Geeks For Monarchy: The Rise of the Neoreactionaries 730
Third Position writes "Many of us yearn for a return to one golden age or another. But there's a community of bloggers taking the idea to an extreme: they want to turn the dial way back to the days before the French Revolution. Neoreactionaries believe that while technology and capitalism have advanced humanity over the past couple centuries, democracy has actually done more harm than good. They propose a return to old-fashioned gender roles, social order and monarchy."
First sandwich (Score:3, Funny)
Re:First sandwich (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure, a monarchy works great until you get someone like Kim Jung Il or Kim Jung Un at the top. Then your screwed.
Re:First sandwich (Score:5, Funny)
Or a grammar Nazi, such as myself. Then YOU're screwed.
Re:First sandwich (Score:5, Insightful)
If you read TFA, the neoreactionaries are proposing that the monarch at the top of the hierarchy be selected by genetic fitness. The smartest, fittest, and most handsome men (one assumes only men) would rule. So there's no danger of anyone from the Kim Jung family being in charge. We're much more likely to end up with Hitler.
Re:First sandwich (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
How funny would it be to get a look at some of these bloggers?
Something tells me we wouldn't find the "smartest, fittest and most handsome men". So what they're basically asking for is to be put on the dog end of the social scale, when they should be kissing the ass of the current social order, which at least gives them a bit of a chance..
Re:First sandwich (Score:5, Insightful)
Good grief. Eugenics on top of autocracy. Nazi Germany, here we come.
Re:First sandwich (Score:4)
What did that society get them? The French Revolution.
Re: (Score:3)
You didn't read my comment, did you? Hitler was white, not ugly, and somewhat intelligent. In the neoreactionary view, those attributes make him more desirable as a monarch than any of the Kim Jungs. His family background and political connections mean *nothing* -- in fact, basing leadership on social networking is exactly what the neoreactionaries are trying to get away from.
Re:First sandwich (Score:5, Interesting)
He also got called "little corporal" behind his back in a derogatory manner by conservatives. They viewed him with deep suspicion, and plotted against him. They also feared and loathed the strasseist wing of the nazi party, and especially the SA, most of which were young unemployed strasserists, and big well organized goverment allowed hooligans. There was even talk that the SA was going to replace the wermarcht as Germany's army.
The night of long knives changed that. The top SA leaders were assassinated, along with many influential conservatives, the strasserists, the SA's role as the nazi's political army was given to its former subdivision, the SS, which was more conservative and middle class in its economics.
After this, no one dared oppose Hitler. Hitler's version of nazism was unopposed. Hitler selected himself as monarch.
See, the thing about Monarchs is they never got selected for any fitness test, they selected themselves by taking the throne, either by force, or by treachery. That doesn't make a good or accountable leader.
Re:First sandwich (Score:5, Insightful)
As is often the case with rose tinted glasses, I guess some people are looking back to the best cases and not really thinking about what also goes wrong and why we moved away from those structures in the first place.
Re:First sandwich (Score:5, Interesting)
This is addressed quite well in Discourses on the First Decade of Titus Livy. There's three basic forms of government: rule by the one, rule by the few, and rule by the many, each of which has a good form and a bad form. Rule by the one is monarchy when good, tyranny when bad. Rule by the few is aristocracy when good, oligarchy when bad. Rule by the many is democracy when good, anarchy when bad. The cycle of history is that each of the good forms will, over time, degrade into their bad form, until a crisis occurs that topples the government and replaces it with the next form in the cycle.
The idea of a republic is to have all three running at the same time (the executive is the rule by the one, the judicial system is the rule by the few, and the legislature is the rule by the many) in the hopes that if one went bad, the other two would hold it in check, making the government stable unless all three go bad at the same time.
Re:First sandwich (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
You just described every society on the planet. Whether it's due to aristocratic privilege or good ol' money, that's how the world works.
Re:First sandwich (Score:4, Insightful)
No, not money. You are confusing rights with privileges. An aristocratic class enjoys rights granted to them by the law that the majority do not posses. The wealthy enjoy money, and while money might give the rich a lifestyle parallel to that which was enjoyed by the old aristocracy, being born rich gives you (in principle, we are arguing about principles) no more rights than the poor also have. Some people have called this 'equality before the law'.
You may say that the rich have many things that the poor do not. Well obviously they do. But this is qualitatively different from being born with the right to sit in the upper house of parliament because you are the son of a lord.
Economic inequality is a bad thing. The lack of social equality is a very, very bad thing.
Re:First sandwich (Score:4, Interesting)
It depends on what you mean by "the top".
If you are talking about monarchs of the type that have not been seen in Western Europe for a long type, then you are probably right. They had the power to make/break treaties, declare war/peace, order executions and do on. The nearest to one of them around nowadays is the Pope and he doesn't seem to declare war often nowadays.
Most European monarchies nowadays are not so powerful. They have things to do but, whether you are talking about Spain, Sweden, the UK or the Netherlands or anywhere else in Europe, they do not declare war, they no not make the treaties and are not known for asking for public beheadings any more. No doubt, the Royal Families spread too wide. As a Brit, I hear a lot that the Queen and immediate family are good but it spreads out too far.
For example, if the Queen was in command, the UK might not have participated in the illegal invasion of Iraq. There was no benefit to this country and there were plenty obvious downsides.
Another example from a bit longer ago. During the 50s or 60s, the KGB were convinced that there would be a military coup in the UK. The reason it didn't happen has been explained by some as due to the fact that the coup would have had to be against the Queen. That is a non-starter. Your commander in chief may be a politician. The CinC around here is the queen. Not very long ago, after Franco died, Spain found itself on the road back to democracy. The army there did not all like that and some tried to overthrow the government. The fairly new king put on his uniform and walked unarmed into the hostage situation in their parliament and told the Soldiers to stop. They did.
So you have an elected person at the top who a vocal minority think is some sort of foreign, demon, moslem marxist. A large number of the rest don't like him or what he stands for. A good number of them are the ones with money and power.
I know who our head of state is. I know her origins. I know who will replace her for several generations. I didn't need to stand up in school every morning to be brainwashed into giving my allegiance to her. As an adult, I did so freely when I put on a uniform. Every time I saluted, I saluted her. Every order I received came with her authority.
So there is the choice of half of the electorate disliking a leader? No thanks. I will stick to this system.
Re: (Score:3)
No. Obama was not of the "ruling class", though his father was a career state diplomat, and his mother an NGO groupie. He was part of the CIA experimentation in cultivated crop production.
You can say that he is a well-positioned "Beta" - designed to get coercive cooperation from the general Beta population, while appeasing Deltas - diffusing their unease and anger, dividing them against themselves.
Re: First sandwich (Score:5, Insightful)
Whatever your opinion of Obama, he is certainly not from "the ruling class".
Really? Let's see... A descendant of rulers and politically-connected international travelers, Religious and Prep school upbringing in upper-class neighborhoods, Educated at Occidental and Columbia and law degree from Harvard ... what's missing?
Obama is only "black" because his father was a member of the ruling class from a black country. His mother, who also had a PhD, is descended from an American slave-holder family.
How did you come to this delusion that Obama is not a member of the ruling class?
Re:Of course, democracy hasn't managed (Score:5, Insightful)
Democracy of itself is the tyranny of the majority. In the USA, the Bill of Rights provides some protection against this tyrant, by putting some limits on democratic processes. The USA is far from a pure democracy (thank the Powers That Be).
One of the options TFA talks about is a system where CEOs become monarchs with stockholders becoming nobles or gentry. If I understood correctly, the author says that this is one proposed neoreactionary system of governance. However it fits the definition of fascism, and would certainly fail for the same reason fascist regimes always fail: they are too susceptible to internal corruption, when policy makers put selfish concerns ahead of societal concerns. "Yes, I have decided that we need to build a flood control dam, and my company will supply the concrete for the job. It's true that we have never had a flooding problem but it is good social policy to be prepared."
Pure monarchies have serious problems when an incompetent gains the throne. And they have troubles with filling a vacancy at the top without a lot bloodshed.
Churchill once said that democracy was the worst form of government... except for all the others. That's as true now as it was in the last century.
Re:Of course, democracy hasn't managed (Score:4, Interesting)
Democracy tried, and failed. There have been successes, and other failures with Democracy. A failure does not mean the system is fundamentally flawed. It's the other systems (Communism, Socialism, ...) which seem to have leaders like this as an objective.
Apples and oranges.
The democracy-autocracy axis is usually considered orthogonal to the classical left-right axis. And sure enough, there are democracies where all out socialists rule by democratic majority, and there are far right corporatist dictatorships.
The idea that democracy and capitalist free market fundamentalism are somehow inextricably connected seems, to say the least, tenuous to me. Likewise the usual corollary that socialism and autocracy are somehow inherently linked.
That explains Walmart (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:That explains Walmart (Score:5, Insightful)
The trouble is that folks who are proponents for things like this are always under the assumption that they or like minded people will end up in charge.
Like the folks who want a Christian Theocracy in the States. They are under the assumption that ALL Christians think the same way they do.
Re:That explains Walmart (Score:5, Interesting)
Like the folks who want a Christian Theocracy in the States. They are under the assumption that ALL Christians think the same way they do.
Relevant recent research FTW [psychologicalscience.org]
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
In fairness, the majority of Christians tend to agree on what is in and what is out as far as classifying someone as Christian. Most protestant denominations and many Catholics that are well versed in the foundations of their beliefs don't have any major problems with most other major Christian groups. It's only really generally agreed to be a problem when you get groups like Mormons, 7th Day Adventists or Jehovah's Witnesses that have made major and core theological changes to the foundations of Christia
Re: (Score:3)
What makes 7th Day Adventists outliers? I skimmed the Wikipedia article and the only thing that really stuck out was the millennial stuff, and how big a deal is having different unactionable opinions about the future, really?
(actually curious)
P.S: Okay, so they're kosher, anti-alcohol, etc., but that's not so abnormal.
Re:You jest (Score:5, Interesting)
Seventh-day Adventists actually can be categorized quite nicely into conservative evangelicalism. They step outside the mainstream on issues like the weekly sabbath, the state of the dead and by maintaining a historicist approach to prophetic interpretation. They also have an unusually strong emphasis on religious liberty and the separation of church and state. But their soteriology/christology/etc... tend to be very orthodox evangelical.
Source: Grew up Adventist, still am a practicing Adventist, MA in Religion, and I read the work of many non-Adventist theologians and scholars.
Re:You jest (Score:4, Informative)
The differences are a lot more serious than that. In theological terms they are very different. Most importantly the protestants place great value on the personal relationship between each believer and Christ, while the Catholic church place themselves as the divinely appointed intermediary. This also means they claim for themselves the exclusive power to interpret or decree God's teachings. The two major branches of Christianity are on good terms right now, but remember that past centuries were characterized by the two taking turns to persecute and torture each other in the struggle for influence.
Re:You jest (Score:4, Insightful)
That's true that there are very fundamental differences in how they see the structure and role of the church, however the means of salvation remains consistent in both. Much of the fighting is the same as it is today, it comes from politicians attaching themselves to the church (or at times abuse of the church when politics and the church were one and the same). The views of both groups are not that fundamentally at odds even if the practices and minor points have considerable differences. Most conflicts between the groups were about power or revenge, neither is related to theology.
Re: (Score:3)
Sorry, I think my statement was overly ambiguous. I meant "most protestant denominations" and "most/many Catholics who actually understand their religion". I clarified because I've run in to many Catholics who are more culturally catholic than practicing that have problems with protestants, however most devout Catholics who dig in to the official views of the catholic church don't have any major problems with most protestants.
Re:You jest (Score:4, Insightful)
That is why I put in the part about having to understand their beliefs. Personally, I'm protestant, but the actual orthodox Catholic view is that Saints should not be worshiped but rather that they intercede on behalf of the person praying to them. They don't have any power or honor beyond being a hero of the faith so to speak. It does end up leading to (what I see as a minorly incorrect view) that their being "better" Christians results in God listening to them more, but it isn't idol or saint worship if properly following formal Catholic beliefs.
Re: (Score:3)
Re:That explains Walmart (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:That explains Walmart (Score:5, Interesting)
We are getting a new form of Monarchy right now via the inequality in wealth distribution.
Walmart Wishes to Be Master, Not Liege (Score:5, Insightful)
Not serfdom. Serfs were bound by traditional duties, but the same traditions bound their liege lords with obligations and to recognize certain rights. So, for example, you cannot turn a serf off the land his father worked. You cannot threaten him and his family with hunger in order to compel new concessions. He has a great many days guaranteed off since they're holy days. Most days of the week, he's actually working for himself and only a fraction was her required to work on his liege's land and projects.
Compare this with the circumstances your cite. Some rights are granted by our legal system but the obligations owed to a worker (esp. pay) have been in decline since the 1970's. But the employee has no security. High unemployment makes them easily replaceable; Walmart doesn't allow them to organize; they could be left at any moment with more bills than money. Thus, concessions are easy to secure for the employer who knows his employees only work for him because they've few other options. Sure, they don't lower their worker's salaries but they do reduce labor costs by having ever fewer workers perform ever more tasks. And who can complain? As for days off, Walmart workers certainly don't get our civic holidays off. Days like Sunday were once a great and beautiful thing. They were guarantees that an employer was not the master of an employees life. They granted all people the very human dignity of being able to spend time with family. They even allowed time for people to recognize a god other than Mammon. Walmart employees even have to work on Thanksgiving now and the holiday season has the most taxing schedule for them. A retail worker often does not know when he'll be working two weeks hence, and can therefore make few sure plans to spend with family and friends. Oh well, it's easier just to stay home and watch TV ($199 at Walmart!) and eat popcorn than to have to risk cancelling on friends again. As for the fraction of pay, I would be willing to bet that the ratio of profit, Walmart:"associate", is far better for Walmart than ever was the ratio of produce, liege:serf.
So, I do not think it best to say Walmart wishes to make its employees serfs. Serfs are a meddlesome bunch and tend to riot when their traditional rights are usurped. I think rather that Walmart wishes to leave its employees in a servile condition, as a great master over so many slaves. And while I'm at it, I'll throw this little bomb: the current form of consumerist capitalism undermines friendship, family, the human dignity of workers, and even religion.
no thank you (Score:3, Informative)
We kicked out King George a long time ago...we don't want him back.
Re:no thank you (Score:5, Funny)
I'm ALL for it! (Score:5, Insightful)
As long as _I_ am the one who's in power.
hrm (Score:5, Funny)
Re:hrm (Score:5, Funny)
I want to be Doctor. Or Captain. Or Captain Doctor. Captain Doctor James T. Who.
Re:hrm (Score:5, Interesting)
American here. I have a question for you – I know the Queen is the head of state and theoretically has vast powers. However, she seems to have delegated most of those powers. Beyond a tourist attraction what does she do? I live close enough to Canada, another one of her domains, but I can’t figure out what she does.
Re: (Score:3)
Re:hrm (Score:4, Informative)
While it is theoretically possible for the Sovereign to veto a bill by refusing Royal Assent, the incidents since 1689 are pretty rare. Queen Anne vetoed the Scottish Militia Bill,. In the 1930s the Lieutenant Governor of Alberta used the Sovereign's right to delay assent over a series of bills designed to limit press freedoms.
Re:hrm (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:hrm (Score:5, Informative)
She serves as an important 'symbolic' head of state. This is a part of why we don't make a super-celebrity out of our prime minister, the way the US does with their president. When we need someone to patriotically rally around, we don't need to wrap a politician up in a flag and recognize him as the embodiment of our national values and virtues. We have a monarch for that.
In terms of actual powers? Lots, but by general convention these days she doesn't actually use them. In theory she appoints the prime minister (in practice, she simply formalises the election result), opens parliament (via representative, as she is personally barred from setting foot in the Commons), can close it again at any time, could (but won't) veto and law passed by refusing to sign it, is the ultimate head of the Church of England with the power to alter doctrine on a whim, grants titles and honors (rubber-stamps committee decisions) and is the legal owner of every swan on a stretch of the Thames.
In the event that she actually tried to exercise an of these powers, you can be confident parliament would quickly find a way to bypass and take them away. It's a simple deal: She gets to keep her vast country-ruling powers, on condition she never uses them.
Re:hrm (Score:4, Insightful)
She serves as an important 'symbolic' head of state.
Yes, and we are all her "subjects", and pay for the upkeep of her properties and for state events in her honour. Most unsatisfactory.
When we need someone to patriotically rally around, we don't need to wrap a politician up in a flag and recognize him as the embodiment of our national values and virtues. We have a monarch for that.
Unfortunately we can't get rid of her if she turns out not to represent our values. The current bint is mostly bland an inoffensive but her son, who is of course due to become king whether we like it or not, is quite opinionated.
In terms of actual powers? Lots, but by general convention these days she doesn't actually use them.
If she did it would cause a constitutional crisis and we would have to get rid of her. She isn't that dumb, unfortunately.
is the ultimate head of the Church of England with the power to alter doctrine on a whim
And so required to be an Anglican, as is anyone else in line for the throne. This alone violates her basic human right to choose her religion, and quite possibly her right to choose her sexuality and marry whomever she pleases too.
Being head of the CofE she could do some small good by forcing them to accept women in their upper ranks or same-sex marriage, but she doesn't.
It's a simple deal: She gets to keep her vast country-ruling powers, on condition she never uses them.
Don't forget all the free money from taxpayers, even though she is the richest woman in the country. Not sure about her but her son is a tax dodger too.
Re:hrm (Score:5, Insightful)
Brit here.
To answer this, let us first consider what the American President does: on the one hand there is a bunch of PR work and flag waving, on the other a bunch of keeping up with what's going on in the country,authorizing things and politicing.
In essence, the Queen handles most of the PR and flag waving, while the Prime Minister (a simplification in this case) handles most of the keeping up on things, authorizing and politicing.
Of course, the PM also does a bunch of flag waving and PR. The Queen also spends hours every day keeping up on what's going on in the country (and has done so for the past 60 years or so) so that she can discuss this with the PM in their weekly meetings. While the Queen may not have much recognized power anymore, a discrete comment of 'do you really think that is such a good idea?' from her will carry considerable weight.
Naturally, this is an over-simplification which glosses over things, and applies mostly to the UK rather than the other countries of which she is Queen.
Re: (Score:3)
a significant number of positions held in the upper chamber of your parliament are granted for life
At the moment - that number will drop dramatically if the Commons can get their House of Lords reform through to law, after which the majority of the Lords will be elected.
the monarch bestows lordship
Only on the advice of the Prime Minister or the House of Lords Appointments Commission.
the monarch is also the head of the little church whose clergy has granted seats in the house for which lordship is required
Only for 26 out of 781 seats - not enough to weild any real power.
Despite this 'undemocratic' structure, the Lords has been a somewhat effective guard against the Commons trying to push through some of the more controversial laws. Is it perfect? Of cour
Re:hrm (Score:5, Interesting)
To be honest, I always thought the Lords did a fine job of basically not being too politically tied to the morons in the Commons. This is almost certainly why they want to reform the Lords - so that the upper chamber stops being a reasonably impartial bunch of old guys who do what's right because its right, and starts being a bunch of young tossers who only got their because the political parties helped with their election campaigns.
All wrapped up in the guise of "but they're not democratic".
At worst the UK will get a form of democracy that rivals the US for stupidity, infighting and intransigence.
I can see one such a democratic split between the houses would work though - if the upper house was only made available to those who have never held membership of any political party. Then the cronies of the lower houses would not be allowed in, and would not expect a cushy "retirement" in the upper house either. Imagine if the upper house was stocked only with ordinary people, now *that* would be democratic.
Sexually transmitted political power? (Score:5, Insightful)
No, thanks.
Re:Sexually transmitted political power? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah. Anyone who thinks leadership should be determined by bloodline doesn't spend enough time with their family.
Re:Sexually transmitted political power? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Sexually transmitted political power? (Score:4, Interesting)
Please, put it correct: ... he is raised from birth to rule the country as is was 20 years ago by the people who supposedly knew how to rule it 60 years ago.
Re:Sexually transmitted political power? (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:3)
I'd contend that raising someone from birth with the expectation that they've been raised to rule would almost guarantee an enormous ego.
Also, raising someone from birth to perform ANY job may get you someone who's better equipped to do that job. I'd expect it would likely also lead to a rather miserable person.
Re:Sexually transmitted political power? (Score:4, Interesting)
Raising someone from birth to fill a specific job sounds like the plot to a Kurt Russell movie...
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120157/ [imdb.com]
I'm waiting for them to remake that as Sysadmin.
Re:Sexually transmitted political power? (Score:4)
No, it sounds like the way the world used to be. It used to be the standard that you did the job your father did. In many cultures (feudal Japan leaps to mind), it was close to mandatory.
Re:Sexually transmitted political power? (Score:5, Insightful)
In republican Rome you had the "Cursus Honorum [wikipedia.org]", an atypically formalized variant; but the general pattern shows up even in places where it is much more loosely mandated: Sometimes it starts with the right school (France's Grandes écoles, or the Ivies in the US), sometimes a certain flavor or military service is involved, sometimes it's a matter of working your way up through a series of local and state offices (state governorships, some judicial or criminal justice positions, maybe some time in state or national congress), or of carrying water and doing errands long enough for a given political party(in and out of office) to get the nod as a serious candidate.
Especially when you count the circle of handlers and technocrats who inevitably stand just behind even the most buffoonish, populist, 'man of the people', it would be absurdly false to deny that there is some fairly serious ruler-polishing going on. Not all of it for the best; but they aren't just picking them off the street...
Re:Sexually transmitted political power? (Score:4)
That's so much a problem with monarchy as with primogeniture. The Inca chose a ruler from among the sons of the prior Inca, but rarely was it the first son. The Spanish barbarians considered most of the Inca rulers through history as "usurpers" because of this. This worked quite well until the Empire got large enough that the military leaders at the north end of the Tahuantinsuyo chose Atahualpa while the civil leaders in Cusco chose Huascar. Even then it might have worked (Atahualpa's forces captured and killed Huascar), but the plagues brought by the Europeans cut collapsed the population.
Re: (Score:3)
The second is that monarchies traditionally don't provide a good way of deselecting the ruler. Perhaps the biggest selling point of democracy is that you get to have a revolution and overthrow the government every few years, without anyone having to die.
And this is working really well right now in the US, isn't it (not that the UK is doing all that much better)? The two main parties are basically identical and keep themselves in power by arguing about petty points that keep the electorate rooting for their side in the manner of football supporters. Simultaneously, the difference between the two sides is exaggerated by name-calling: e.g. the far right party calling the leader of right party a communist.
So it doesn't matter who you vote for, because they
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I think I agree more and more with whoever said, "Anyone who wants to be political leader should under no circumstances be allowed to." (or something to that effect)
Miracle Whip on Wonderbread (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: Miracle Whip on Wonderbread (Score:5, Insightful)
I needed a steaming hot cup of thinly-veiled racebaiting with a small side of patriarchal guilt to start my day.
This is offtopic and trolling. Why is it not missed as such?
Because most of us know the demographics of the "geek" community and therefore suspect the motives, conscious or not, of this idea of going back to the good old days.
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Not too surprising (Score:5, Funny)
Contemporary political thought seems to be about electing the right king.
Winter is Coming (Score:5, Funny)
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I blame Game of Thrones. Although you'd think Joffrey would be example enough to discourage monarchy.
Hey now .. don't knock GoT. Any new form of government that brings back more boobies has got to be good!
Re:Winter is Coming (Score:5, Funny)
I blame Game of Thrones.
That was something on TV, right? I wouldn't know because I don't have a TV. My life improved 110x when I stopped watching TV.
And imagine how much better all of our lives would be if you also stopped posting on /.
As if democracy wasn't bad enough (Score:5, Insightful)
If you think we got corrupt, selfish, self absorbed and self centered cretins for rulers, ponder how much bigger cretins you get if you give them the feeling that they're entitled to it.
Re:As if democracy wasn't bad enough (Score:4, Insightful)
If you think we got corrupt, selfish, self absorbed and self centered cretins for rulers, ponder how much bigger cretins you get if you give them the feeling that they're entitled to it.
The Kennedy family?
Re:As if democracy wasn't bad enough (Score:5, Insightful)
Or the Bushes. A president, one of his sons president, another son governor of a state. You don't get that kind of occurrence by chance alone. You get it by social capital: Passing advice, endorsements and connections down the family line.
Elites (Score:5, Insightful)
Any system is great as long as you are one of the elites, living off the backs of the slaves. In theory that shouldn't be possible in a democracy, which is why the elites in the US keep us as far from a democracy as possible.
Buy these morons a history book (Score:5, Insightful)
Please! Someone buy these idiots a history book. This is such a perfect example of people who think they're smart but they actually know jack shit about anything except pushing bits. The funny thing is, after the first arbitrary detention and execution of a dissident for "lesse majesty" or "treason against the crown" they'd all be up in arms and in jail. I really hope they're not all really this stupid and this is all just a way to get a reaction.
Re: (Score:3)
Nah. Just send them to the hereditary monarchial paradise of North Korea.
I don't know if they will like it there or not, but either way we will never have to hear about it again from them.
Two highly relevant Churchill quotes (Score:5, Informative)
"The best argument against democracy is a five minute conversation with the average voter."
But "democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried."
Re:Two highly relevant Churchill quotes (Score:4, Insightful)
"The best argument against democracy is a five minute conversation with the average voter."
But "democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried."
But democracy isn't one thing. There are a lot of ways in which democracies can differ from each other. e.g. the Athenian democracy was very different from our own: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athenian_democracy [wikipedia.org] Only free adult males could take part and the political party system didn't exist. In a modern democracy, there are lots of ways you could run the show differently to have different outcomes. Let's take the US. Imagine how different things would be if:
In other words, make it once more a government of the people and for the people and don't things that conflict with that. If those things were fixed 30 years ago, we'd be in a much better place today.
Other countries have other problems too. I'm just bringing up the US because I'm living here right now and, as a foreigner, I more sharply see the contrasts with other countries I've lived in.
We don't live in outer space (Score:5, Insightful)
“If residents don’t like their government, they can and should move,” he writes. “The design is all ‘exit,’ no ‘voice.’”
Any business can tell you the value of switching costs. Once you reel them in, it is expensive to move. So, even though another city-state might be better, people will still not move since the cost of moving, even assuming the State doesn't actively interfere with exit taxes or similar measures, would prevent most from moving. This is why retail chains all want you to sign up for their cursed club cards, to try to create switching costs that will keep you around even though they suck. Plus, we don't live in Bruce Sterling's cladist space utopia, there are limited options for moving in space while stuck on Earth's surface, even ignoring the costs. Why don't all those North Koreans just move? Perhaps these fellows have answers to these criticisms, I haven't spent all day reading their FAQ or anything.
Hobbes' Leviathan and Social Contract theory (Score:5, Interesting)
Too many medieval reenactments (Score:5, Insightful)
Apparently somebody's been going to too many medieval reenactments, and spicing them up with some conspiracy theorist meetings. Monarchies were nasty places to live for the majority of people. I like the part about nations being very small and people free to move between them to find one they like. Sure, and communism would have worked great if the people in charge were just nicer! Why would a king not try to conquer more territory, and allow his subjects to take off and leave whenever they want?
"Neoreactionaries believe 'The Cathedral,' is a meta-institution that consists largely of Harvard and other Ivy League schools, The New York Times and various civil servants" Don't let the pentaverate get you! "I hated the Colonel, with his wee beady eyes!"
Neoreactionaries? (Score:4, Insightful)
I know those guys (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I know those guys (Score:5, Insightful)
That explains why this article was submitted by someone with the loathsome name of Third Position [wikipedia.org].
Not saying they are right. . . . (Score:3)
. . . .but the default tendency of human goverments DOES seem to be the Empire, no matter what name you call it.
And even sadder, the usual life of a Republic is around 200 years. Which explains much of Modern America, which seems to be in transition to both a Police State AND an Empire. After all, we now seem to have both a de-facto permanent underclass and a self-sustaining de-facto aristocracy. . .
As a matter of fact, the founders of the US... (Score:4, Insightful)
... were against democracy.... that is why they established a Republic.
For a better understanding of different government systems - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KFXuGIpsdE0 [youtube.com]
Isn't that what we have now? (Score:5, Insightful)
Since 1988, the House of Bush has occupied the Presidency for 12 years, the House of Clinton for 8 years and been a major player in another administration for 4 years as well as having better than average odds of gaining the White House for at least another 4 years if not 8.
It gets even more like that if you start looking at the House, Senate and Governorships and factor in other family dynasties like the Kennedys, the broader House of Bush.
Then there are various corporate/government crossovers where scions of capitalists enter politics. Minnesota's governor is the child of the Dayton family (retail shopping, family was behind Dayton's and now Target Stores).
I'm not sure we need to declare a new monarchy or aristocracy; we've just more less quietly reinstated it.
A French Perspective (Score:5, Interesting)
Disclaimer: I'm French.
At school I was taught how the French Revolution was an amazing thing. It freed us. It was the end of a time of the absolute, divine right monarchy that France and other European nations had for almost a thousand years. I learned later about The Terror, where nobles would get their heads chopped off. Including the wives and kids, and I reckon some servants too. There's probably been a rape or two, as well, since that's what you get when a mob forms up and there's nobody to police them. They don't teach you much of that when you're at school. I guess it's understandable, since you don't want 12 years old to learn about rape and kids their age being killed just because they were born in the right family. Or do you?
Anyway, I learned much, much later, in my late 20's, that the actual History is much more cynic. It was not "we, the people" (to paraphrase an American concept) who started this. People got riled up by the bourgeois. A bourgeois is a very, very rich commoner. He can hardly hope to ever become a noble. That limits, right there, the richness he can ever hope to achieve. He'll always be looked down from the nobles. He can be killed for talking wrong to a noble. It's better to be a poor noble than a rich bourgeois. So, they didn't like that very much. They started the Revolution. They manipulated the peasants and poorly educated population to do the Revolution. Just so they could usurp the power from the nobles.
Note that I'm personally fine with the fact that we took the nobles out. Nobody should have a birthright over somebody else, just because. This is unfair, this is archaic, and it doesn't make the society move forward. The problem I have with the Revolution, besides the way it's taught (unless you do a History Major you won't hear much of this), is that it replaced one nobility with another. At least the previous one, the actual nobles, where honest about their absolute power. They said "I'm better than you, you're lesser than me, fuck you and fuck off." But the Bourgeoisie, which is still in power today (we call them Oligarchs, because they are the ultimate Bourgeois and there are not so many of them), is much more hypocritical. They will make you think you're in a Democracy, when really you're not. When the Banks can decide whether or not a state will default its credits, after pushing them towards into a mass debt, it's not a democracy. It's an illusion.
I'm not sure where I'm going with this, as I just started typing with no set plans for the post. I guess my point is, I'm fed up of hearing we are in a democracy, and we should feel lucky, because more and more I feel I have no choice and no say. Even if my situation isn't as bad as a serf from 400 years ago, it sure as hell isn't as good as the people back them wanted my life to be.
Re:A French Perspective (Score:5, Insightful)
Disclaimer: i'm Swiss
I fully agree with what you say as the Swiss history have a big dependency with the French Revolution. This revolutionary movement have been the ignition of the last Swiss civil war a half century after the trouble in France. Fortunately, revolutionary movement lost the this civil war with very low fatalities, tanks to a cleaver general from the federal army. This permit a quick reconciliation and there started together to write a new constitution that mixed ideas from the USA constitution, the proved good proportional representation already used in some cantons, and ideas from the French revolution. Pragmatically, I think that the result seem to be worth trying.
The today French and USA democracies are incomplete from my point of view, by giving to much power to the government of a single party after it have been elected. In both countries this inevitably end up with 2 leading big parties that tend to share each almost half of the suffrage, resulting in about half of the citizen frustrated by the elected government, regardless of the choice. I think that a federal council with a proportional representation is a interesting method to improve the situation and lowering the number of frustrated citizens.
We don't live in a democracy (Score:4, Insightful)
I think it was Churchill who said something like, "Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others". The problem is not democracy. If we actually lived in a democracy things would be better -- not perfect, by any means -- but better. The problem is that we live in a plutocracy, not a democracy. Life in a plutocracy is not much different than life in a monarchy. It survives because it maintains an illusion of democracy and is less overtly oppressive than a monarchy.
not about to take over the world (Score:3)
These guys sound like Bond Villains. And not Bond Villains from one of the good movies. More like the bad guy from Octopussy or For Your Eyes Only.
I call them "neo-feudalists" ... (Score:5, Insightful)
... and they have been with us since before the U. S. Constitution was signed. They had a defining influence on that document, leading to a significant disconnect between it and the principles found in the Declaration of Independence.
It was these individuals who invited the King of Prussia to reign over the new United States and it was they who opposed the Bill of Rights. Bear in mind that no small number of the wealthy who came to American shores did so to establish themselves as the new plutocratic aristocracy. Often, they had in their pockets grants of land and privileges from the crown.
It is simply a symptom of the times that they are coming out of the closet now, though their influence has always been with us. Take for instance, Leo Strauss' embrace of the Platonic "noble lie", which was a touchstone for legitimizing nobility's grip on power long before there was a United States of America.
Ender’s Game: Bloodbaths and monarchies (Score:3)
In the days of kings, someone would come to power typically because they were a powerful warrior. Indeed, in medieval Europe, the economy was based on a number of monarchs frequently going to battle with each other over land and resources. If you were a king of England, and you didn’t try to take over some part of France during your reign, you were a failure. (This explains the right of succession by blood. They didn’t know about DNA, but they did know that relatives had similarities and wanted people similar to successful past rulers.) Interestingly, the most successful monarchs were those who were loved by their own people (good management ability) feared by everyone else (mindless slaughter of people in foreign lands). This delicate balance between aggression and empathy was hard to find, and looking at the history of the English monarchy, not everyone managed it. This sounds like Ender’s game: In the history of the English monarchy (which I am a bit less ignorant of than others), there were plenty of Valentines and Peters those reigns ended in one kid of dismal failure or another, while the Enders are well-known in history. In the abstract, this sounds cool, except Ender and those successful kings were responsible for wide-spread slaughter of countless.
So this idea of returning to a monarchy sounds really bizarre to me. Rule by the one or few is not a recipe for peace, security, or freedom. In medieval Europe, if you were a peasant, you might live out your life unmolested, or you might fall victim to the whims of a foreign army or your own. Peasant life was essentially worthless except for the bit of farming they could do. This sort of attitude was the case into the 19th century. Have a look at the way the English treated the Irish when the potato blight killed off their only economical source of food. The Irish were under English rule, but apparently not under English protection, because all Parliament did was quibble while people starved to death. We also tried communism in several countries. The Soviet Union fell due to a collapsing economy, and China systematically converted to capitalism. Of course, capitalism is a system of economy, and China is still a dictatorship, but it’s a step in the right direction. Basically, when your life and your work have no value, then you have no motivation to work, except under the whip. So what these monarchists are suggesting is a return to slavery.
This isn’t the Christian fantasy of Jesus returning to earth to rule as a benevolent king. People will come to power because they want power, and then they will maintain that power by destroying others. We have that happening in our republics today. The differences are that (a) people are elected or not based on how their constituents perceive the representative to further their interests, (b) there are enough conflicting opinions that sometimes the bad ideas get filtered out, and (c) we have a judicial system that can find bad laws unconstitutional and overrule them. (Frankly, I think the executive branch in the US has too much power and is a vestige of the US legal system being a derivative of the English legal system, which has a figurehead king. We get to elect ours, but ours don’t seem to be very effective at anything other than being a scapegoat for the failures of the legislative branch.) Basically, a republic has problems, but a dictatorship is much much worse.
And let’s not forget to address the baloney about returning to traditional gender roles. As a society, we’re only beginning to respect individual human rights and dignity, regardless of ethnicity, sex, and sexual orientation. If we’re going to experiment with totalitarianism, why don’t we try putting some women in control? Oh, sure, they’ll screw it up too. Humans in power always do. But at least it won’t be a bloodbath.
Summary misleading (Score:4, Insightful)
The summary is right about one thing: democracy appears undesirable, or at least sub-optimal, to many intelligent successful geeks.
The actual support for wanting to "turn back the clock" or to have gender roles or whatever is fragmented, and may range from "this is probably worked better than what we're doing today" to "yeah, I'd enforce this via the sword", with relatively few people advocating the latter.
In the last 15 years I've given up on the GOP, given up on libertarianism, and now consider myself squarely an anarchist.
There's a strain of people, lets call them "technocrats", who are probably very smart, and believe that if only they were in charge, they could make things better.
These people want to believe in democracy, but they see the very real impediment it presents to them getting anything done. It's ridiculous to them that they must put up with climate deniers and intelligent design blowhards (and critically, those that these groups elect to office) when there is critical work to be done.
They may be right, but invariably the powerful institutions they build will be co-opted by people who are either less capable or less moral, or often, both. You build a state science department, and invariably, Pat Robertson is going to end up running it somehow.
Then you have people like me, who have become so disillusioned with government that I contend the whole affair should be done away with.
I was fed a steady diet of government school growing up, and I've found out how much of that was pro-state mythology. And so one naturally questions other parts of the mythology. Is our government good? Is it effective? Does it have the right goals? What about the "right" to vote? Who really ought to have it? Why?
I, for instance, take the unpopular view that voter suppression is probably a good idea - as long as it is done for the right reasons. Voting in this country is by no means an "absolute right". Felons don't get the right to vote; neither do children or the mentally handicapped (beyond some level). So let's dispense with that claim entirely. Society has always had (and will continue to have) rules on who may vote.
Some percentage of the voting public is clearly dumber than I am, and clearly unable to manage their own affairs and well-being appropriately.
So a rude question emerges: Should people who cannot manage their own lives get any role in managing mine? (e.g., a "vote")?
I'm persuaded that the answer is, "no".
The difference between an anarchist and a technocrat, on this issue, is that an anarchist ALSO doesn't recognize the right of a successful man to govern an unsuccessful one.
The tech crunch article listed Herman Hoppe as one of the members of this club. I'm a fan of Hoppe, and he in no way is an advocate of Monarchy. He is a critic of the state, and specifically a critic of democracy. He has an excellent bit of writing that explains immigration policy from the POV of a monarch vs. an elected official, and in his conclusion, the self-interested monarch has a much better set of incentives for a positive immigration policy than does the elected official who panders for votes. Pointing out situations where a monarch behaves preferably to a democratic body does make one an advocate of Monarchy, any more than saying "the trains ran on time!" make one an advocate of Mussolini.
What you're seeing here is a group made up of successful, intelligent people, who grew up with the internet in its wild-west days -- there was no authority to crush dissent and no censorship.
They're questioning the mythology of society. Either our society is on firm enough footing that it stands, or it isn't, and these ideas spread.
It's worth pointing out that the fastest growing socio-cultural group is socially conservative Islam. Proponents of progressive social democracy had better have some pretty damn good answers (and more kids), because there's a storm coming. Not helping the impending clash is the reality of this article: Some of the best and brightest that our progressive society has produced are having second thoughts about the society that birthed them.
It's those damned humans (Score:3)
The grass is always greener on the other side of the hill. The problem is not the type of government, but rather that people suck. People are selfish, biased, territorial, cliquish, bribe-able, stubborn, irrational, etc.
Asking for a new or different government system to compensate for ALL the crappiness off human nature is simply asking too much. It can compensate for some of the weaknesses, but not all. And it's often a trade-off such that compensating for one weakness may magnify another.
That being said, I'm all for small-scale tests, just not on me. If you can form a voluntary colony somewhere to test a different kind of government, that's wonderful. Just don't invade and force it.
Plato's Republic (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
Even better than Lincoln with a sword: (Score:3)
You challenged, thus I have choice of weapons.
I choose 5 megaton thermonuclear weapons at 10 paces.
Ah, so you've decided your honor is satisfied? Thought so.
Re:Regressive (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Regressive (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
Yeah, unless it's a resurgence of a previous movement, isn't every reactionary group "neo" by definition?
Re: (Score:3)
2. Grinding poverty and inequality: Monarchial rule begets serfdom and a midevil class structure. furthermore that class is infected upon your name for generations. Kings decide what you can and cannot eat with hunting laws, and who you can and cannot marry by proxy of the church. in the past, even certain hats and colors were banned by monarchies.
While there are problems with monarchies, this is not one of them, not relative to modern society. Gaps in inequality were much less in feudalism (though everyone had less overall, too), and the life of a serf.... Really actually wasn't that bad, no worse than your average modern wage-slave (and serfs actually tended to work fewer hours each day than we do).
Class is still present, it's just less formally structured than it used to be. Despite what "the American dream" tries to get everyone to believe, it's