or less is your position as a baronet - does this feel more or less peculiar? Do you ever just think, WTF? How did we get to this?
Incessantly, to the extent that I find it hard to believe in society in any meaningful fashion, as it’s all just reified concepts stacked atop one another. It isn’t such a leap from “why aristocrats?” to “why states? Why employment? Why three meals a day?”.
The best answer I’ve been able to come up with is security/fear. At almost every scale from PNG tribes to federalised blocs of nations, people rally around the strong man, the protector who exacts a fee, and they follow the rules and expectations set by them. These days, aristos are generally superseded by democratic governance, but the underlying principle, the Leviathan, remains the same.
If anything, it gives you a close-up view of man’s ability to enchant others with stories and narrative; and for you to exit the fiction where you want to. Although nihilism is a risk as you point out, the upside might be the realisation that meaning can be constructed.
One reason I don’t expect millennial princes to exit the monarchy, in the UK at least, is that they won’t be allowed to. Because their presence is a cornerstone to the entire fiction that is British social and economic culture, in which many have valuable vested interests.
Very much so. I not only came to understand this through my own experiences, but also came to realise that much of what I was being taught at school was how to wrest control of any narrative, and make it mine.
It was a useful skill in building a business, and it’s a useful skill in understanding the human world - practically everything is a battle of narratives, of finding the better story, the tale which speaks to the heart and ensnares rapt listeners, eager to repeat the story to others.
It’s also useful in understanding markets. I don’t buy or sell based on any objective reality, rather what the dominant narrative in the minds of others is.
Most are oblivious to this. They take the world at face value, and never even consider that they are principally a bit player in another’s story - and that lack of knowledge keeps them trapped in the fairytale.
On the other hand, those like me who are, wittingly or not, trained in setting the scene, inevitably end up being the authors of our collective destinies. Sadly, many of the stories are very repetitive, uninventive, and cast villains as heroes.
One last question: do you think your level of awareness is commonplace? I appreciate a baronet is not on a par with a Norman robber baron, but do you ever encounter a sense of shame amongst your peers (sorry for the pun).
No. There definitely are others from that circle who have gone down the same path as me, but it’s a distinct minority. Most end up completely inured within that world, and reinforce and justify each other’s values and prejudices.
Very interesting. Your comment opens more questions than is probably polite. But can I ask, what are the core tenets of this weltanschaung (the values and prejudices) and would you say there is an ethnic dimension to it? I ask because (whilst fuzzy at the edges) there’s a fair argument that British aristocrats are essentially ethnic Normans. Is there a sense of different ethnicity?
For full disclosure, I’m exploring my hypothesis that Norman conquest of Britain created a template for colonisation for the next thousand years. And in which a key component of colonisation was an inculcation of locals with a belief that one’s colonizers were superior beings by virtue of their ethnicity.
I very much salute your reflection and insight. I’m reminded of David Graeber’s quote: “the ultimate, hidden truth of the world is that it is something that we make, and could just as easily make differently”. But the first step must be awareness.
I wouldn’t say there’s a sense of different ethnicity, quite, but there’s definitely a view of inherent superiority. Behind closed doors, you’ll hear terms like “plebs” and “proles” and “chavs” thrown around frequently, to refer to everyone from the working classes - which from the perspective of the aristocracy is practically everyone who isn’t part of the aristocracy.
There’s also a distinct disdain for the “nouveau riche” - they are seen as well-to-do merchants (urgh, how bourgeois!) - but will mostly forever be on the outside - mostly, because there are exceptions, but you don’t get into the circle due to wealth, but due to class - which is something you pretty much have to be educated into from birth, as what you see from the outside is not how it works on the inside, and if you try to enter being all polite and humble and ever so nice you will be seen - as an imposter. The aristocracy are not polite - they have no need to be - you demonstrate that you are “one of us” by putting your feet up on the kitchen table, lighting a cigarette, and getting smashed (but not obviously so) before supper, and then throwing the croquet set in the reflecting pool.
So… it’s not so much ethnicity as it is culture - and it’s a pretty closely guarded and distinct culture, which I think your hypothesis of being Norman in origin is absolutely spot on - it’s even in the language - beef/cow, venison/deer, mutton/sheep, pork/pig and so-forth - the words of those who consume the product versus the words of those who produce the product. The proactive disdain for niceties is distinctly Norman.
Perfect use of Graeber, and I couldn’t agree more. If you’re interested in the topic of manufactured reality, Hobbes and Baudrillard both had some pretty stonking insights into it.
Thanks for the Baudrillard recommendation. Not someone I’d heard of.
Your choice of words (beef/cow, venison/deer, mutton/sheep, pork/pig) is interesting because they are all of either French or Germanic origin according to your consumption/production logic - likely Norman or Saxon I guess.
I found your comments on being “trained in setting the scene” to be curious, as it has seems to have more in common with a magical or mystical training than the familiarization with brute logic and scientific process that was my own education. In anthropological terms I should not be surprised, every culture has its Brahmin class adept in the use of secret knowledge.
It’s been enjoyable exchanging and given me much to think about.
Whilst I view Democracy as just mob rule, and Religion as psychological warfare, Royalty was/is ultimate psychopath.
Some of it can be explained by science, like aged wines (red more than white) has a higher histamine content which can increase certain types of IQ, its been used to double the IQ of people with Downs in six months, but one of its personality side effects is it makes people extremely aggressive.
Other dietary and lifestyle elements also contribute to personality characteristics which will be seen in upper classes, but modern living is breaking those characteristics so unless wise to it, you could see Royalty die out in a few generations time. Look at Kate before her marriage and after, I'd say the UK Crown is wise to these dietary elements.
I also think technology has caught everyone with their pants down and some jobs are no longer wanted unless they have an extremely extrovert personality.
I am grandson to some polish count who lost all titles and wealth when eastern poland became Ukraine post ww2. My father used to tell me our ancestor generals saved Vienna from the Ottomans. I cannot empathize as much, as I never believed my father till I started receiving letters to receive compensations from polish government.
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[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 131 ms ] thread"Wise policy would have crowned and fortified the Weimar Republic with a constitutional sovereign in the form of an infant grandson of the Kaiser, under a Council of Regency. Instead a gaping void was opened in the national life of the German people. All the strong elements, military and feudal, which might have rallied to a constitutional monarchy and for its sake respected and sustained the new democratic and Parliamentary processes were for the time unhinged."
I will not quote further but in essence he speculates that in a still young Germany, a monarch could have provided the stability that it came to lack, and which in time lead to the fall of its young democracy. A monarch may not be the right answer always, but sometimes it may very well be.
I bet that is exactly would have happened. The reality is that the advance of science and technology and general literacy was quickly eroding the traditional notion of the monarch having the consent of God or heaven.
By the turn of the 20th century this was almost complete, and largely irreversible. From that point on, the only value left in the monarch in industrialized societies was as a symbol of a national ethnic identity for societies that defined themselves in those terms.
Today, only the most extreme religious movements around the world see a return to monarchical society as a goal. Even the neo-fascists would prefer a dictator drawn from their ilk, not a king.
Monarchist countries like the Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, the UK ... that either stayed out of the war mess or ended up on the winning side were more likely to keep their monarchy.
Prior to the military conflagrations that started in 1914, vast majority of Europeans lived in monarchies, even though the democratization and personal emancipation process was well underway. The only republican countries in Europe at the outbreak of WWI were France, Switzerland and (very recently) Portugal. Well, and San Marino, yes.
If I'm not mistaken, those are also countries that had already significantly diminished the actual power of their monarchs prior to WWI. The UK in particular arguably started that process centuries earlier with Magna Carta. On the other hand, places where the monarch retained the most power, like Russia, saw their monarchs assassinated pretty early in the industrial period.
Today, 80% are still supporting monarchy [1], also among the young [2]
[1] https://www.nrk.no/norge/8-av-10-vil-beholde-kongehuset_-sto...
[2] https://www.nrk.no/norge/3-av-4-unge-stottar-opp-om-monarkie...
The problem for his argument, obviously, is that Hindenburg was the president of the Wiemar republic for the ten or so years that were the meat of the Nazi's rise to power, and he was far more of a hero to the 'strong elements' (far right / conservatives) than the monarchy ever were.
(Obviously, there's a second problem, which is that it's unclear to me if a lack of respect for 'democratic and Parliamentary processes' was the problem with the Nazis. They were voted in, and elections were suspended during wartime, which is normal in a democracy, and were by all accounts very popular throughout the war and after[0]. They also did not substantially alter or suspend the constitution: rather, they used emergency provisions and broadly interpreted resources that were already there).
[0]: Notably, many of the laws they authored, many of the companies and people they elevated or created, went on to successful post-war careers.
The point of nobility is to be able to take risks for principles, and having royals around provides a basis for that. Another is what can only be described as our modern managerialists seem to offer everything to people except dignity, and royals can wield that. I'm all for republics when you can keep them, but I think setting royals up as symbols just to militate against is a bit coarse. They can provide a source of stability and continuity, legitimate convening power, and dignity for people who have earned recognition. Having nobles and royals around is more useful than I think most people realize.
The monarchs here been very useful:
1. Pedro I declared our independence, and later helped Portugal with some crap and became known there as Pedro the Liberator.
2. Pedro II believed in technology, half of all railways in Brazil was built during his reign, he installed the second telephone in the world in Brazil (the first was obviously, Graham Bell`s one), built a research centre in the same place that produced awesome results (it is not heavily celebrated as launching rockets but most of the food production from Brazil, including exported things, are stuff developed by them at some point) and heavily defended that the education level should rise as whole. Also he, ironically, strengthened a lot Brazillian democracy, he himself believed monarchy to be useless and left basically voluntarily.
Brazil immediately after the coup derailed, the first republic was basically a crappy military dictatorship disguised as republic, it ended with another guy stealing the "throne" and becoming dictator himself, then a period of actual republic voting but with lots of instability and flirting with both fascists and communists, then another dictatorship, and now we have a republic where there were more failed to finish the rule than successes (1 president died, before taking power even, 2 were deposed, and only 2 actually got elected and finished their time in power)
The reason monarhy works, in principle, is because the monarch has to think long term, he can't fuck up the country or his heirs will be screwed. Of course there are always someone that go off rails but this apply to any system of government.
The advantage of democracy, in theory, is that there is less violence to choose who is the next ruler... That said our current president was stabbed during elections, a former president was in prison for a while, and politicians here have a knack of having very weird deaths in inopportune moments...
EDIT: I realized I should explain why Pedro I became Pedro the Liberator: Portugal was basically conquered by someone wanting to return Portugal to absolute rule, with the monarch having all the power. Pedro I despite starting with a heavy disvantage managed to free Portugal from the absolutists and put in power a Liberal government.
I think you wanna say “the advantage of a republic” because a monarchy doesn’t mean lack of democracy. Many europeans countries are a monarchy and a democracy.
Monarchy and Republic are one thing. Democracy and Dictatorship is another thing.
Btw, great explanation about Dom Pedro II, many scholars call him “the magnanimous” and one of the best imperator of the modern times.
Monarchy in my understanding implies the rule of the monarch.
The Monarchs in most EU countries do not rule, through some have some restricted political influence.
I think the UK might be an exception, where as far as I remember the royalty still theoretically holds pretty much all the power just politely decide to pretend they don't know they still rule. But that might be a misconception of mine.
The king is the head of state, so how this is not a monarchy?
> Monarchy in my understanding implies the rule of the monarch.
There are two types of monarchies:
- constitucional, like belgium, netherlands, norway and japan
- absolute: saudi arabia and the vatican city.
I would say that it is the rest of the country politely pretending that the Queen actually holds the enormous power she is legally entitled to. It is the law that is a polite fiction.
That the British people should choose to maintain the monarchy, or that Canada and Australia should choose to have the Queen as their Head of State, confuses outsiders (particularly Americans) no end.
Going a bit on a tangent here, but it is for that reason that I personally prefer the European monarchies over the directly-elected presidencies of e.g. France and the USA: it's very hard to have a meaningful pluriform democratic society when national elections break down into a single-winner-takes-all outcome. I much prefer the democratic structures of e.g. The Netherlands, Belgium and Germany, where the election outcomes (and, importantly, the media narrative surrounding the elections) are focused on the composition of the legislature, and the subsequent ruler is determined by negotiations between the winning political parties.
Of course, Germany is a good example of how to run a republic and still have a pluriform democracy, and the UK is a good example of how even a constitutional democracy can devolve into winner-takes-all outcomes (namely, by allowing a few large parties to monopolize the entire political landscape). But in general, I'd say that the countries that do not directly elect their head of state are much healthier democracies than the ones that do.
(yes, I'm aware that most countries that elect their head of state also have separate elections for their legislative bodies. But going by the media coverage of US presidential elections and the recent re-election of Macron in France, that seems an afterthought compared to the democratic processes in more representational democracies).
This all happened after the royal family escaped the French invasions to Brazil and Rio de Janeiro became the capital of Portugal. The story of Pedro, the independence of Brazil and the Portuguese liberal wars is really interesting.
It took a foreign invasion - Pedro travelled around in English ships, and his troops had a mercenary backbone - to "liberate" Portugal.
The more it changes, the more it's the same.
And when they're not needed - it's not like they're being paid anything, to keep waiting in the wings.
"[...]the King of Spain appeared live on television, wearing the uniform of the Captain General of the Armed Forces (Capitán General de los Ejércitos), the highest Spanish military rank, to oppose the coup and its instigators, defend the Spanish Constitution and disavow the authority of Milans del Bosch. He declared: I address the Spanish people with brevity and concision: In the face of these exceptional circumstances, I ask for your serenity and trust, and I hereby inform you that I have given the Captains General of the Army, the Navy, and the Air Force the following order: Given the events taking place in the Palace of Congress, and to avoid any possible confusion, I hereby confirm that I have ordered the Civil Authorities and the Joint Chiefs of Staff to take any and all necessary measures to uphold constitutional order within the limits of the law. Should any measure of a military nature need to be taken, it must be approved by the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The Crown, symbol of the permanence and unity of the nation, will not tolerate, in any degree whatsoever, the actions or behavior of anyone attempting, through use of force, to interrupt the democratic process of the Constitution, which the Spanish People approved by vote in referendum. From that moment on, the coup was understood to be a failure[...]"
Monarchs still have the same function they always had. The represent a direct connection between the nation and the people, and in times of crisis they can stabilize the nation or put an end to political brinkmanship, even if they only hold symbolic functions.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1981_Spanish_coup_d%27%C3%A9ta...
Maybe you're confusing it with Italy?
No harder than civility is for others.
And even in England, in A Man Called Intrepid, William Stevenson notes that it was important that the secret services swore their oath to the king rather than the prime minister. That way, if Germany had conquered England and replaced the prime minister, the secret services could have continued fighting without feeling like traitors.
Public officials can be easily replaced against their will – the system is designed for that. A king, on the other hand, remains a king until they die or abdicate. When that happens, the throne passes on according to an established line of succession. Any other king installed by a conqueror would be an illegitimate pretender. The conqueror could in principle force the parliament to alter the line of succession. But because the UK is a common law state without a written constitution, it's far from obvious if the parliament can actually do that under such circumstances without consent from the monarch and their heirs.
The fundamental flaw of monarchies is that they raise or fall with the character and competency of a single person (or very small group). (This also applies to system where a single person hold a lot of power mostly unchecked, like e.g. a democratically elected president with way to much power).
Anyway the role they still play differs hugely depending on country. In some it's close to none, in some they still have a bit of old money in some they still have some political influence.
In the end Spain 1981 was lucky, lucky in that the King respected the choice of the people which had removed most of his families power from them. If the King instead would have wanted to reestablish royal power things probably would have ended pretty bad.
It's barely even worth acknowledging. Don't encourage sassy reddit one liners.
In fairness to myself, as someone who holds to individual sovereign autonomy as the only morally acceptable governing principle, I was being consistent!
I don't accept the assumed right of government or of kings to rule over another, or me specifically. Our deferral to people we are taught are our betters, whose pronouncements we unreflectively accept as akin to the word of God, has always been the problem. The solution is individual autonomy.
You may disagree with my view of course, but my one line 'sassy' comment was earnest and in keeping with my position!
So I don’t think it’s rational to transpose the historical benefits or flaws (if it’s even possible to disentangle the causal relationship between government structure and societal outcomes) into the political discourse and assume they would remain the same. One salient massive societal change has been the de-mystification of the aristocracy due to increased transparency. Instead of reverence, commoners view these people with contempt or even pity.
Speaking generally, I think way too much emphasis is being placed on the importance of government structure on outcomes. I understand why programmer types would be drawn to this analysis. But there are more salient dimensions: societal trust, peoples sense of stake in outcomes, the integrity of institutions, and material conditions.
Are you kidding? They had the tremendous value of "do what I say or I will draw this very long knife and push it into you."
They literally offered the gift of life.
https://noblebloodtales.com/
Me, I’m a baronet - not that I ever use the title, or even tell anyone (these days - as a kid rubbing shoulders with outranking aristos it mattered far more to me) - I’ve grown to think the whole thing bloody stupid, as my politics careened wildly off to the left after a tumultuous start to adulthood - and as I realised I really didn’t want all the perceived responsibilities and expectations of an aristo - there are only so many balls and parties and royal enclosures you can go to before you’re sick to the eye teeth of it.
I guess the main thing that I saw among those heirs who were expected to actually take a throne, or were the primogeniture of a non-ruling family, was an overwhelming sense of obligation, the anticipation of a life run on rails, the desire to live absolutely wild here and now because later is a gilded cage. It’s hard to be an isolated and aloof aristo in the modern world - nobody is raised in court any more.
I can tell you that the millennial heirs of several European thrones are seriously sitting on the fence over whether they’ll take the baton - one, I know, definitely won’t - another probably will, but intends to fundamentally reshape the monarchy.
The English went first, poor Charles I was terminated with extreme prejudice when he got ideas.
'Tis a pity, us commoners could use a good monarch to keep the blood-sucking senators in line.
Incessantly, to the extent that I find it hard to believe in society in any meaningful fashion, as it’s all just reified concepts stacked atop one another. It isn’t such a leap from “why aristocrats?” to “why states? Why employment? Why three meals a day?”.
The best answer I’ve been able to come up with is security/fear. At almost every scale from PNG tribes to federalised blocs of nations, people rally around the strong man, the protector who exacts a fee, and they follow the rules and expectations set by them. These days, aristos are generally superseded by democratic governance, but the underlying principle, the Leviathan, remains the same.
One reason I don’t expect millennial princes to exit the monarchy, in the UK at least, is that they won’t be allowed to. Because their presence is a cornerstone to the entire fiction that is British social and economic culture, in which many have valuable vested interests.
It was a useful skill in building a business, and it’s a useful skill in understanding the human world - practically everything is a battle of narratives, of finding the better story, the tale which speaks to the heart and ensnares rapt listeners, eager to repeat the story to others.
It’s also useful in understanding markets. I don’t buy or sell based on any objective reality, rather what the dominant narrative in the minds of others is.
Most are oblivious to this. They take the world at face value, and never even consider that they are principally a bit player in another’s story - and that lack of knowledge keeps them trapped in the fairytale.
On the other hand, those like me who are, wittingly or not, trained in setting the scene, inevitably end up being the authors of our collective destinies. Sadly, many of the stories are very repetitive, uninventive, and cast villains as heroes.
For full disclosure, I’m exploring my hypothesis that Norman conquest of Britain created a template for colonisation for the next thousand years. And in which a key component of colonisation was an inculcation of locals with a belief that one’s colonizers were superior beings by virtue of their ethnicity.
I very much salute your reflection and insight. I’m reminded of David Graeber’s quote: “the ultimate, hidden truth of the world is that it is something that we make, and could just as easily make differently”. But the first step must be awareness.
There’s also a distinct disdain for the “nouveau riche” - they are seen as well-to-do merchants (urgh, how bourgeois!) - but will mostly forever be on the outside - mostly, because there are exceptions, but you don’t get into the circle due to wealth, but due to class - which is something you pretty much have to be educated into from birth, as what you see from the outside is not how it works on the inside, and if you try to enter being all polite and humble and ever so nice you will be seen - as an imposter. The aristocracy are not polite - they have no need to be - you demonstrate that you are “one of us” by putting your feet up on the kitchen table, lighting a cigarette, and getting smashed (but not obviously so) before supper, and then throwing the croquet set in the reflecting pool.
So… it’s not so much ethnicity as it is culture - and it’s a pretty closely guarded and distinct culture, which I think your hypothesis of being Norman in origin is absolutely spot on - it’s even in the language - beef/cow, venison/deer, mutton/sheep, pork/pig and so-forth - the words of those who consume the product versus the words of those who produce the product. The proactive disdain for niceties is distinctly Norman.
Perfect use of Graeber, and I couldn’t agree more. If you’re interested in the topic of manufactured reality, Hobbes and Baudrillard both had some pretty stonking insights into it.
Your choice of words (beef/cow, venison/deer, mutton/sheep, pork/pig) is interesting because they are all of either French or Germanic origin according to your consumption/production logic - likely Norman or Saxon I guess.
I found your comments on being “trained in setting the scene” to be curious, as it has seems to have more in common with a magical or mystical training than the familiarization with brute logic and scientific process that was my own education. In anthropological terms I should not be surprised, every culture has its Brahmin class adept in the use of secret knowledge.
It’s been enjoyable exchanging and given me much to think about.
You haven't read Macbeth? It's about pride and legacy.
Some of it can be explained by science, like aged wines (red more than white) has a higher histamine content which can increase certain types of IQ, its been used to double the IQ of people with Downs in six months, but one of its personality side effects is it makes people extremely aggressive.
Other dietary and lifestyle elements also contribute to personality characteristics which will be seen in upper classes, but modern living is breaking those characteristics so unless wise to it, you could see Royalty die out in a few generations time. Look at Kate before her marriage and after, I'd say the UK Crown is wise to these dietary elements.
I also think technology has caught everyone with their pants down and some jobs are no longer wanted unless they have an extremely extrovert personality.
You might know this bloke! https://jamescasey.net/images/20210907_192640.jpg
Just reinforced my opinion that nobility in modern Europe is a bad joke.
If you ever find yourself in company of these self-described nobles, leave.