From a common sense perspective I agree with you.

However I find it hard to reconcile it with the fact that many/most of the nicest countries on earth to live in are constitutional monarchies. Including Sweden, Denmark, Netherlands, Canada, Australia, UK, NZ and Japan.

I don't know why this is, but it gives me pause in overthrowing the monarchy. It might be the existence of a monarch unites society in some way, or it might be that socities that move slowly rather than with revolutions tend to be more stable and comfortable.

I think, as with most things in the UK, we will get rid of the monarchy when it causes a problem that can't be dealt with in an easier way.

> However I find it hard to reconcile it with the fact that many/most of the nicest countries on earth to live in are constitutional monarchies. Including Sweden, Denmark, Netherlands, Canada, Australia, UK, NZ and Japan.

Because it has nothing to do with wealth?

The detrimental financial costs of monarchies are a drop in a nation's budget.

Just as the prime minister gifting his best friend 1 million euro per year from the nation's budget wouldn't really impact matters much overall in a nation that deals with billions each year.

It would still be quite corrupt, of course.

> It might be the existence of a monarch unites society in some way

Of course not, it is almost always a decisive issue in countries that have a monarchy.

In republics, almost everyone agrees that republics are better, but in monarchies the issue divides the population, and those that are in favor of retaining the monarchy are almost always traditionalists who desire to do many senseless things simply because they are tradition and are afraid of change.

History has always sided with the progressives, for no man wants change for it's own sake. When a man desire change, he typically has thought well of it, and desires a change for a reason, but when a man desires that matters stay the same, he very thought little of it, and wishes that they remain so for their own sake.

Sorry, I don‘t buy your last argument. You could argue the opposite:

When a person desires change, they either want it for their personal gain, or have seen the shortcomings of the current system and want change to get rid of them. Yet no system is perfect, and most changes have some tradeoff. When a person desires that matters stay the same, they are either profiting from the current state, or believe that the current system is better thought-out than it might seem at first glance, and are like this for a good reason.

This line of thought is based on Chesterton‘s fence [1]. Of course, a well thought-out change is still a good thing, and not all reasons for the current system are sensible. I count myself as a progressive as well, but it is not as clear-cut as you make it out to be.

[1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/G._K._Chesterton#Chesterton'...

> When a person desires change, they either want it for their personal gain, or have seen the shortcomings of the current system and want change to get rid of them.

The difference is that a man can rarely convince the others of a chance that is not in the interest of the many, but only in his own.

If there be legitimately flaws in the system that he wishes to address, it will be far easier to convince the collective by pointing out said flaws.

> When a person desires that matters stay the same, they are either profiting from the current state, or believe that the current system is better thought-out than it might seem at first glance, and are like this for a good reason.

And the big thing you leave out: that many, many men simply desire inertia for it's own sake and are afraid of change for no other reason than that it be change.

There are almost none in comparison who seek change for it's own sake, simply because they are afraid of matters staying the same.

> The difference is that a man can rarely convince the others of a chance that is not in the interest of the many, but only in his own.

So political propaganda rarely works? Every political action is sold as beneficial to the many, but how many of them actually are? I feel like political dynamics are rather a bit less straightforward than you're portraying.

I have never successfully seen, or even seen attempted, a sell that the republic be superseded by a monarch, and the orator be put on the throne with special privileges.

Have you ever seen a republic successfully transition to a monarchy by will of the people because someone sold it as an idea in the people's interests?

> Have you ever seen a republic successfully transition to a monarchy by will of the people because someone sold it as an idea in the people's interests?

You can probably squint at the Cambodian restoration and describe it that way.

While not a democratic republic, my understanding of the restoration of the Spanish monarchy to replace Franco’s fascist republic is that it essentially meets that description anyway.

Don’t fall for survivorship bias though. The graveyard is full of progressive societies that died.

It's also full of conservative ones that died.

There is no survivorship bias here without an argument that conservative societies do not die.

My argument that the progressives are usually right is not empirical, but rational.

disclaimer: I should note that with “conservative” and “progressive”, I do not mean the U.S.A. identity politics terminology, that has little to do with either conservation or progression, but the simple definition of aiming for change or for inertia.

I would point out that Sweden is unique on that list, as although they do have a monarchy, the king hold no legal/political power, not even in a "symbolic" sense.

A potential explanation for the phenomena you've observed is that it's uncommon for new monarchies to be started in the 21st century, so the countries that still have monarchies are all countries that for the most part have had stable forms of government for many decades if not centuries.

Also there are plenty of poorer countries with monarchies: Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, North Korea, Thailand, Cambodia, Bhutan, Lesotho, Oman, Qatar, etc. (I'll admit it's a bit suspect to label North Korea as a monarchy).

> the king hold no legal/political power, not even in a "symbolic" sense.

That's not true. The royal family of Sweden have immunity from prosecution, fines etc.

And not just in theory - there are actual examples of royal family members escaping speeding tickets, investigation into hunting accidents, illegally using the secret service to raid the homes of people suspected of possessing potentially embarrassing photographs etc etc. (see eg https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1326783/How-King-...)

They also enjoy diplomat status while traveling abroad etc etc.

Not to derail, but I think you're correct in labeling North Korea as a monarchy. It's hereditary. Veneration of current and past leadership is at a level that might have embarassed the Sun King. The internal palace conflicts are practically identical to what monarchies in the past used to endure. They even go as far as to have a variation of "divine right" justified by the Juche ideology.

A Crusader Kings mod that would focus on the internal & external struggles of a cloistered totalitarian regime, like North Korea, would be very interesting.

Did you just list Saudi Arabia and Qatar as poor countries? They might be anything, but not poor.

Not as poor countries, but as poorer countries than the ones the parent comment mentioned. The GDP per capita of Saudi Arabia is around $23k - approximately half of that of Sweden, the Netherlands, or the UK.

Qatar is absurdly rich, but the wealth is inequitably distributed (unusually so). Although the GDP per capita is ~60k, the median household income (and the median per-capita income) are considerably lower than the countries the parent comment mentioned.

> The GDP per capita of Saudi Arabia is around $23k - approximately half of that of Sweden

Why are you mentioning nominal GDP, not PPP which is $55 grand according to CIA (which is more than Sweden's and UK's and just a bit less than US's)? If they raise their taxes to the level of Sweden they will have larger nominal GDP although without any increase in the purchasing power.

If you're suggesting some kind of causal link between monarchs and nice places, it seems a bit unfair to count "Canada, Australia, UK, NZ" individually, it kinds of pads the numbers a bit since it's all the same monarch.

Also, you haven't mentioned Antigua and Barbuda, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Grenada, Jamaica, Papua New Guinea, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Solomon Islands and Tuvalu. Are they not nice places, despite sharing the very same monarch?

> it seems a bit unfair to count "Canada, Australia, UK, NZ" individually, it kinds of pads the numbers a bit since it's all the same monarch.

Yeah, but all separate monarchies.

Hmm.. might be "Survivorship bias"? The not-so-nice countries are more likely to remove their monarchies / nice are more likely to keep them?

Also, Japan and the UK were not exactly nice when their monarchs had absolute power...

Maybe because all the insurrectionists were murdered, removing them from the gene pool, by our monarchs ancestors.

If conformity and deference are a necessary trait for survival that has to have some effect, even if it's a societal effect rather than a genetic one.

The Czech Republic, Austria, Italy, Germany, France, Ireland, South Korea, etc. There are plenty of counter examples.

Yes, such it is a no-brainer to not remove the foreskin of one's children, or that alcohol is a far more dangerous hard drug than many that are illegal, or that democracy should be proportional, rather than distrct-based, or that fines should be proportional to one's wealth or income, rather than absolute, or that cars should mandatorily have their lights on, even during the day, or that organ donation should be opt-out, rather than opt-in.

Tradition has always been worth more than sanity or even human lives to many men. — as man will resort to absolute madness, so long as the madness be a tradition that has gone on for long enough.

I still remember, all the way back in the Nixon era, my dad grumbling: "Most people just want to be ruled by a king."

But I think a symbolic monarchy could serve a useful purpose by giving those people a ceremonial role in return for promising that they will never attempt to actually govern.

Edit: Deleted first sentence per comment below.

I think the symbolism of the state (in this case embodied by the monarch, but it doesn’t have to be a monarch) as a separate entity from the “government” is very appealing. In this way, you can have certain offices that work for the state and others that work for the government. The state/crown side would be apolitical whereas the government side would be politically appointed. But it would be helpful to have the two sides explicitly separated to have minimal interference.

I have no idea if this is how the British monarchy works in practice, rather just the view from my side of the pond. In the US, we have the concept of career vs political positions in government agencies, but in practice, there is a great risk of interference between the sides.

What does a monarchy have to do with Jan 6? And how does a ceremonial role impact operations or anyone’s life?

I'm not going to try to answer the first, but as to the second question: Britain is exactly the example of this. The Queen (or King) is a symbol of national pride and unity. The British people regularly give her an approval rating of over 90%[1], which is astounding for someone who lives off of the public welfare.

I happen to agree with the GP that monarchies should be abolished outright, but it is clear that people feel strongly and build identities around ceremonial roles.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personality_and_image_of_Eliza...

> someone who lives off of the public welfare

It isn't welfare if the person works in an official capacity.

Given that the article claims she had reviewed more than 1000 laws, it’s hardly fair to call it public welfare.

My reading of the article is that it's supposed to be a reveal of something that most of the British public aren't aware of. Given that they aren't aware of it, it's probably safe to say that it doesn't factor into their estimation of her. In other words, she might as well have not reviewed more than 1000 laws, as far as the factors that go into her approval are concerned.

Sure - but the point is she does a lot of work.

> I really don't understand why anyone anywhere in the modern world would want someone to rule over them.

Almost everyone wants someone to rule over them, or at least over their neighbors.

Do they? The UK's representational democracy has major problems but it's [supposed to be] about having MPs who work for the people, not having rulers.

Do you want someone to rule over you?

If they weren't rulers, you could simply choose not to comply with those rules you found irrelevant or misguided. I note that you felt constrained to add the bracketed bit -- I would submit that that's the fig leaf.

You can argue that the doctor is being helpful when they tell a four-year-old "this won't hurt a bit", but the naked truth is that it's a lie, and the child has no actual choice in the matter. Similarly, you can argue that your MP or state senator has your best interests at heart (and some may!), but that doesn't mean they don't rule you.

The rule is by consensus in a democracy, law is an expression of that consensus. The constraint comes from the people, the demos, and not from some tyrant.

MPs are supposed to work for us, those with power wish to reduce the scope of "us" and some MPs are there specifically to enable that. But anti-democratic MPs doesn't alter the lack of rulers in a proper democracy it just changes whether our (UK) political system is a proper democracy or not.

I don’t know anyone that wants management that can never be replaced.

This is not an accurate description of a constitutional monarch’s role, either de jure or de facto.

Stability. The monarchy has been in charge for so long that getting rid of it would cause turmoil.

I'm not saying it's a good reason, just that it's a reason.

What turmoil would you genuinely believe would follow?

The more absurd thing, in my mind, is that citizens of dozens of countries, including first world nations like Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, consent to having the monarchy, even though it is largely ceremonial. Certainly no one believes it creates stability, nor that turmoil would ensue if they abandoned it.

Well the main source of turmoil would be in replacing the office since theoretically all the powers in the country devolve from the head of state.

I gotta say that I find the rabid anti-monarchal take a lot of americans have online kinda weird. I wouldn't say I feel "ruled" in any real sense by the British crown even though it is technically true. The Prime Minister and the House of Commons are where the actual legislative power rests and as much as the Governor-General is technically the commander in chief I highly doubt if she called for a revolution against the civilian government that would get any traction.

Furthermore I gotta say that given a lot of the other options I LIKE the hoky kind of odd but deeply rooted ceremony that surrounds our governmental proceedings.

Is it silly that the prime minister has to be presented to the Governor-General to get invested and leads a Privy Council (and for that matter is called a Prime Minister)? Yeah, but it's been WORKING that way for a long time and that inertia is important, especially I think nowadays with a lot of uncertainty from the largest democracy in the world.

>Well the main source of turmoil would be in replacing the office since theoretically all the powers in the country devolve from the head of state.

If we just need somewhere for power to divest from, then hand it over to the royal Corgis. If you have to have the fiction of a figurehead to make your government function, better it be something that has no possibility of corruption.

The whole monarchy thing is BS. We/Canada can easily do without it. And remember we have to pledge allegiance to the "King/Queen and Her Hiers" when taking the citizenship pledge - which includes the wonderful Prince Andrew. Such bullshit to genuflect to such people. And the British empire doesn't exactly have a shining past with all their colonialism and what not. Why not just pledge allegiance to the Canadian flag or the Charter?

But every time we bring it up for removal there are excuses why it cannot be done. The Governor General et all are a cost center - not just federally but in each province. Or worse two factions aligned to removing the monarchy don't disagree on how it should be done and the measure fails (Australia). At least the Australians managed to remove 'Queen/Heirs' from the citizenship pledge and acknowledged that many immigrants who want citizenship came from countries in Africa and Asia that were colonized, whose people were treated like shit, and had their natural resources stolen.

Cute and hoky to some... but others are being asked to pledge to an institution that subjugated many of their ancestors. For no good reason. Even if you have not been subjugated, there is no reason to pledge allegiance to her.

> The Prime Minister and the House of Commons are where the actual legislative power rests

The article disagrees with you. Or at least points out where there isn't always true.

ehh article agrees. It was the government that accommodated the queen.

They could just as well polity said to her to pound sand.

Queen asked them, it was up to them to say yes or no. I imagine if some other party was in power back then results might be different

I always figured it was more tradition then anything

Not leaving the EU would also cause stability and prevent turmoil.

closing the door after the horse has bolted?

the UK left the EU in Jan 2020

QE2 could have blocked it

Honestly, I lost all respect for her when she accepted the unlawful suggestion that she should prorogue her parliament. If she won't even speak up for the very democracy we rely then I don't know why we keep her. The £40M a year from the sovereign wealth fund could surely be used to better ends.

We should take the opportunity to get rid of the position of monarch since we claim to be a democracy. We could also modernise parliament when it becomes ours - things like ejecting people for jeering and interrupting would be a start, close the subsidised bars, ... make it at least have a semblance of being a workplace.

She was rumoured to be in favour of leaving...

No she couldn't

I'm dual-national English/Australian.

As an Australian, wtf are we doing with a monarchy? Makes no sense, it's just a holdover from the colonial past, bring on the republic immediately. (Anecdotally, the general consensus amongst my peers is that the Queen's death will be the trigger for this - no-one wants King Charles again).

As an Englishman - it's too deeply part of our culture to remove just like that. What would we replace it with? A President? How would that be different from the Prime Minister? It's not obvious how it would work, and it's not clear what we'd gain from that (except not having King Charles again). Who would the military swear loyalty to? How do we transfer hundreds of years of strong tradition into a new structure without breaking things? I know that smart people have thought of good answers to all these questions, but they're not part of the public awareness, they haven't had time to steep into the public conciousness (unlike republican ideas in Australia, which are pretty well-formed and accepted).

Because the powers they hold have to be given to someone else. Replacing them with an elected president or parliamentary appointed one potentially create there own issues and sacrifice the long term stability of a monarch.

If the crown was directly replaced with an elected president for instance, that would be an enormous amount of power for a populist leader to wield and the lack of policy responsibility would lead to populists leaders. If the president was appointed by parliament then there is opportunity for corruption.

So there would need to be far more drastic changes and many possibilities (like changing from a parliamentary system) would not be popular. Ideologically I don't think anyone should hold such power based on who their parents we're, but in practice I'm a soft-monarchists or conservative on the matter.

Edit - The powers don't have to be replaced, the holders of those powers do.

> If the crown was directly replaced with an elected president for instance, that would be an enormous amount of power for a populist leader to wield and the lack of policy responsibility would lead to populists leaders.

In practice, all of the powers of the Crown must be exercised, and must only be exercised, by the Monarch as directed by various configurations of notionally-subordinate officials (whether the Parliamentary majority or the Cabinet as executive committee of the Privy Council or...). Simply investing those powers formally in the institutions which direct them in practice would have no noticeable effect. Or investing them, with the same practical constraints, whether together or separately in, like, any random person chosen off the street. The advantage of a ceremonial Presidency in place of a monarch is that they could continue to do the ceremonial functions as well as signing where directed by the Cabinet, etc., without occupying the time of people with real and substantive responsibilities in government.

What powers would need to be replaced, exactly?

pretty much all of them

under the UK constitution Parliament is short for Queen-in-Parliament and all executive and legislative powers come from the sovereign

All abolishing the monarchy would do is enable people with more wealth and status than me, many of which who I can expect to not only hate people like me far more than the current monarch, but to have self and group interests that are directly contradictory to my own wellbeing, along with ideological motivations that, if carried out, would be extremely harmful to me.

At this point people who think the monarchy should be abolished get filed under "malicious actor who wishes to put themselves, or their ideological co travellers, as my master instead, or wishes to use the de facto power vacuum to enrich themselves at everyone else's expense", i.e. they put themselves into the "I would probably be better off if this person were to be dead" category.

Like the monarchy is not already richer than you! They definitely feel their status is above yours.

At least the new rich overlords wont ask me to pledge allegiance to them during a citizenship oath like the do in Canada. Not just the queen, but also to her heirs like the great Prince Andrew The Pedophile.

Just because Americans take their citizenship "oaths" seriously doesn't mean anybody else does. It's a tradition not a contract. Do US citizens genuinely worship their nation?

If you don't want a single person to rule over you then it makes more sense to just select a head of state on a criterium that anyone can see doesn't have anything to do with their right or ability to rule. If you ask me this beats accidentally giving the head of state some degree of legitimacy just because they happen to be elected.

About 40% of the public expresses authoritarian personality traits. From Wikipedia[1]:

> The authoritarian personality is a personality type characterized by extreme obedience and unquestioning respect for and submission to the authority of a person external to the self, which is realized through the oppression of subordinate people

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authoritarian_personality

This is so wrong that it's basically offensive.

Considerably more so-called progressive folks (and others) put their faith in US Presidents they favour, than do subjects of most Monarchs, let alone the UK Monarch.

The level of demagoguery I witnessed around 2008 and 2016 in the US was ridiculous, people were spellbound as if their leaders were Disney characters brought to life.

Most Democratic Heads of State are elected on highly superficial and preformative presentations of themselves, effectively the result of giant PR and communications mechanations.

Other Heads of State - like Von der Leyen in the EU, have barely any democratic legitimacy.

QE2 has a narrow range of power, and she's actually done a pretty good job at it frankly, giving legitimacy to the notion that there is likely a lot that people can be brought up into. It's obviously not something that one would create from nothing in 2020, nor would anyone want more power bestowed than they have, but it works fine.

The US has Kim Kardashian and Donald Trump, the UK is stuck with QE2 and Will and Kate. I'd take the later if I could.

I take it you've made the assumption that my 40% figure was somehow related to Trump's approval rating, or something along those lines.

First, I am sorry that you're offended by a statistical figure.

Second, the figure was from research that was done in my grandparents' era, about three quarters of a century ago. About 40% of Americans displayed authoritarian personality traits.

Any assumptions you've made are merely coincidental. Have a nice day.

The British monarch, as the saying goes, reigns but does not rule.

Yes, that's the saying. But here's an article that says that they do more ruling than people say...

Everyone want someone to rule over them, except, perhaps, the libertarians.

Any bureaucrat of any government have more power in your life than you think. And over time, we're giving them more and more power to regulate our lifes. (I'm not even talking about politicians here, they're more powerful than any absolutist king of the history).

Libertarians in fact love being ruled over most of all - they just call the rulers "property owners".

Nah, Libertarians all assume that they will be doing the ruling.

Erm, abolishing the monarchy doesn’t mean nobody is ruling over you.

At best, it means the person a tally ruling over you loses the fig leaf (minor, at this point, because everyone recognizes it such) of doing it in someone else's name who has no real substantial role.

> I really don't understand why anyone anywhere in the modern world would want someone to rule over them

There's currently a government in Westminster making laws and dictating to us that the vast majority of the country didn't vote for. The public also has the power to change a monarchy, with the only real difference being that the "election" and transfer of power is less peaceful.

Democracy is of course better, but representative democracies in large nations are about as participatory as a monarchy.

The cost of changing the status quo is, for me, not worth the benefit.

There are any number of wrongs that can be corrected. Is “abolishing the monarchy” the best use of the limited budget for societal change?

And is it worth, on top of that, the risks of unintended consequences?

I’d feel similar being implored to surgically remove my appendix and tailbone.

It's more figurehead than actual rule of thumb and the transition from rule-control to being a legacy rubber stamp has been something that shifted a while ago.

Let us not forget the diplomatic aspect they afford and I'd say from that aspect alone - done more good than the elected politicians. Whilst the media love to focus upon the negatives, you can't overlook the positives and initiatives - the prices trust and other chartable involvements and then tourism. Though the diplomacy aspect is something that you have to respect the Queen and been a national asset in that respect.

So far from a no-brainier as you say if you look at their involvements beyond the headlines.

As an aside - if America had a royal family, the prospect of Trump on legal currency bank notes would be zero.

> It's more figurehead than actual rule of thumb and the transition from rule-control to being a legacy rubber stamp has been something that shifted a while ago.

TFA is literally about how it's actually not just a legacy rubber stamp, and the Queen gets involved more than a figurehead would.

> As an aside - if America had a royal family, the prospect of Trump on legal currency bank notes would be zero.

We don't know that. What if the Trump family was the royal family? I don't think this is an unfair question - Prince Philip is probably just as much of a racist as Donald Trump is, if not more so...