The House of Lords has been almost entirely staffed by the prime ministers of the day since the reform that removed most of the hereditary peers. Now it's just a sign of the increasing political corruption in this country, particularly under the Tories, and is one of the clearest signs that just removing the monarch is barely going to change a thing in this country without widespread systemic change.
Time to get rid of the Monarchy?
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The House of Lords has been almost entirely staffed by the prime ministers of the day since the reform that removed most of the hereditary peers. Now it's just a sign of the increasing political corruption in this country, particularly under the Tories, and is one of the clearest signs that just removing the monarch is barely going to change a thing in this country without widespread systemic change.
Zardnaar
Deity
Final resting spot with her parents, husband and sister.
i.stuff.co.nz
Why the Queen will be buried in the tiniest, plainest sanctuary in the world’s largest occupied castle
Queen Elizabeth II’s long journey through life and reign will end in the smallest sanctuary in a private corner of Windsor Castle.
i.stuff.co.nz
Lexicus
Deity
"Get rid of monarchy, change nothing else" is a position held by whom?
Monarchies Are in Decline the World Over
The death of Queen Elizabeth II and ascension of her son, the new King Charles III, is a reminder that while a world carved up by emperors, khagans, kings and grand dukes might have long passed, quite a few queens, princes and sultans still wander about in countries that, at least on paper, are monarchies.
Just over 40 countries lay some sort of claim to monarchy, if you include the 14 Commonwealth countries other than the U.K. that formally still recognize the Brit-ish sovereign as their head of state. This figure has changed little since the 1980s, the point at which decolonization was mostly finished. This is sometimes cited as evidence that monarchies have been surprisingly stable. But a closer look at the numbers suggest monarchy is undergoing relentless decline. Running the numbers requires some assumptions about what exactly counts as a monarchy. “This is not an easy question to resolve,” said John Gerring, a government professor at the University of Texas, who has studied the decline of monarchy.
Yet even with the broadest definition, monarchy has taken quite a decline. At the beginning of 1950 over one-third of the world’s population lived in a country, colony or commonwealth lorded over by some monarch. As empires cracked up—mostly Britain’s (especially with India’s departure from the Commonwealth in 1950) but also the Dutch and Belgian empires—population under a monarch fell, to 9.3% by the 1980s. It has now slipped to 7.6%.
Judged by share of global economic output instead of population, the picture is a bit better, but the direction is the same. Some constitutional monarchies, where monarchs share power with an organized government, are large and wealthy— Japan and the U.K., for example— but aren’t growing rapidly. India this year overtook the U.K. as the world’s fifth-largest economy, according to International Monetary Fund data. Monarchies today represent 15.8% of global GDP, down from nearly a quarter of global GDP in 1973, with many beset by aging populations. Including the Commonwealth, there’s an additional 4.1 percentage points.
Monarchs are aging, too. Queen Elizabeth II, who died at age 96, assumed the throne at age 25 in 1952, when the average monarch was about 44, according to my calculations. Nor was she the youngest: Faisal II, the last king of Iraq, was 16 at the time; he had assumed the throne at age 3. Today, the average monarch is 67. But to what extent are these characters really monarchs? They have robes and crowns and often descend directly from influential (or just violent) people who genuinely controlled their country at some point in the past. Today, though, many are just reality stars, their family discord endlessly dissected, with no political role. Or, put more charitably, “only a handful of monarchs retain their titles and their prerogative,” wrote Mr. Gerring of the University of Texas and his co-authors in a 2020 paper titled “Why Monarchy? The Rise and Demise of a Regime Type,” which created a data set of monarchies dating in some cases to the 1100s.
A true monarchy, in their classification, has four key characteristics. The first three are: it is hereditary and held by a single individual, who is endowed with life tenure. For example the Agong is sometimes called the king of Malaysia, but he is elected to five-year terms. Fourth, a true monarch must have “non-trivial importance in running the affairs of state,” they write. This is what rules out many monarchs, including King Charles III. Many monarchs are, like the human appendix, vestigial in that they were important once, but have stuck around long after their primary purpose faded. (This might be unfair to the appendix, which newer research suggests might be a useful reservoir of gut bacteria.)
King Charles III has little power in the U.K. government, let alone in the 14 Commonwealth realms, including Canada and Australia, which by tradition put English monarchs on their money. Typically, a governor-general serves as a representative of the crown and carries out ceremonial functions. For most of human history, most governments were monarchies. Thomas Jefferson’s assertion that governments derive their powers from the consent of the governed was slow to catch on.
It wasn’t until 1870, well after the American and French revolutions, that monarchies began to decline by Mr. Gerring’s metric. Nonmonarchies first ex- monarchies in 1910. His paper suggests that, more than any other factor, the rise of mass communications drove the decline by enabling a new generation of leaders to communicate directly to their populations without relying on generational continuity to maintain awareness.
Monarchies often erode over time, chipped away as parliaments or other democratic institutions grow in power. One could quibble with the exact moment monarchy is lost. By Mr. Gerring’s metric, the U.K. lost its claim to true monarchy in 1884, the year that the Third Reform Act enfranchised a majority of the U.K.’s men to vote for Parliament, shifting control from the monarch and landed gentry to voters.
By his criteria, Mr. Gerring identifies just 14 true monarchies: Bahrain, Bhutan, Brunei, Eswatini (long known as Swaziland until the king renamed it for his birthday), Jordan, Kuwait, Liechtenstein, Monaco, Morocco, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Tonga and the United Arab Emirates. They account for just 1.4% of the global population and 1.9% of GDP.
But even if the numbers show a more decisive decline in monarchy than the coverage of King Charles III might suggest, don’t confuse that with the triumph of democracy. One-man rule is alive in well in places like Russia and China. They just don’t call themselves monarchies.
Nice graphs:
ereader.wsj.net
The death of Queen Elizabeth II and ascension of her son, the new King Charles III, is a reminder that while a world carved up by emperors, khagans, kings and grand dukes might have long passed, quite a few queens, princes and sultans still wander about in countries that, at least on paper, are monarchies.
Just over 40 countries lay some sort of claim to monarchy, if you include the 14 Commonwealth countries other than the U.K. that formally still recognize the Brit-ish sovereign as their head of state. This figure has changed little since the 1980s, the point at which decolonization was mostly finished. This is sometimes cited as evidence that monarchies have been surprisingly stable. But a closer look at the numbers suggest monarchy is undergoing relentless decline. Running the numbers requires some assumptions about what exactly counts as a monarchy. “This is not an easy question to resolve,” said John Gerring, a government professor at the University of Texas, who has studied the decline of monarchy.
Yet even with the broadest definition, monarchy has taken quite a decline. At the beginning of 1950 over one-third of the world’s population lived in a country, colony or commonwealth lorded over by some monarch. As empires cracked up—mostly Britain’s (especially with India’s departure from the Commonwealth in 1950) but also the Dutch and Belgian empires—population under a monarch fell, to 9.3% by the 1980s. It has now slipped to 7.6%.
Judged by share of global economic output instead of population, the picture is a bit better, but the direction is the same. Some constitutional monarchies, where monarchs share power with an organized government, are large and wealthy— Japan and the U.K., for example— but aren’t growing rapidly. India this year overtook the U.K. as the world’s fifth-largest economy, according to International Monetary Fund data. Monarchies today represent 15.8% of global GDP, down from nearly a quarter of global GDP in 1973, with many beset by aging populations. Including the Commonwealth, there’s an additional 4.1 percentage points.
Monarchs are aging, too. Queen Elizabeth II, who died at age 96, assumed the throne at age 25 in 1952, when the average monarch was about 44, according to my calculations. Nor was she the youngest: Faisal II, the last king of Iraq, was 16 at the time; he had assumed the throne at age 3. Today, the average monarch is 67. But to what extent are these characters really monarchs? They have robes and crowns and often descend directly from influential (or just violent) people who genuinely controlled their country at some point in the past. Today, though, many are just reality stars, their family discord endlessly dissected, with no political role. Or, put more charitably, “only a handful of monarchs retain their titles and their prerogative,” wrote Mr. Gerring of the University of Texas and his co-authors in a 2020 paper titled “Why Monarchy? The Rise and Demise of a Regime Type,” which created a data set of monarchies dating in some cases to the 1100s.
A true monarchy, in their classification, has four key characteristics. The first three are: it is hereditary and held by a single individual, who is endowed with life tenure. For example the Agong is sometimes called the king of Malaysia, but he is elected to five-year terms. Fourth, a true monarch must have “non-trivial importance in running the affairs of state,” they write. This is what rules out many monarchs, including King Charles III. Many monarchs are, like the human appendix, vestigial in that they were important once, but have stuck around long after their primary purpose faded. (This might be unfair to the appendix, which newer research suggests might be a useful reservoir of gut bacteria.)
King Charles III has little power in the U.K. government, let alone in the 14 Commonwealth realms, including Canada and Australia, which by tradition put English monarchs on their money. Typically, a governor-general serves as a representative of the crown and carries out ceremonial functions. For most of human history, most governments were monarchies. Thomas Jefferson’s assertion that governments derive their powers from the consent of the governed was slow to catch on.
It wasn’t until 1870, well after the American and French revolutions, that monarchies began to decline by Mr. Gerring’s metric. Nonmonarchies first ex- monarchies in 1910. His paper suggests that, more than any other factor, the rise of mass communications drove the decline by enabling a new generation of leaders to communicate directly to their populations without relying on generational continuity to maintain awareness.
Monarchies often erode over time, chipped away as parliaments or other democratic institutions grow in power. One could quibble with the exact moment monarchy is lost. By Mr. Gerring’s metric, the U.K. lost its claim to true monarchy in 1884, the year that the Third Reform Act enfranchised a majority of the U.K.’s men to vote for Parliament, shifting control from the monarch and landed gentry to voters.
By his criteria, Mr. Gerring identifies just 14 true monarchies: Bahrain, Bhutan, Brunei, Eswatini (long known as Swaziland until the king renamed it for his birthday), Jordan, Kuwait, Liechtenstein, Monaco, Morocco, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Tonga and the United Arab Emirates. They account for just 1.4% of the global population and 1.9% of GDP.
But even if the numbers show a more decisive decline in monarchy than the coverage of King Charles III might suggest, don’t confuse that with the triumph of democracy. One-man rule is alive in well in places like Russia and China. They just don’t call themselves monarchies.
Nice graphs:
Wall Street Journal
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ereader.wsj.net
Lexicus
Deity
Minor nitpick but this idea of government by consent of the governed actually dates back to late antiquity and was (predictably) originally used to justify the authoritarian rule of the Roman Empire by claiming that subjects implicitly consented to it if they weren't actively trying to rebel.
But even if the numbers show a more decisive decline in monarchy than the coverage of King Charles III might suggest, don’t confuse that with the triumph of democracy. One-man rule is alive in well in places like Russia and China. They just don’t call themselves monarchies.
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Nor should we forget that some places that don't call themselves monarchies effectively are. Syria and North Korea spring to mind.
Was this before or after the Praetorian Guard assassinated Caligula and dragged Claudius out from behind a curtain and told him that he had to be the Emperor or he and his family would probably be killed? And then a handful of generals fought for power after Nero's death, during the Year of the Four Emperors? In these cases, it doesn't seem that the consent of the common people mattered as much as the consent of the military.
Lexicus
Deity
After.
Why does that tweet claim that Australia is a former British colony?
From your signature I gather that you're a Boer. Am I right?
You're mixing them up. One thing is royal assent and another is royal consent. They sound the same but really aren't.
Royal assent is what the monarch (or, theoretically, a regent) gives when presented with a law that does not affect the monarch's peculium.
But whenever any piece of law actually affects the monarch's properties or privacy or whatever of any tangible worth, monetary, emotional or otherwise, the monarch is required to give consent.
Now the difference is that, on the one hand, royal assent is, by custom and usage alone, denied only once in a blue moon. Yet royal consent is at the monarch's whim and as such is very often withheld. What usually happens is that the monarch threatens to withhold consent so the bill in question is amended to favour the monarch's assets and everybody is on their merry way.
Last edited:
Joij21
🔥Deny, Defend, Depose!🔥
He should totally do it just to troll the parliament and show who's the man. Double down no regrets.
I'm sure we could find various capitalists and plutocrats whose position is essentially that, but that wasn't really my point.
Absolution
King
Should we add "call themselves monarchies" as a fifth criteria?
Lexicus
Deity
Fair point
The legend grows.The British Queue is rapidly becoming legendary.
Still not sure if the Brits can beat the Germans or Soviets for the gold medal in line standing, but it's possible.
...
Just to be clear: I don't mean the purpose of the queue. I don't mean the outpouring of emotion or collective gried or the event at the end and around the queue or the people in the queue. I mean, literally, the queue. The queue itself. It's like something from Douglas Adams.
It is the motherlode of queues. It is art. It is poetry. It is the queue to end all queues. It opened earlier today and is already 2.2 miles long. They will close it if it gets to FIVE MILES. That's a queue that would take TWO HOURS TO WALK at a brisk pace.
It is a queue that goes right through the entirety of London. It has toilets and water points and websites just for The Queue.
You cannot leave The Queue. You cannot get into The Queue further down. You cannot hold places in The Queue. There are wristbands for The Queue.
Once you join The Queue you can expect to be there for days. But you cannot have a chair and a sleeping bag. There is no sleeping in The Queue, for The Queue moves constantly and steadily, day and night. You will be shuffling along at 0.1 miles per hour for days.
There is a YouTube channel, Twitter feed and Instagram page, each giving frequent updates about The Queue. Because the back of The Queue, naturally, keeps moving. To join The Queue requires up to the minute knowledge of where The Queue is now.
The BBC has live coverage of The Queue on BBC One, and a Red Button service showing the front bit of The Queue.
NO ONE IN THEIR RIGHT MIND WOULD JOIN THE QUEUE AND YET STILL THEY COME. "Oh, it'll only be until 6am on Thursday, we can take soup.
And the end of the queue is a box. You will walk past the box, slowly, but for no more than a minute. Then you will exit into the London drizzle and make your way home.
Tell me this isn't the greatest bit of British performance art that has ever happened? I'm giddy with joy. It's fantastic. We are a deeply, deeply mad people with an absolutely unshakeable need to join a queue. It's utterly glorious...
Queue - Wikipedia
Even the word 'queue' is just Q followed by 4 silent letters as observed by a clever person.
Just need a second shorter queue for the rich and titled.
Or maybe a 2nd regular queue so the British can agonize over which to choose and worry the other might be faster.
What I do not get is how they have put so much effort into the queue, but no effort at all into making sure as many people as possible can see it at the same time so people do not have to queue. Very british though I guess.The legend grows.
Queue - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
Even the word 'queue' is just Q followed by 4 silent letters as observed by a clever person.
Just need a second shorter queue for the rich and titled.
Or maybe a 2nd regular queue so the British can agonize over which to choose and worry the other might be faster.
Traitorfish
The Tighnahulish Kid
I'd be wary of treating the transfer of power from father to son is itself evidence of a hereditary principle. In these kind of gangster-regimes, the ruling clique is held together by personal rather than institutional relationships, which often taken the form of family relationships, and the key principle behind succession is keeping power in the hands of the dominant clique rather than following a specific line of succession. A father-son succession satisfies this criteria in a more straightforward way than some of the alternatives but isn't necessary to satisfy the principle.
North Korea does seem to have crossed the threshold from mafioso-tanistry to an outright hereditary monarchy; possibly this demonstrates that after multiple father-son transfers of power, the principle will establish itself even if it wasn't present previously.
Ajidica
High Quality Person
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- Nov 29, 2006
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We also see that showing up in the early medieval idea of kingship, where the titles of kings often included the title "peoples-king". In other words, the 'peoples' chosen king.
Or you can go the Byzantine approach and officially be father->son transfers of power but doing their best to never do that.
This does seem to be how the English monarchy set itself up, after a first few rounds of executions, inheritances and civil wars.
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