3 ms·

Monarchs putting their own interests first is not the defining characteristic of monarchy which distinguishes it from democracy, but rather: The idea that lead

Monarchs putting their own interests first is not the defining characteristic of monarchy which distinguishes it from democracy, but rather: The idea that leaders put their own interests first is axiomatic in all systems of government and what distinguishes a good system of government from a bad one is that, in a good system of government, a leader can't do what's in their own interest without causing things to get done, as a side effect, that are in everyone else's interest. It's about aligning incentives. Even the most absolutist of monarchs can't get anything done in government without being surrounded by others who will execute his wishes, and in order to get them to execute his wishes, a monarch will have to make it in their best interest to do what's in his best interest, and that, by definition, puts boundaries on "immiseration". For example, clergy were generally treated pretty well in medieval monarchies, simply because the pulpit gave them political power which the monarchs had to contend with. The relevant metric is actually a simple number, namely: Share of population needed to make a leader's life difficult. I got this idea from the books "The logic of political survival" and "The dictator's handbook", and found it quite convincing. The authors distinguish "small coalition regimes" from "large coalition regimes". Values simply do not enter into it, only political calculation, and it's a mistake to think that today's leadership ranks (or society, in general) are somehow permeated by more noble values than existed back then. We've simply gotten better at making it in everyone's best interest to get along. Medieval monarchies are smaller in coalition size than modern democracies. And the "tribal warlordism slash anarchy" I'm speaking of is simply a system where the number of people who can make your life difficult based solely on having more muscle is even larger than in a monarchy, while the number of people that they (the ones with the muscle) are forced to treat nicely is conversely smaller. If I'm a fief in a well-established monarchy and I can live in (relative) peace in exchange for paying my taxes and rendering my services, then that's a step forward for me if my life, previously, was getting my crops stolen and head kicked-in whenever someone stronger than me wanted to treat me that way.

giraffe_lady 3y ago
I've read those books too, they are interesting. But we're not talking about abstract monarchies and their theoretical attributes. What it really all comes down to this assumption: "then that's a step forward for me if my life, previously, was getting my crops stolen and head kicked-in whenever someone stronger than me wanted to treat me that way." Early modern european monarchies simply did not prevent that outcome, and in fact guarantee it. They are a formalization of that relationship. Tax burdens on peasants were high enough that starvation was a constant danger and common outcome. If you or a member of your family was beaten, killed, raped, or stolen from your only likely recourse was mediation from the landowner, so staying in their favor is a matter of life and death. If the landowner does any of those things, you have no recourse. These abuses are routine in the historical record, the people committing them mostly didn't think of them as crimes and so wrote about them freely, though often euphemistically. Whether you were better off under than than in precursor systems is not clear at all. Historians mostly refrain from making judgements like that, but when they do there isn't consensus on this point. I also don't think there's anything inherently more noble or smarter about modern people or whatever. We like them are created by complex processes and subject to constraints and incentives. But the idea that premodern and early modern european aristocracies were an improvement on or evolution of anything is pure propaganda due to us living in the successors of those states. Again, this was the tribal warlordism.

giraffe_lady 3y ago

I've read those books too, they are interesting. But we're not talking about abstract monarchies and their theoretical attributes. What it really all comes down to this assumption: "then that's a step forward for me if my life, previously, was getting my crops stolen and head kicked-in whenever someone stronger than me wanted to treat me that way." Early modern european monarchies simply did not prevent that outcome, and in fact guarantee it. They are a formalization of that relationship. Tax burdens on peasants were high enough that starvation was a constant danger and common outcome. If you or a member of your family was beaten, killed, raped, or stolen from your only likely recourse was mediation from the landowner, so staying in their favor is a matter of life and death. If the landowner does any of those things, you have no recourse. These abuses are routine in the historical record, the people committing them mostly didn't think of them as crimes and so wrote about them freely, though often euphemistically. Whether you were better off under than than in precursor systems is not clear at all. Historians mostly refrain from making judgements like that, but when they do there isn't consensus on this point. I also don't think there's anything inherently more noble or smarter about modern people or whatever. We like them are created by complex processes and subject to constraints and incentives. But the idea that premodern and early modern european aristocracies were an improvement on or evolution of anything is pure propaganda due to us living in the successors of those states. Again, this was the tribal warlordism.