Its a mixture of things there is some actual manevolence, some corruption, some incompetence and a whole lot of people who are basically trying to milk the system for all of its worth praying they get off in time before it crashes.
History Western Civilization, Rome and Cyclical History
- Thread starter FriedCFour
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Its a mixture of things there is some actual manevolence, some corruption, some incompetence and a whole lot of people who are basically trying to milk the system for all of its worth praying they get off in time before it crashes.
Skallagrim
Well-known member
Regarding systems of government: I certainly don't think monarchy is saintly, but it is demonstrably more stable than any alternative that has been tried. You basically have only a few fundamental variations when it comes to governmental organisation, and all of them are prone to corruption and degradation. Some, however, are far more prone to it than others. Democracy (as commonly understood) is the most prone to it. Monarchy is the least prone to it. That is one reason why monarchy is the default, whereas democracy is the exception.
The third alternative is oligarchy, which can take the form of aristocracy and of plutocracy. The former typically devolves into the latter, and the latter is not sustainable.
Democracies often also devolve into plutocracies (indeed, our vaunted "modern democracy" already is a plutocracy) and the flip-side of this is populist resentment. That resentment will simmer forever in any plutocracy, and eventually prevails. The product of this resentment, once triumphant, is despotism. The chief leader of the insurgent movement becomes a tyrant.
Absolute monarchy, by the way, is certainly not the ideal. This, too, devolves into tyranny quite quickly.
The most stable form of government, by far, is a monarchy kept in check by an aristocracy. On the flip-side, the existence of a meaningful monarchy keeps the aristocrats (reasonably) 'honest', too. If they devolve into shameless plutocracy, the king's faction can dispose of them with broad support. If the king becomes a despot, conversely, the aristocrats can remove the tyrant-king with broad support.
Since this system is dualist, it's still fairly fluctuating, but it's historically been the best option. The exceptionial successes of "the West", meaning historical Christendom, may be attributed to... well, to the trinity, which is at the heart of Christianity, and which manifests in all sorts of aspects of the Christian world. Also socio-politically. The Church became a third pillar, adding unprecedented stability to the dynamic between King and Aristocracy. A mediating force. No matter which one of the three gained supremacy; it would immediately be opposed by the two others combined.
This kept the West stable. There were many internal wars, but before the Reformation, none that could threaten the societal order itself.
Democracy, which has never in history been anything but a comparatively brief flicker that burns for a relatively short interval and then flashes out again, is absolutely irrelevant in comparison. This is not to say that democracy can't be enjoyable for at least part of its existence (until things really get out of hand, as they are doing now...), but rather means that democracy is just less stable in the long-term. So if you have the future in mind and want to make something of it, the crown is going to be a considerably more useful instrument than the voting booth.
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Regarding the inherent superiority of kings, as they "take better care of their property"-- that's the classical argument of Kuehnelt-Leddihn and Hoppe. Something can be said for it, but we shouldn't make a mole-hill into a mountain, either. It's not that big a factor. The extent to which a monarch can personally see to the "good management" of the country is directly proportional to his power, which is also directly proportional to the degree to which he can fuck things up.
Monarchy is in part so attractive because it's one person, and if he's a rotten apple, you can fairly simply throw that apple out. Some of the more "orthodox" traditionalists will whine about that, but I'm a realist about this. If a democracy really goes bad, you'll need an armed revolution to fix things. If a king goes bad, you merely need to get one drop of poison into one man's wine. It's relatively low-impact when it comes to the course-correct, and that's a positive.
If you give the king vast powers he can use at his discretion, that advantage is obliterated. Because for the exact same reasons the above is true, a democracy also needs many people to make bad decision before those decisions affect the whole of society. An absolute monarchy, however, only needs one man -- the King -- to be genocidal lunatic for things to go very bad indeed. (As I mentioned, this often prompts his removal, but typically not before he's already done quite a few horrible things.)
For these reasons, you need the balance I mentioned. A King kept in check by other powers: the Aristocracy and the Church. This means the King's ability to "look to the long term interests" is somewhat limited in scope. He might ensure that royal forests are forever pristine, or that his family will forever have profitable lands (the royal demesne) that can provide income, so that he personally needs no taxes. This is good. But it is not a cure-all. And we must remember that.
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Regarding the degree of malice versus incompetence among the current elite: it is, as always, incompetence compounded by malice. The beast itself (the state apparatus) is dumb and blundering. But the leading element (the current plutocratic elite) is actively malicious. They know that they are on borrowed time, and their conscious goal is to sacrifice anything (and anyone) to extend the life-span of their failing system for as long as possible.
If they could get the option to secure the current world-order for a century longer, and in return, the world must thereafter be burned to a cinder... they'd take that offer without blinking. In fact, it seems that it's the sort of scenario they're actually aiming for, at this point. (Not that it'll work: every elite in every High Culture that made it to this point has tried the same thing. It never worked out for them.)
The third alternative is oligarchy, which can take the form of aristocracy and of plutocracy. The former typically devolves into the latter, and the latter is not sustainable.
Democracies often also devolve into plutocracies (indeed, our vaunted "modern democracy" already is a plutocracy) and the flip-side of this is populist resentment. That resentment will simmer forever in any plutocracy, and eventually prevails. The product of this resentment, once triumphant, is despotism. The chief leader of the insurgent movement becomes a tyrant.
Absolute monarchy, by the way, is certainly not the ideal. This, too, devolves into tyranny quite quickly.
The most stable form of government, by far, is a monarchy kept in check by an aristocracy. On the flip-side, the existence of a meaningful monarchy keeps the aristocrats (reasonably) 'honest', too. If they devolve into shameless plutocracy, the king's faction can dispose of them with broad support. If the king becomes a despot, conversely, the aristocrats can remove the tyrant-king with broad support.
Since this system is dualist, it's still fairly fluctuating, but it's historically been the best option. The exceptionial successes of "the West", meaning historical Christendom, may be attributed to... well, to the trinity, which is at the heart of Christianity, and which manifests in all sorts of aspects of the Christian world. Also socio-politically. The Church became a third pillar, adding unprecedented stability to the dynamic between King and Aristocracy. A mediating force. No matter which one of the three gained supremacy; it would immediately be opposed by the two others combined.
This kept the West stable. There were many internal wars, but before the Reformation, none that could threaten the societal order itself.
Democracy, which has never in history been anything but a comparatively brief flicker that burns for a relatively short interval and then flashes out again, is absolutely irrelevant in comparison. This is not to say that democracy can't be enjoyable for at least part of its existence (until things really get out of hand, as they are doing now...), but rather means that democracy is just less stable in the long-term. So if you have the future in mind and want to make something of it, the crown is going to be a considerably more useful instrument than the voting booth.
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Regarding the inherent superiority of kings, as they "take better care of their property"-- that's the classical argument of Kuehnelt-Leddihn and Hoppe. Something can be said for it, but we shouldn't make a mole-hill into a mountain, either. It's not that big a factor. The extent to which a monarch can personally see to the "good management" of the country is directly proportional to his power, which is also directly proportional to the degree to which he can fuck things up.
Monarchy is in part so attractive because it's one person, and if he's a rotten apple, you can fairly simply throw that apple out. Some of the more "orthodox" traditionalists will whine about that, but I'm a realist about this. If a democracy really goes bad, you'll need an armed revolution to fix things. If a king goes bad, you merely need to get one drop of poison into one man's wine. It's relatively low-impact when it comes to the course-correct, and that's a positive.
If you give the king vast powers he can use at his discretion, that advantage is obliterated. Because for the exact same reasons the above is true, a democracy also needs many people to make bad decision before those decisions affect the whole of society. An absolute monarchy, however, only needs one man -- the King -- to be genocidal lunatic for things to go very bad indeed. (As I mentioned, this often prompts his removal, but typically not before he's already done quite a few horrible things.)
For these reasons, you need the balance I mentioned. A King kept in check by other powers: the Aristocracy and the Church. This means the King's ability to "look to the long term interests" is somewhat limited in scope. He might ensure that royal forests are forever pristine, or that his family will forever have profitable lands (the royal demesne) that can provide income, so that he personally needs no taxes. This is good. But it is not a cure-all. And we must remember that.
-------------------------
Regarding the degree of malice versus incompetence among the current elite: it is, as always, incompetence compounded by malice. The beast itself (the state apparatus) is dumb and blundering. But the leading element (the current plutocratic elite) is actively malicious. They know that they are on borrowed time, and their conscious goal is to sacrifice anything (and anyone) to extend the life-span of their failing system for as long as possible.
If they could get the option to secure the current world-order for a century longer, and in return, the world must thereafter be burned to a cinder... they'd take that offer without blinking. In fact, it seems that it's the sort of scenario they're actually aiming for, at this point. (Not that it'll work: every elite in every High Culture that made it to this point has tried the same thing. It never worked out for them.)
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Lord Sovereign
The resident Britbong
It’s vaguely comical how right you are. Even in China, a culture as far removed from us as possible, all the power and wealth in the world didn’t help the Eunuchs, Concubines, and Courtiers, when the likes of Dong Zhuo had enough of them.
And those that survived had to deal with Cao Cao’s breed thereafter…
Little men never prosper in the chaos they create. You’d have thought they’d have learned that by now.
Skallagrim
Well-known member
The fact that they don't learn is part of what makes them little men. Were they capable of learning this, they would grow to be better.
Any one who wants power so badly that their willing to cut off their balls for it should never be given power.
Yup.Althought,it remind me old joke which i hear from some therapist -
Doctor who cared about mad people get another prototype of perpetum mobile,laugh,and daid to his friend:
What a morons,it is obvious that perpetum mobile would be made by me!
So,vote for me,i would create perfect system,nobody alive would complain!
Lord Sovereign
The resident Britbong
Such people are complete junkies for power and will do anything to get their next fix.
I'm not saying the assorted groups on the left are blameless. However in the UK the problem is overwhelmingly with the corrupt kleptocracy that is the current Tory Party and its paymasters. Which is so bad that what its doing can be compared with the slash and burn policy that is viable in a low population density rain-forest but not in what was once an industrial society. Its not just the bulk of the population that is suffering from the gross incompetence of the mis-leadership but the people that their being paid by to do that will lose out as well - whether they think they can flee with their loot or simply deny the laws of economics I don't know.
Skallagrim
Well-known member
Those who point at one head of the hydra and think that it is "the main problem" are doomed to be both victims and servants of the hydra.
Sadly, the world full of people -- as evidenced here, and in countless other discussions on this site alone -- who believe exactly that nonsense. The useful idiots, who would serve one head of the hydra to supposedly kill another head of the same beast... without even fully comprehending that it is one beast. Without comprehending (or simply being unwilling to accept) that to kill the beast, you must destroy it completely.
It's not "the Tories!!!"
It's not Labour, either. Nor is it the Republicans or the Democrats or Trump or Clinton or the greens or Antifa or QAnon or BLM or even such massive creeps as Soros and Schwab.
It's all of these things, and more. It is the system that has made them all. It is the spirit of the age, warped and poisoned.
Anyone who blames anything less fundamental than that, anyone who points at one of the above and seeks to put all (or even most) of the blame on some mere faction, is simply a pawn on a board he cannot even see.
Sadly, the world full of people -- as evidenced here, and in countless other discussions on this site alone -- who believe exactly that nonsense. The useful idiots, who would serve one head of the hydra to supposedly kill another head of the same beast... without even fully comprehending that it is one beast. Without comprehending (or simply being unwilling to accept) that to kill the beast, you must destroy it completely.
It's not "the Tories!!!"
It's not Labour, either. Nor is it the Republicans or the Democrats or Trump or Clinton or the greens or Antifa or QAnon or BLM or even such massive creeps as Soros and Schwab.
It's all of these things, and more. It is the system that has made them all. It is the spirit of the age, warped and poisoned.
Anyone who blames anything less fundamental than that, anyone who points at one of the above and seeks to put all (or even most) of the blame on some mere faction, is simply a pawn on a board he cannot even see.
The problem with autocratic systems, whether 'conservative' or 'radical' left or right is two-fold.
a) That they are very limited in their ability to adjust to changing circumstances and also with rare exceptions to allow talent to prosper from outside the elite.
b) That they frequently lack checks and balances that more broadly based systems can have. As such government can be more arbitrary and attempts to really change it tends to be extreme. You may occasionally get away with an assassination or military coup but it doesn't resolve the underlying problem of unchecked power. Also similarly that can make it very nasty for the ordinary people caught in the machine. Without a system that really has checks on the centres of power their existence is likely to be grim. Especially as the elites increasing assume their superiority is inherent.
As Churchill famously stated democracy is the worst possible system until you consider all the others. I'm not a great fan of him but on that I agree with him.
a) That they are very limited in their ability to adjust to changing circumstances and also with rare exceptions to allow talent to prosper from outside the elite.
b) That they frequently lack checks and balances that more broadly based systems can have. As such government can be more arbitrary and attempts to really change it tends to be extreme. You may occasionally get away with an assassination or military coup but it doesn't resolve the underlying problem of unchecked power. Also similarly that can make it very nasty for the ordinary people caught in the machine. Without a system that really has checks on the centres of power their existence is likely to be grim. Especially as the elites increasing assume their superiority is inherent.
As Churchill famously stated democracy is the worst possible system until you consider all the others. I'm not a great fan of him but on that I agree with him.
Lord Sovereign
The resident Britbong
Some would call it the Enlightenment run amok. I certainly think a lot of it is down to an Enlightenment that cannot stop Enlightening, and in its quest for reason is ruining the irrational animal that is man.
It is more the lack of any spirit or moral identity. Any system only works as long as enough people believe in it and are willing to support it. If you have enough people believing that such values don't matter things go to hell very quickly.
Skallagrim
Well-known member
Values are abstract. To get people to understand the gist, you need a compelling narrative. This is commonly called religion. (As I've previously argued, any system aiming at this goal, if successful, will inevitably assume religious characteristics. If it doesn't, it won't be successful.)
The modern age started with killing God, as Nietzsche put it. The great tragedy. Be it a massive error or a conscious act of malice, the outcome is the same. There are no morals in the character of the modern West. Only the facsimile of morals, which are all too often just a parody or a perversion thereof.
The alternative is not what you seem to think it is. You talk about autocracy, and I think that's mostly you pasting your own conceptions onto a discussion that was about something else. We must be careful with this; it distorts the truth, or at least our perception of the matter.
You write:
The bolded bits are relevant especially. Now read what I wrote, and also observe the bolded bits:
Do you see it?
Up to this point, nobody was talking about autocracy as the ideal. You inserted that and you act as if that's what was being defended when we were discussing monarchy. That's a dangerous path, because it's a distortion of the truth. Again: conscious or unconscious, the result is the same.
Consider this: monarchies aren't inherently autocratic, and more typically they have throughout history been kept in check. Which rather goes to show that there are other "checks and balances" than the ones you are thinking of.
And if the alternatives you prefer (such as, it would seem, democracy) are so great, then why has every democracy in history died within a few brief centuries? And why did the supposedly inferior system of monarchy succeed for most of history? You confuse what you like for what is real. That's dangerous, too. Also a distortion of the truth; an occlusion of reality behind a mist of fond desires.
Democracy is a repeatedly tried and repeatedly failed experiment. Interesting, perhaps even charming. Quixotic and full of hope. But ultimately doomed. Monarchy is reviled by poor historiography, but when observed, is revealed as... rather boring, and quite practical. Its failures are less fundamental, less intrinsic. You imagine that another way, because you think a bad king will always just be replaced with another bad king. But that's by no means a given, nor does history support that assertion. If anything, the fate of his predecessor serves as an injuction against bad behaviour.
At the end of the day, monarchy is quite handy, and yes: in part because you can kill a king if he goes bad. Now look at democracy. What do you do if a society goes bad? How many corpses does that require, before the rot is gone?
We're going to find out, and by the end, most everyone is going to be begging for some capable man to put a crown upon his head.
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King Arts
Well-known member
The first thing you posted is false an autocracy can react the fastest because it all depends on the decision maker. It does not need to go to comitie and be voted upon and debated and many people have to be convinced.
Aldarion
Neoreactionary Monarchist
Problem is not the Tory Party. Problem is the system. Modern-day democracy has been bought out by the plutocrats. All those so-called "checks and balances" in the democratic system do not work. They cannot work, because they are aimed at each other, at other elements of the government, while completely ignoring where the real problem lies.
In a traditional monarchy, you had dozens of interest groups competing against each other: the monarch vs the Pope vs the high nobility vs the high clergy vs the middle nobility vs the middle clergy vs the low nobility vs the low clergy vs the peasants vs the cities. And all of these "classes" were also divided within themselves: clergymen competed for positions, nobles for lands and positions, cities for lands and trade... as a result, establishment of any sort of autocracy was impossible. Absolute monarchy could only appear once the modernity destroyed the traditional centers of power that could and did compete for power against the state government. So long as these existed, absolutism was impossible because traditional monarchy did in fact have checks and balances.
In the modern "representative democracy", you have none of that. Sure, you have the "division of power" (legislative - executive - judicial) that was supposed to replicate the system I had described above. You have the "elections" that are supposed to give "voice" to "the people". But notice the issues? And there are many. Firstly, system, even if we assume that it works as intended, is assuming the existence of groupings so massive that any conflict will be fundamental and potentially catastrophic for the state. Secondly, those groupings do not exist as a practical matter. Division exists solely in the so-called "halls of power": it is an artificial creation that does not reflect the true situation within the society, and does not affect the society at large. All these "groups" we see in the "government" are just smoke and shadows. In reality, you have one interest group that has the real power: the plutocrats. And the only conflicts there are are between the nationalist plutocrats and internationalist plutocrats (e.g. Republicans and Democrats in the USA), or between two types of internationalist plutocrats (e.g. HDZ and SDP in Croatia). And because the division is practically nonexistent, we run into the third problem: system is impossible to change. In monarchy, system could and did change - but mostly, changing the system was simply not necessary, because new head of state could and often did bring major changes. In modern democracy however, you cannot change the government at all. The best you can do is exchange red-clothed clowns for blue-clothed ones, but all of these have their control wires connected to the same server. Therefore, change is impossible.
Closest you can get to old checks and balances is federalism, but even in the USA the federal government has far too much power compared to state governments, and all levels below state government are an extension of either the state or the federal government.
Lord Sovereign
The resident Britbong
God save the King, monarchy wins again.
Although I'd add that Republics can do surprisingly well, but they aren't quite democracies. They can have a semi-democratic manner of selecting leaders, but they aren't democracies. I mean, the greatest Republic of them all, SPQR, was profoundly aristocratic.
As to the autocracy accusation, what a way to misunderstand monarchy. Most Kings and Queens weren't like Louis XIV. Indeed, in Britain's case, it was by abandoning the old principles of English monarchy (something which I think derived from ancient Germanic notions of High Kingship) and embracing autocracy/divine right (a bastardised version of Roman Imperial Authority), that the Stuarts completely poopsocked their dynasty and its power.
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The key point is its much harder for a broadly based society to go bad than a single individual.
There have been checks and balances on monarchies but they have often failed with either autocratic despots appearing or alternatively a period of chaos and disorder with no central power and all the sharks are in a feeding frenzy until their brought under control. This can occur in more modern cultures, where the sharks may be merchants or extremely wealth elites of other kind, or even simplistic demagogues. Its just that with a system of rule of law and enough people willing to support those laws its a lot more difficult to totally overthrow the system. Corruption is still too prevalent as the sheer wealth and other power attributes give the elites too many advantages if their power isn't kept closely in check but that is widespread in the sort of system your suggesting as well. Its just that the people suffering the most weren't counted as relevant.
Interesting that you are now arguing for a monarchy with some checks when I remember you arguing last year that you thought people were better off with as weak a government as possible. Which was a point we disagreed on.
Definitions of democracy are varied and also it depends on what you mean by a few centuries. The Roman republic lasted several centuries - at least as long as most/all of the assorted dynasties we're been discussing here - and provided massively successful, at least until its success made its system of government inviolable because of its greatly expanded size in terms of the territory it ruled. Similarly with the Swiss confederation.
I live in a monarchy myself and am happy with that because its a greatly restricted one that can however still give a sense of identity and community. The difference is that I prefer a system where the base is as broad as possible rather than relatively narrow with only a small group of elites having real power. The latter both lacks the stability, although periods of instability are often glossed over, and also the resource base of a more democratic system.
As has been said before all systems are subject to decay and corruption. The only questions are how deep those infections are and how strongly people in a society are prepared to oppose them. To take a current example if Ukraine was a corrupt kleptocracy like Russia it wouldn't still be resisting occupation, let alone so successfully. You along with others seen to be arguing a fatalistic stance that we shouldn't try preventing decay because it will make no difference, whereas I think people can matter.
The reason why monarchies have proved so popular in the past was because they were very simple and also most people were familiar with them and also trained to accept centralized power. This is no longer the case in much of the world. Democracy takes a lot of effort to maintain but can be vastly more successful if it can be kept clean of corruption enough. Plus I think part of that is that corruption and abuse is more visible there than inside a state with more centralized power.
You should also not assume because some people have no morale values that everybody feels that way. I think most people will accept such a system if it can be seen to be of value to them rather than simply a shield for the elites to carry on doing anything they wish without check.
On that last bit the problem was really with 1066 and when all that was largely thrown out the window. Coupled with the idea of kings being divinely mandated by god which was also starting to emerge. That seems to have been a particular obcession with Charles I [ or Charles the worst as he's sometimes referred to] as he refused to accept any limitations on his power.
Skallagrim
Well-known member
On the contrary: nothing is easier to rile up than a mob, and what you understand by "broadly based" means what we call a mass-democracy (i.e. universal franchise). The system that ostensibly caters to the whims of the large masses... and in reality functions by dividing the masses into competing mobs and playing them off against each other (thus ensuring the ever-further entrenchment in power of a rigid oligarchy. One that merely maintains several "fronts", such as political factions.)
In reality, it's very hard to fix such a society when it goes bad. (Which it inevitably does, and more rapidly than any other, ceteris paribus.)
I think your perception is skewed because a key part of what I've just decribed is the act of deceiving the mob(s) into believing that things are going far better than is actually the case. This, for a time, creates an illusion of great prosperity. An example of this is the present-day "wealth" of the modern world, which is actualy based on a series of inter-locking ponzi schemes, expanding supplies of worthless money (only useful as long as the illusion is maintained), and a mountain of debt.
A variation upon that theme is always the inevitable doom of a mass democracy. The lie cannot be maintained forever. Which is why I call democracy unstable and temporary. Everything good about it is fake. It's a rotten apple coated in a shiny veneer. Future historians won't refer to the late 19th century when they speak of the "gilded age", but to our present time. This is the true gilded age; the time of the deceptive false-face and of the utter decay festering beneath it.
You express a belief in a systemic solution. There is none, for the reasons I've already outlined. "Belief" in democracy is belief in a lie, and that's exactly what enables the continuation of the very corruption and oligarchy that you fear. The "merchants" -- actually hyper-oligarchs -- already control the system. The opinions of the masses are less meaningful than they have ever been. That's not to say that the masses were typically heeded in historic times, of course! The truth is rather more interesting: the masses weren't considered relevant, as you say-- and thus generally ignored.
But now, the goverments of our age are not so benevolent as to ignore you. Rather, they seek to turn you into a worker drone. You have less freedom than the average serf, in practice, because the intrusion of government into your life has increased a thousand-fold. Again: this is the gilded age, and we live in gilded cages built by the state. But we're running out of gilt, and the reality of the tiny, restrictive cage in which the modern world has trapped us all is becoming increasingly hard to ignore. It's very... oppressive.
Regarding this one in particular: you describe this as a danger or evil of the vast non-democratic part of history. I'd like to point out that demagogues, by definition, rise to power by appealing to the demos. They ascend by exploiting, precisely, the democratic impulse. The existence of demagogues is not an argument against my position, but rather in its favour.
Interesting that you are now arguing for a monarchy with some checks when I remember you arguing last year that you thought people were better off with as weak a government as possible. Which was a point we disagreed on.
You are the one formulating it dismissively as "some checks", again painting your own interpretation onto the matter. My position is that a balance of truly competing interests tends to create the strongest and most natural checks on any power that can exist.
Note that the massive expansion of government goes hand-in-hand with the evolution of mass democracy. These two impulses feed into each other. By the mechanism I've described above, the ruling elite caters to various competing interest groups, promising them favours at the expense of others. Each of these expands the scope of the government, and increases the tax burden (the share of the economy that the government gobbles up). Since the "democratic" process involves the various major parties (all different masks of the establishment) succeeding each other in power, they all get to cater to their voting base from time to time. Which means that democracy is not a choice between various possible increases in government power, but a sum of all those options, all added up over time. None ever truly rescinded.
This is furthered by the fact that the establishment, periodically looking for new supporters as they so often betray (and thus lose) old ones, will increasingly expand the franchise. This is presented as a good thing ("power to the people"), but is the opposite in truth. It's a race to the bottom (qua performance), and a race to an ever bigger government at the same time.
I do think we're better off with a small -- even tiny -- government. And the best way to achieve that is to end mass democracy, which is the foremost instrument of creating a massively out-sized goverment.
Thankfully, as I've previously argued, the death of mass democracy is inevitable. Which means there's not only hope, but the certainty of improvement. Regrettably, things will get worse before they get better. Not because people don't "believe in democracy", as you argue, but rather because there's still far too many people who do.
Yes, definitions are varied. So it's important that we stay honest about it. Going by the descriptions of (the supposed benefits of) democracy that you have offered, the Roman Republic was not a democracy for most of its existence. Which seems plausible. Certainly for the first stretch of its history, the Republic was a purely aristocratic state. It did gradually become something more of an "open aristocracy", but not to any extent that is more relevant than burghers and free cities having a voice in the Holy Roman Empire, for instance. If you would agree with me that those latter examples didn't make the Holy Roman Empire a democracy, then you'll also agree that the first secessions of the Plebs likewise didn't render Rome a democracy.
The turning point, I daresay, was the famous fifth and last secession. (Last, precisely because it succeeded.) This created the Lex Hortensia. You might recall that I've previously drawn a comparision between that social conflict (the old aristocracy versus the 'new men') and the American Civil War. And that I compare the Lex Hortensia to the post-Civil War constitutional amendments. Both were at their core about significantly expanding the franchise and the ranks of the citizenry.
This is where Rome, and America, started their real journey into the land of... democracy. It's a journey that occupied (and in the current event, will occupy) some 240 years. Hence my statement: "a few centuries".
Of course, the process was gradual. Rome continued to have underlying trouble with its conflict of the social classes, and in America (and by extension the modern West), the expansion of the franchise was also a troubled and gradual process. Universal franchise in the USA was only fully established a century after the Civil War. And in Rome, a century after the Lex Hortensia, the citizen-veterans of the wars against Hannibal and Philippos also formed the rump of a "post-war consensus" that led to decades of internal stability... on the surface. Beneath that veneer, the voice of the people became marginalised, and the elite asserted itself within the existing system.
This lasted until the simmering and growing discontent manifested in the ascent of the Gracchi. And that marks the beginning of the decay of Roman "democracy" (such as it was): things thereafter escalated into a renewed (and ever more bitter and bloody) conflict between the elite and the enraged masses. Like-wise, in the modern West, the hey-day of our own democracy (...such as it is...) was also the period that began in the 1960s (Kennedy! Optimism! Camelot!) and ended when Trump was elected, as a modern-day reviled populist demagogue "Gracchus". (Which is all fitting, because Kennedy and Obama were both idolised "pop star" leaders who embodied the ideal of ""Modernity", and underneath it all, were mostly hollow.)
So. In truth, the "triumph" of a democracy lasts about half a century. Before that, it's finding its feet for a century, and after that, it's decaying for about a century. I wouldn't define that as a paragon of stability and longevity. Rather, as I already did, I'd call it a brief flash; an experiment that burns out quickly.
Was for almost all of its history not a democracy by the description you've given of democracy's supposed virtues. Indeed, the Swiss resisted giving women the vote until the 1970s. Good for them. Might be a reason why they're doing relatively well. (Not because women are inherently dumb or anything, but because -- as I've said -- the more people you allow to vote, the faster things go horribly wrong.)
Regarding this in particular: you are confusing "monarchy" and "dynasty". I'll assume it was accidental. If you want to talk about how long dynasties last, the only valid comparison is to how long major political parties retain a majority. If you want to compare a monarchy to the longevity of a democracy itself, the only valid comparison is how long the actual monarchy lasted, regardless of which dynasty was in charge at any given point.
I assure you that most countries were monarchies for far longer than they were democracies.
No, you don't. You live in an oligarchic state that retains a figure-head for PR reasons.
As I've argued in some detail, your assertion is incorrect. A "broad base" is merely a tool of obfuscation, used by the exact small elite that you think it'll keep from power. (But which is, in reality, already in power. Which means, regrettably, that you've been fooled. I've explained this to you, but as has been observed: it's often very hard to convince a man that he's been bamboozled.)
A system that uses a more selective method for deciding who gets to have a say in governance -- that is, a stake-holder system -- is infinitely preferable. This is best kept stable and lasting by letting competing factions with truly diverging interest balance the power between them. The crown, the aristocracy, the church, the burghers, the merchants, the yeomen...
That gives you stability. And pretty damn lasting stability. Far more so than any democracy you might care to name.
You're making the typical whiggish error here: conflating technological progress (which has always existed, and which has created all the increases in available resources) with supposed social "progress" (which in actuality leeches off the former, and doesn't create it).
A world in which the age of revolutions fizzled out would, by and large, be just as scientifically and technologically advanced as our own. And just as abundant in its available resources. These things are not a product of democracy.
In other words: you engage in magical thinking, whereas I'm pretty sure that "wishing won't make it so".
My stance is not fatalistic, though. People can make a profound change in their own lives, and the lives of those around them. That has great meaning. But you are akin to the child playing on the beach, who thinks that if he just builds a sand-wall strong enough, it'll hold back the tide.
The tide doesn't care what you think. Neither does history.
It's a basic rule that anything that takes more energy to maintain is going to be less durable and less stable than the basic alternatives. As I mentioned with the tides: your sand-wall won't hold the water back, no matter how much energy you expend. You're wasting your energy on a pointless endeavour.
As I've explained as well: you're also wrong about the degree of success. That's simply not backed up by the facts. Democracy is, overall, an expensive failure whose supposed benefits are either not its own, or merely "gilded" lies with little substance. (Which doesn't mean that democracy, at its best, is bad to live in. It's pretty good! It just doesn't last, and the bloody hang-over simply isn't worth the all-too-brief high.)
As the Spartans said to Philippos II:
"If."
(Philippos was wise enough to heed the scathing rebuke.)
Again, a baffling case where you paint your own preconceived notions onto the matter. The fact is: modern democracies are the most centralised states to have ever existed in history. And corruption is now more entrenched, and more well-hidden, than for most of history. (I've outlined before that most developed nations merely pretend to be "very not-corrupt!" by formalising and legally organising things that would be called "corruption" elsewhere. So in truth: these developed countries are very corrupt. They're so good at corruption that they can hide it from the masses effectively.)
I don't assume people have no moral values. Indeed, the fact that many people have morals is one reason why mass democracy is doomed. It's too immoral to be suffered for too long. The people, ironically, won't stand for it. (What won't they stand for, you ask? Well, they won't stand for what every mass democracy inevitably and quickly becomes: a shield for the elites to carry on doing anything they wish without check.)
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Lord Sovereign
The resident Britbong
Even in highly aristocratic republics or monarchies it wasn’t like the masses had no say at all. Petitions of grievance, Tribunes of Plebs, etc, have been methods the lower orders have used to shout very loudly in the ears of the powerful. Outright ignoring them was not a very good idea.
Indeed, this is what England’s House of Commons starts out life as: a way for the tax paying public to have the King’s ear.
Also, aristocrats have that strange ”noblisse obligee”, where they seem to give something of a damn from time to time.
Indeed, this is what England’s House of Commons starts out life as: a way for the tax paying public to have the King’s ear.
Also, aristocrats have that strange ”noblisse obligee”, where they seem to give something of a damn from time to time.