What are your political views?

[blah the Prussian]

Interesting. I don't think I understand how (absolute?) monarchies are resistant to corruption, though. Power presumably being the hands of one person seems like it would give them special interest in wanting to make sure people obey them and don't waste their money, but I don't get what would give them any particular leg up in enforcing their will. That is, how they obviously can't be everywhere at once- I'd think it impossible for nations of modern average sizes, certainly not as big as the bigger ones to handle governing at all without using bureaucratic armies to handle every administrative duty. Strong civil service, rule of law, clean institutions, prevention of small parties becoming entrenched interests, etc. don't immediately e definitely been jump out at me as things any single form of government, or at least not monarchies, would really obviously do better than another.

I also wonder how to actually find evidence of their contrasting abilities, given a lack of nominal modern absolute monarchies. Ones that do still exist don't seem to top the anti-corruption indice, though.

Ah, so you've played the absolute power corrupts absolutely card. Here's the thing though: I can't think of monarchs corrupted by power off of the top of my head. There have definitely been evil monarchs, but most of them either were batshit insane (Caligula, Ivan the terrible) or were merely taken something accepted by everyone to an extreme that makes them stand out to us today (Leopold II). An evil monarch is certainly a risk, but it is rare enough that it is worth taking. Democratically elected leaders being evil is about as common. Hitler and Maximillian Robespierre were both democratically elected. On a similar note, democracies are susceptible to the will of the people, FOR BETTER OR FOR WORSE! The nations that fell to Fascism were all, with one exception (that being Hungary, which fell to Fascism after a military coup) democratic. I don't count Nationalist Spain as fascist because Franco didn't have the cult of personality down. Also, the will of the people has been shown to be just as likely to be evil as the will of a monarch. Look at the genocide of Native Americans by the US, which was fully endorsed by the population. If you want an example of absolute monarchy working in the modern day, I refer you to Jordan. In Jordan, the King has a large amount of power, but BECAUSE of that, Jordan has become a beacon of tolerance and womens rights in the Middle East. There is no reason to suspect that his heir will be any different.

I fail to see what is wrong with bureaucratic armies. The Chinese Empire had this system for all of its existence, and for most of that was the dominant civilization on earth. I wasn't saying that monarchy was better at the day to day running of a state, but it is better at making laws. The reasoning for this should be obvious. Other enlightened monarchies that were relatively recent were Imperial Germany, Meiji and Taisho Japan, and Napoleonic France. All three of these prospered.

[Rehab]

I didn't quite intend to say that power corrupts, but that I'm curious how a monarchy prevents corruption, as it's known by, like, Transparency International. How monarchs can prevent factionalism, vested interests itself from taking root and undermining their authority, bribery becoming necessary to the system, etc. particularly better than, say, a more democratic government could. I brought up bureaucracy more to get at how even if theoretically one person makes the decisions, in countries of any size they need a lot more than a couple of people in order to turn their orders into action and keep track of them, so some potential for the former problems finding their way in in some form seemed to me like it would always be there.

Of course as far as I could find the least corrupt nations on earth today by those measures tended to be the Nordic democracies. Though admittedly I saw the odd article about how "the strength of [country]'s incorruptible civil service is rooted in vaguely-Enlightenment absolute monarch reforms/oaths/special attention/whatever."

(Part of the reason I said CK had me convinced of monarchy's flaws was sort of addressed when you said you weren't necessarily talking about feudal monarchies (because what I observed in CK2 was that you need vassals who don't rebel and whose power you can manage to get things done comfortably, which reminded me of the simple fact that there are a hell of a lot of people involved in running a government no matter what) but how a monarchy actually becomes "absolute" and how well the title can possibly be lived up to I'm still unsure of)

Edited February 22, 2015 by Rehab

[blah the Prussian]

I didn't quite intend to say that power corrupts, but that I'm curious how a monarchy prevents corruption, as it's known by, like, Transparency International. How monarchs can prevent factionalism, vested interests itself from taking root and undermining their authority, bribery becoming necessary to the system, etc. particularly better than, say, a more democratic government could. I brought up bureaucracy more to get at how even if theoretically one person makes the decisions, in countries of any size they need a lot more than a couple of people in order to turn their orders into action and keep track of them, so some potential for the former problems finding their way in in some form seemed to me like it would always be there.

Of course as far as I could find the least corrupt nations on earth today by those measures tended to be the Nordic democracies. Though admittedly I saw the odd article about how "the strength of [country]'s incorruptible civil service is rooted in vaguely-Enlightenment absolute monarch reforms/oaths/special attention/whatever."

(Part of the reason I said CK had me convinced of monarchy's flaws was sort of addressed when you said you weren't necessarily talking about feudal monarchies (because what I observed in CK2 was that you need vassals who don't rebel and whose power you can manage to get things done comfortably, which reminded me of the simple fact that there are a hell of a lot of people involved in running a government no matter what) but how a monarchy actually becomes "absolute" and how well the title can possibly be lived up to I'm still unsure of)

The enlightenment thing is true. During the Enlightenment, enlightened autocrats in Austria, Russia, Prussia, Sweden, and Spain centralized power around themselves and encouraged more egalitarian society. Part of the reason France fell to revolution was that it never had an enlightened monarch, or at least one that could make the reforms successfully without interference from the nobles. Also, while you make a good point about the bureaucracy, but it is essentially conjecture without any historical examples to back it up. So, can you find any real life examples of this happening in an enlightened autocratic monarchy? Finally, the Nordic countries are monarchies.

[Rehab]

Those monarchies are mostly symbolic, though, they're all parliamentary systems where the monarchs usually do little more than occasionally sign off on what the executive government nominates. Or they're Finland, and aren't even a constitutional monarchy.

And I'm not driving at an effort to convince others that monarchies are bad or anything, I'm more trying to explain why I'm not immediately convinced myself that they're more efficient and less susceptible to the "misuse of public power for private benefit/subversion of rule of law" kind of corruption. The most important reason I'm not convinced because I feel like I don't have the means to compare the dirty details, that is "how democratic/monarchical governments in general tend to operate (hell of a thing to generalize, I know) and where opportunities for corruption arise," in front of me. Via scientific method and all that. For the most part I'm just idly wondering how the comparison can be made.

[blah the Prussian]

Those monarchies are mostly symbolic, though, they're all parliamentary systems where the monarchs usually do little more than occasionally sign off on what the executive government nominates. Or they're Finland, and aren't even a constitutional monarchy.

And I'm not driving at an effort to convince others that monarchies are bad or anything, I'm more trying to explain why I'm not immediately convinced myself that they're more efficient and less susceptible to the "misuse of public power for private benefit/subversion of rule of law" kind of corruption. The most important reason I'm not convinced because I feel like I don't have the means to compare the dirty details, that is "how democratic/monarchical governments in general tend to operate (hell of a thing to generalize, I know) and where opportunities for corruption arise," in front of me. Via scientific method and all that. For the most part I'm just idly wondering how the comparison can be made.

I get what you're saying. Let me clarify: in any nation, there is opportunity for corruption. That is inevitable. However, as a general rule, when a head of state is hereditary, they don't owe their power to anyone, only their birth. This makes them phenomenally less susceptible to corruption than an elected head of state, who could, for example, bribe a news agency to endorse them, while a monarch wouldn't need to do that, for obvious reasons. Essentially, in a monarchy, the head of state is less likely to be in on the corruption. Hence, the corruption is easier to solve. What I was getting at with the Scandinavian thing was that the failure of corruption to take root may be a holdover from the days when the Scandinavian monarchs had power.

[feplus]

What are your thoughts on constitutional monarchies? Many people I respect (you may be familiar with Peter Hitchens) advocate such a system.

[blah the Prussian]

What are your thoughts on constitutional monarchies? Many people I respect (you may be familiar with Peter Hitchens) advocate such a system.

I like constitutional monarchies where the monarch and the people genuinely share power. If the monarch has an actual say in government, it can serve to fix a lot of the problems I have with democracy. However, if they are merely figureheads (such as the UK and Japan) it is a lie to call it a constitutional monarchy. Even though the queen can technically veto something, everyone completely lose their shit if she does so. Some have even used the very presence of the Royal Veto to advocate for a republic. That is something I fail to understand. The way I justify monarchs living in luxury is that they have the hardest job in the nation. In "crowned republics" like the UK and Japan, I feel they aren't really earning their keep. The solution to this is not to get rid of them, but to give them back some of their power. The people of Britain and the world always make fun of Elisabeth II for not doing anything, but when she does, they call her a tyrant. Okay, rant done. I have no problems with Con Mons as long as the monarch has any power, a la Imperial Germany or Napoleonic France.