So IN THEORY a system of government with an “all powerful” central ruler has many advantages- provided the ruler is a nearly “perfect” or super human being. Otherwise it fails and if you do find that person they die or retire and the odds every replacement ruler will be perfect” are slim. That said- many of the reasons cited that monarchy is a bad idea do t historically hold up well. That is to say- to many the idea that leadership should be hereditary is laughable. However world wide you’ll find that statistically the majority of tamiles with wealth and power centuries or even over 1,000 years ago still hood wealth and power today. The more “stable” a region the more true this tends to be. In the halls of politics globally you’ll still find families are often institutions in leadership and like a monarchy, the majority of leaders tend to come from similar places and similar schools and such. This is also true in industry- the other major power in capitalism.
Of course you can’t vote for a monarch. They either inherit the title without exception or perhaps a small group of elites gets to pick. Except… isn’t that basically how most democracies work? At this point regardless of right or left politics- the numbers say that the last American president lost the peoples vote. It was a small group of elites that decided they be president. If you lean right- many believe that Obama or Biden were “cheated” into power. So regardless, if you believe that any of those presidents were placed there then you have to agree by your own admission that would make your vote a formality- a placation. One might argue the democratic representative government compels “lords” to act on behalf of their “serfs” but is that how most people feel about their government officials?
One might argue the system gives redress against poor leaders but…. Does it? I suppose it gives alternatives to the general population staging work stoppages or withholding taxes or causing riots or uprisings, but while mitigating those things does have benefit to the average person daily life- really they benefit the people who own and control the most industry and assets who- surprise- are usually the people in positions of power. Monarchy tends to closely associate with concepts of feudalism or casually similar concepts.
These concepts can be summed up as “trickle down economics.”
A ruler owns and controls everything. To those closest to them they essentially “lend” power and resources like land or wealth or military might etc. which ultimately belong to the monarch.
Those executives then lend parts of their power and wealth and such to lesser nobility and on other goes down the line until we reach the lowest rungs of society which are usually the peasants or general population. Within this group there are those with more proximity to money and power and less, defining socio economic strata between them. In exchange there is an upwards flow. The ruler “owns” everything in name- but to make that reality they need the might to be able to enforce their will and the rewards to trickle down to keep those beneath them happy in supporting them. Lesser nobility provide members of their populations as soldiers and workers and such. They provide money and resources. They get to keep a cut but in exchange their ability to take is protected by the whole of the government.
Simply put- you could declare your house or your car an independent nation tomorrow where your current nations laws and rule don’t apply. You could claim the entire block belongs to you. But I’d you start murdering people because that’s ok in your new nation or stop paying taxes to or allowing transit of people from the old nation- and the police of your old nation come to set that straight- do you have the power to stop them and enforce your claims? If the military comes do you? If the neighborhood one block over has declared itself a nation and comes to annex your block, can you protect yourself from them?
Fundamental and known to humans since before recorded history is strength in numbers. So a king needs support to be a king in anything but name, but why would someone support a claim to king vs. claiming to be the king? Simple, strength. If the king can gather 50 men with 500 soldiers combined to say they are king in exchange for a cut of the good life or promises of things they care about, and be free of all the duties of a king they don’t want- and another person can only get 5 men… the person with 5 is better off joining the king usually and settling for a smaller take than trying to have it all against those odds. And that’s how politics works in democracy more or less in the modern world. Donald Trump told Mike Pence not to certify a vote. Wether you believe he was right or wrong- Pence didn’t listen. Donald is no longer President. If enough people believed he was still president and supported that- he’d still be president. It’s all in the numbers regardless of the system usually.
We don’t HAVE to vote. The fundamentals of almost all human interaction are for e or threat of force. If you have a population of 100,000 people and take a vote where 80,000 vote yes to something and 20,000 vote no, you are in essence being told that if you try to act in a way commiserate to the no vote that you’ll be facing 80,000 enemies. Instead of a vote we could just fight and war if people disagree. Sometimes we do. The January 6th rioters used force of numbers to try and force their way and it turned out that despite momentary success there were way more people willing to stop them than help them
Voting is a way to avoid the destruction and death and disruption of fighting whenever we disagree.
In a 60-40 vote, if the two sides fought, the 40% could actually win a war. Conflicts have been won with much more I balanced forces. It’s arbitrary though. The counting of votes removes variables like tactics and such and makes it a sheer game of strength of numbers. That’s how this stuff works at a fundamental level. It’s really not so different. We also need to remember that there are permutations and flavors of government. Direct democracy and representative and so many ways to do it. There are monarchies where the monarch doesn’t have absolute power such as constitutional monarchies and voting lords and various systems where the military is involved.
What it comes down to is checks and balances to power. Where you have effective checks and balances a monarch has no more power than a president or even less.
If we ignore the fact that “elected representatives” often truly aren’t elected by the people and argue that regardless of these facts a democracy is fundamentally different ad there is some element of choice in a ruler Vs. Predestination, that is still somewhat pointless. As we very well know from modern politics, a ruler elected by elites or a ruler elected by the people is not always the most qualified or prudent choice. They are generally the person most liked or identified with based on a carefully curated image by the voting groups.
In other words, your odds of getting a competent and effective ruler in a two party democratic system are arguably not much better and may even be worse than the odds of getting a competent and effective ruler by north right and conflict of succession.
Not that I favor monarchy- that isn’t the argument I seek to make here. Instead I argue that we haven’t actually stepped away from these systems of government that much and for the grand promises of revolution for the past several centuries, revolution has largely served to remove an obstacle to power for a príveles few seeking the position for themselves but offer little meaningful change to the average person.
At this point some may think in error that I am arguing against capitalism or for communism as at the heart of the concept of many flavors of communism is the idea that this stratified system repeating in different guises makes these systems essentially the same.
There may be truth to that but to date no communism of any scale or note has succeeded in actually eliminating this “pyramid” structure and it is essentially impossible that a functioning system without these structures would ever exist in the conceivable future.
The “classless” societies have all been very much divided by class and have had the same disparities or worse in standards of living and wealth distribution as every stratified system.
What’s more, while the nature of capitalism does easily lend to greed and shady dealings, the nature of communism in practices lends to totalitarianism and repression. The rejection of codified and systemic means to account for human greed and self interest leave communisms without the tools to deal with these basic aspects of human nature and will inevitably lead to corruption and graft because people have no other means to express their natural behaviors. Even if you remove a cats claws it will express scratching behavior. If you give the cat healthy outlets to express these instincts you can get the cat to behave in a manner that isn’t destructive and is conducive to a stable and working living arrangement. In absence of those measures the best you can do is repress the behavior through extreme means that are either cruel and unpleasant to the cat or prohibitive to general life conduct.
So monarchy isn’t my first choice for a system of governance but if the idea of monarchy makes a person upset they should take a hard look at the world in general and get very upset.
These concepts can be summed up as “trickle down economics.”
A ruler owns and controls everything. To those closest to them they essentially “lend” power and resources like land or wealth or military might etc. which ultimately belong to the monarch.
Voting is a way to avoid the destruction and death and disruption of fighting whenever we disagree.
If we ignore the fact that “elected representatives” often truly aren’t elected by the people and argue that regardless of these facts a democracy is fundamentally different ad there is some element of choice in a ruler Vs. Predestination, that is still somewhat pointless. As we very well know from modern politics, a ruler elected by elites or a ruler elected by the people is not always the most qualified or prudent choice. They are generally the person most liked or identified with based on a carefully curated image by the voting groups.
Not that I favor monarchy- that isn’t the argument I seek to make here. Instead I argue that we haven’t actually stepped away from these systems of government that much and for the grand promises of revolution for the past several centuries, revolution has largely served to remove an obstacle to power for a príveles few seeking the position for themselves but offer little meaningful change to the average person.
There may be truth to that but to date no communism of any scale or note has succeeded in actually eliminating this “pyramid” structure and it is essentially impossible that a functioning system without these structures would ever exist in the conceivable future.
The “classless” societies have all been very much divided by class and have had the same disparities or worse in standards of living and wealth distribution as every stratified system.