The U.S. Goverment

[theTrav]

Yeah, monarchies worked much better, everyone had cake.

God save the queen!

[pyrale]

At least that process doesn't explicitly select and promote those most ruthless at playing the politics of party and power.

Yeah, sometimes their sons were promoted. Hopefully they were ruthless enough. Otherwise they were challenged in a way that was way more ruthless than an election.

It is well known that wars only started when democracies appeared

[jorb]

Yeah, monarchies worked much better, everyone had cake.

Resources were scarce then as they are now, so obviously the past was not the land of Cockayne (jorb said cock!). People did however not expect the monarch to provide cake, and that strikes me as a much healthier attitude toward government than the ones that tend to prevail in democracies. It can be debated, however, what is hen and what is the egg in that equation. Does democracy foster bad attitudes, or do bad attitudes lead to democracy? A little bit of both, perhaps.

Making acquirement of power a competition in demagoguery may be bad, but at least it guarantees we don't get rulers like Charles II of Spain.

First of all you could do a lot worse than Charles II. What of Vlad the Impaler or Ivan the Terrible? Secondly I'm not sure what you're getting at. Charles II did some crazy things, but I don't see any Spanish concentration camps or mass slaughterings of "enemies of the people". The prime complaint against Charles seems to be, in fact, that he didn't do a whole lot as a king. Which is precisely what I am getting at. Charles did not try to micromanage his people in every little detail of their life however trivial or inconsequential. Whatever Charles was -- a dilettante, an eccentric, an idiot -- he wasn't a creature of power. Power happened upon him, he did not seize it. I would be more comfortable with a national lottery to determine the rulers for the next four years than I am with democracy, because democracy invariably selects the worst demagogues for positions of power. The political symbol of democracy if there is one is the guillotine.

That being said there are various forms of monarchy, and various historical contexts in which any form of government can operate. It is of course not as simple as democracy bad and monarchy good. A crowned head of state is one instrument by which the separation of powers can be facilitated. In most Germanic countries the Monarch has a very intricate constitutional function which in my humble opinion speaks volumes of the wisdom of the ancestors in their political arrangements. In Sweden there has always been popular representation in one form or another as long as history has been recorded, and the same is true for many or most of the various German principalities and Free Cities on the continent.

It can be added, for that matter, that the monarchy has always enjoyed, and continues to enjoy even to this day -- in an era where monarchy is becoming less and less understood with each successive generation, to the point of now appearing as a silly and unfathomable relic of a dark past -- a high degree of popular support. More so than any democratic politician has ever managed to accrue. At least that is the case here in Sweden, although I suspect the memory of what it used to mean to have a King will soon be expunged entirely from our cultural memory. The Monarch in our tradition was seen as the font of all justice, and the first and final arbiter and guarantor of the same. Not as a dictator, not as an oppressor. Because he never was.

An urban legend in Sweden is the story of Charles XI travelling around the country dressed as a farmer or simple traveller. In the legends he is referred to as the Greycoat (Swedish: Gråkappan). The reason why he dressed like an average person was to discover and identify corruption and oppression against the populace. There are many stories about him arriving to villages looking for corrupt church officials and sending them to the gallows.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_XI#Urban_legend

While I resent the characterization of the legend as "urban" (if anything it was rural), the story is merely a latter day incarnation of a traditional motif that is fairly common in the wider germanic mythos. I do not believe that its telling is merely an idle coincidence.

[jorb]

It is well known that wars only started when democracies appeared

No, but democratic wars are much more brutal, since the people fighting them are fooled into believing that they somehow have a stake in it. Thus the second world war meant the firebombing or atomic bombing of large cities. A total war with mutual hatred on all sides. Similar observations can be made regarding the American Civil War. The first world war developed into a "democratic war" with the entry of the United States and Wilson's idea of "making the world safe for democracy", but before that the war was a traditional European war as they tended to be fought during the 19th century. Nothing personal, merely business. In that era miracles were still possible, and one tried as best one could to keep civilians out of the affair entirely.

[ninja_yodeler]

another bad thing about the U.S government you just reminded me of.

the war on terrorism...THE U.S INVENTED TERRORISM..Hiroshima anyone

[pyrale]

It is well known that wars only started when democracies appeared

No, but democratic wars are much more brutal, since the people fighting them are fooled into believing that they somehow have a stake in it. Thus the second world war meant the firebombing or atomic bombing of large cities. A total war with mutual hatred on all sides. Similar observations can be made regarding the American Civil War. The first world war developed into a "democratic war" with the entry of the United States and Wilson's idea of "making the world safe for democracy", but before that the war was a traditional European war as they tended to be fought during the 19th century. Nothing personal, merely business. In that era miracles were still possible, and one tried as best one could to keep civilians out of the affair entirely.

I disagree on so many points...

-total war is the fruit of industrialization, not democracy. Germany was not a democracy during WW1, not was it during WW2. Neither did Russia/USSR, Japan, for instance.
-the USA entered WW1 in 1917, mainly because their business was disrupted by german fleet. Before that, all they did was selling weapons to their traditional allies.
-Comparing WW1 to previous european wars (except the wars that led to the founding of german empire) is ridiculous : Nationalism was simply not an aspect of the equation in previous wars (except, very one-sidedly, during french revolution - where ironically monarchies did the exact same thing that you think Wilson did).
-Armies used to live on the country before 20th century, I would be interested in knowing how exactly that implies "keep civilians out of the affair entierely".
-Winter was mostly peace time because it was hard to make war at this season. This was nothing like a gentleman's agreement.

Also disagreeing with your vision of social policies but that's another topic. I tend to think that your vision of ancient times is very biased, and if I didn't want you to stay alive to develop HnH, I'd recommend you to have a trip in somalia to see by yourself how it is to have no government .

[Tonkyhonk]

Nothing personal, merely business. In that era miracles were still possible, and one tried as best one could to keep civilians out of the affair entirely.

wars are always "nothing personal, merely business" at the top with democracies. the issue there is that they pretend and advertise for "justice calls" and people get convinced farily easily. the manipulated show hatred and make it look personal though, which makes it easier for the top to continue with their plans.
major forces always have to use cutting edge techs because they work hard to invent them. they look for great targets to draw worldwide nations' hatred towards, and never want to miss the opportunity.
(and no, im not blaming the u.s. for hiroshima nor nagasaki, this is just in general.)

of course, im just building castles in the sky here and would feel differently when i am the victim of the evils.
("building castle in the sky" expression is borrowed from niltrias.)

[Potjeh]

Yeah, there were certainly no attrocities commited by royalty.

Anyway, my point is that in monarchy your average leader will be as capable as your average human, and your average human isn't fit to lead a herd of sheep, let alone a country. In systems where you have to actually do something to attain power, the leaders will tend to be the most capable people. Whether they'll use their capabilities for good or bad is anyone's guess, but at least in democracies they can't be overtly tyrannical. Plus, democracies have a peaceful method for changing the government, whereas in monarchies there's a very high likelihood of war (I'd say that at least 50% of wars in Europe have been about succession).

[jorb]

Most of your links are links to religious conflicts which are exactly like democratic wars in the sense that they are fought over issues of fundamental and irreconcilable ideology rather than for personal gain. The Mongol sack of Baghdad is a conflict between civilizations which is again something else. You will notice the same kinds of atrocities being committed by Spain in the Americas, or the Belgians in the Congo. The Armenian genocide is carried out in the context of Turkey's popular -- democratic -- formation as a nation state. The old Ottoman Empire was in its heyday a surprisingly tolerant institution, as the simple survival of -- for example -- Greek Christianity over five hundred years of Ottoman domination should suffice to prove.

Note that I am not saying that monarchies are somehow magically incapable of committing various atrocities, merely that it is not their natural tendency. Would you prefer Bolshevism over the Romanovs? Empirically speaking, which country is/was more bellicose? The American Empire with its European vassal states, or Imperial Germany? The vast majority of monarchical wars are indeed fought over inheritance disputes, and this is precisely why amicable solutions agreeable to all involved parties, and with face-saving peace treaties for the losing parties, can at times be agreed upon. It is, after all, only money and territory, not ideology. Democracy tends to go all in, and tends to aim for the complete and unconditional submission of the opposing side.

Democracies are both tyrannical and totalitarian. The fact that people have come to accept as natural the fact that everything in their lives from the cradle to the grave is regulated and controlled by the state does not mean that the edicts of the state are not backed by force. The threat of naked force is of course as present in a democracy as it is under any form of government. If I do not pay my taxes the tax collector comes and arrests me, or shoots me should i resist. Democracies do indeed promote the most capable people. The most ruthless, power-hungry and charismatic orators are naturally drawn to the democratic institutions. Such people should, however, be kept far, far away from all institutions of power.

Again, I am not per se opposed to popular representation in one form or another, but if that is all a country has -- and the precise form of the electoral system is of course a relevant consideration -- then my prediction is that the power of the state will grow at the expense of civil society, and that the country sooner or later will degenerate further into brute dictatorship. Switzerland would be an example of a country with a prima facie fairly convincing form of popular representation. Sweden used to have that before the advent of parliamentary government.

Also, Monarchs are not ivory tower figures who rule their countries by themselves. They are men of flesh and blood who exist -- as all men do -- in social contexts. They have estates, advisors, officials, families, teachers, philosophers and historians to advise and aid them. Monarchs were certainly not incapable of ruling their realms, quite the contrary.

The claim that democracy is a particularly peaceful form of government is not borne out by the historical record. The fact that the various democracies of Europe do not declare war on each other isn't very strange. The client states of Rome didn't either, and the principalities under the British Raj didn't either. Countries that are manifestly within the sphere of influence of a dominant hegemon are of course pacific as long as the hegemon continues to project its air of invincibility. The present hegemon itself, however, declares wars about once or twice per president.

A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself within. The essential causes of Rome's decline lay in her people, her morals, her class struggle, her failing trade, her bureaucratic despotism, her stifling taxes, her consuming wars.

Durant, Will -- Caesar and Christ

Just sayin'.

[SpiderJerusalem]

First of all you could do a lot worse than Charles II. What of Vlad the Impaler or Ivan the Terrible?

Actually Vlad was a good ruler for his time and is kind of a national hero in romania.