Monarchy FAQ

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This is part one of the Monarchy FAQ, which is written in response to section two of Scott Alexander’s  “Anti-Reactionary FAQ”.

1. Are traditional monarchies secure?

It depends on the era and region. The reign of Æthelred the Unready (978-1014) was less secure than the reign of Frederick the Great (1740 to 1786). The reign of Frederick the Great was arguably more secure than the United States is today.

Yvain (also known as Scott Alexander) at Slate Star Codex recently wrote an “Anti-Reactionary FAQ” that replies to a number of points about monarchy, so here I address the same questions, from a pro-monarchy angle. For an example of a concrete proposal that I don’t endorse completely but consider to be in the right direction, see Kingdom 2037 and discussion. What did Yvain say about monarchy?

Much of the Reactionary argument for traditional monarchy hinges on monarchs being secure. In non-monarchies, leaders must optimize for maintaining their position against challengers. In democracies, this means winning elections by pandering to the people; in dictatorships, it means avoiding revolutions and coups by oppressing the people. In monarchies, elections don’t happen and revolts are unthinkable. A monarch can ignore their own position and optimize for improving the country. See the entries on demotism and monarchy here for further Reactionary development of these arguments.

Such a formulation need not depend on the monarch’s altruism: witness the parable of Fnargl. A truly self-interested monarch, if sufficiently secure, would funnel off a small portion of taxes to himself, but otherwise do everything possible to make his country rich and peaceful.

As Moldbug puts it:

“Hitler and Stalin are abortions of the democratic era – cases of what Jacob Talmon called totalitarian democracy. This is easily seen in their unprecedented efforts to control public opinion, through both propaganda and violence. Elizabeth’s legitimacy was a function of her identity – it could be removed only by killing her. Her regime was certainly not the stablest government in history, and nor was it entirely free from propaganda, but she had no need to terrorize her subjects into supporting her.”

But some of my smarter readers may notice that “your power can only be removed by killing you” does not actually make you more secure. It just makes security a lot more important than if insecurity meant you’d be voted out and forced to retire to your country villa.

Let’s review how Elizabeth I came to the throne. Her grandfather, Henry VII, had won the 15th century Wars of the Roses, killing all other contenders and seizing the English throne. He survived several rebellions, including the Cornish Rebellion of 1497, and lived to pass the throne to Elizabeth’s father Henry VIII, who passed the throne to his son Edward VI, who after surviving the Prayer Book Rebellion and Kett’s Rebellion, named Elizabeth’s cousin Lady Jane Grey as heir to the throne. Elizabeth’s half-sister, Mary, raised an army, captured Lady Jane, and eventually executed her, seizing the throne for herself. An influential nobleman, Thomas Wyatt, raised another army trying to depose Mary and put Elizabeth on the throne. He was defeated and executed, and Elizabeth was thrown in the Tower of London as a traitor. Eventually Mary changed her mind and restored Elizabeth’s place on the line of succession before dying, but Elizabeth’s somethingth cousin, Mary Queen of Scots, also made a bid for the throne, got the support of the French, but was executed before she could do further damage.

Actual monarchies are less like the Reactionaries’ idealized view in which revolt is unthinkable, and more like the Greek story of Damocles – in which a courtier remarks how nice it must be to be the king, and the king forces him to sit on the throne with a sword suspended above his head by a single thread. The king’s lesson – that monarchs are well aware of how tenuous their survival is – is one Reactionaries would do well to learn.

Yvain’s critique rests on cherry-picking the worst instances of monarchy, such as oriental despots or the British throne during its most chaotic period, which are not reflective of most monarchies during the Enlightenment period in Europe. If we were to establish an absolute monarchy in Europe or a part of North America today, it would be more likely to reflect an Enlightenment monarchy than a pre-Enlightenment monarchy, since Enlightenment values are so universal. Anyone can make any system of government look bad by cherry-picking its least flattering historical instances.

Like anyone approaching the idea in these times, I was initially hesitant about supporting the idea of absolute monarchy, but a number of decisive points made me change my mind. An insight I received, from reading a lot of European history, was that there is an important distinction between Enlightenment-era monarchies and other monarchies throughout history. Namely, the former were a lot more stable. So instead of advocating “monarchy in general,” I advocate a specific tradition of monarchy from early Enlightenment Europe which is on the boundary of feudal monarchy and absolute monarchy. Historically, the style of monarchy I advocate has worked quite well.

The relative violence and instability of many older monarchies is from the violent atmosphere of the time. We can demonstrate this empirically by looking at the transfer of power among post-Renaissance era monarchs, transfers which were almost exclusively peaceful, especially outside of England. Excessive exposure to English monarchs and their messed-up history has made Anglosphere citizens unfairly biased against monarchy, which existed in stable form on the Continent for several centuries.

If we were to install a brand new monarchy today, we would want it to be more like Enlightenment-era monarchies, not like pre-Enlightenment monarchies. More on this later.

As an example of how monarchical stability works, we turn to Austria. Was the Kingdom of Austria more or less stable than the United States? If you’ve studied the history of Austria, you already know the answer: sometimes yes, sometimes no.

Austria was ruled by the House of Habsburg from 1278 to 1918, for 640 years. Yvain mentioned the bloody history of the Roman Emperors; but did the Austrian dukes, archdukes, princes, kings, and emperors meet similarly bloody fates? Let’s list them one by one and see.

Aside from one assassination, that’s a century of relative smoothness, keeping in mind that this was the 14th century and people died of natural causes at a young age all the time.

Next, Austria was split into two parts, ruled by two brothers and their descendants. The two parts remained states of the Holy Roman Empire, making the split more analogous to an American state breaking in two parts than a country, i.e., like North California and South California. However, there was some conflict.

How many crazy dukes so far, in the first hundred years and 13 rulers? Exactly zero.

Continuing…

(The years repeat after Albert VI because I added the rulers of the separate parts of Austria into the same list.)

This was a stormier period in Austrian history than most. There was unrest due to the divided nature of Austria and conflicts between family members. Family conflicts played out as civil wars, which were not total wars, but rather consisted of skirmishes. (Read Hoppe on monarchical conflict.) Proportionally, think of deaths on a scale 1/100th or 1/1000th that of the American Civil War. Nevertheless, the time period was notable, as Frederick V was the first Habsburg crowned as Holy Roman Emperor.

Approximately a hundred years, 11 rulers. None crazy or evil, but there were intermittent periods of civil war, mostly during a seven-year period when Albert V was a child and was dominated by quarrelsome relatives. As soon as he came of age and became the true Archduke, he stabilized Austria with the help of his advisors.

The next ruler adopted the Albertinian House Rule, which helped minimize succession disputes for over 400 years. Austria was reunited again, the Renaissance flourished there, and its rulers were as follows:

  • Maximilian I the Last Knight (1490-1519) — Holy Roman Emperor, stable transition
  • Charles I (1519-1521) — Holy Roman Emperor, abdicated for health, stable transition
  • Ferdinand I (1521-1564) — Holy Roman Emperor, split Austria among children

That’s three monarchs, 73 years, complete stability. As Habsburg emperors, they were also busy ruling over huge expanses of land outside Austria. Their reigns averaged 24 years each. Compare that to Presidents, whose time in office is usually 4 years and averages about 5.

After Ferdinand I, Austria split up again, this time into three pieces, with one part going to each of his three sons. (A caution against splitting up royal inheritances.) There was no civil war this time, only internal peace. Austria would remain divided for just over a century. The varying years represent the Archdukes that ruled over different parts of Austria. Many of the Archdukes listed below also ruled over lands outside Austria.

  • Maximilian II (1564-1576) — Holy Roman Emperor, natural death, stable transition
  • Rudolf II (1576-1608) — Holy Roman Emperor, withdrawn, stripped of power by brother
  • Matthias (1608-1619) — H.R.E., governor from 1593, natural death, stable transition
  • Albert VII (1619) — Archduke for a few months, abdicated in favor of his cousin
  • Ferdinand II (1564-1595) — ruled Tyrol, lands passed to main Habsburg line after death
  • Maximilian III (1612-1618) — tried to take over Poland but was captured, stable transition
  • Charles II (1564-1590) — Counter-Reformist, died naturally at age 50, stable transition
  • Ferdinand III (1590-1637) — Holy Roman Emperor, Thirty Years’ War, turmoil, stable transition to his son
  • Ferdinand IV (1637-1657) — Holy Roman Emperor, Peace of Westphalia, stable transition to son
  • Leopold V (1623-1632) — minor figure, natural death, stable transition
  • Ferdinand Charles (1632-1662) — minor figure ruling 20% of Austria, stable transition
  • Sigismund Francis (1662-1665) — minor figure, died w/o issue, lands reverted to elder line

In 1665 Austria was put back together again. It remains so today. From 1665 to 1918 there was 253 years of Austrian monarchy. The major incidents of instability were the War of Austrian Succession (1740-1747) and the Revolutions of 1848 . As a royalist and student of history, I blame the Revolutions of 1848 squarely on revolutionaries rebelling against their rightful monarch, and will analyze this point more later. They were not starving like some in France were in the 1770s. The War of Austrian Succession was caused by Prussia using the crowning of Maria Theresia, a woman, as an excuse to take over Silesia. Prussia was highly militaristic and expansionary, I don’t see that as an indictment against the stability of the Austrian monarchy. Here is how the palace at Vienna looked in 1758:

Canaletto_(I)_059

Continuing…

  • Leopold VI (1665-1705) — Holy Roman Emperor, cousin of Louis XIV, stable transition
  • Joseph I (1705-1711) — Holy Roman Emperor, died of smallpox, stable transition
  • Charles III (1711-1740) — H.R.E., female heir triggered War of Austrian Succession
  • Maria Theresa (1740-1780) — famous Archduchess, won War of Austrian Succession
  • Francis I Stephen (1740–1765) — H.R.E., co-ruled w/ his wife Maria Theresia
  • Joseph II (1765-1790) — H.R.E., 1 of 3 great Enlightenment absolutists, stable transition
  • Leopold VII (1790–1792) — H.R.E., enlightened absolutist, stable transition
  • Francis I (1792-1835) — H.R.E., first Emperor of Austria, reactionary, stable transition
  • Ferdinand I (1835-1848) — mentally deficient, managed by a regency, abdicated
  • Francis Joseph I (1848-1916) — most famous emperor, died during WWI, stable transition
  • Charles I (1916-1918) — ill-fated emperor, monarchy dissolved

That’s the story of Austria. After 1665, a whole bucketload of stable transitions and one succession crisis caused by Prussian aggression, in which the Archduchess ultimately triumphed. This becomes a consistent theme in European monarchy–a fair bit of chaos before 1638, and stable transitions and reigns from 1638-1914. Thus, the model of monarchy I prefer is the kind that was displayed between 1638 and 1914. I think Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn and Hans-Hermann Hoppe are with me on that one.

3750

Did any of these monarchs need to set up pseudo-police states, with more than 1% of the population imprisoned, as in the United States today? No.

Of these 50 monarchs, how many were failures? I’d say about six. Ladislaus had the unfortunate habit of being captured and controlled by others, which led to conflicts and made him a failure. Albert V was a failure during the seven years of his minority, when he was controlled by relatives who messed up the country. Sigismund was forced to abdicate. Rudolf II made poor decisions which led to the Thirty Years’ War, and was stripped of power by his younger brother. Ferdinand Charles wasted a pile of money, had his chancellor executed illegally, and was generally disliked. Ferdinand I was mentally deficient, and is famous for his one coherent command, a request for apricot dumplings which were out of season: “I’m the Emperor, and I want dumplings!” On the plus side, his reign was steered by a competent regency council, led by Klemens von Metternich, one of the most respected statesmen to ever live, so it wasn’t really a failure after all, but rather a success.

There are also an additional three for which I do not have enough information: Rudolf II the Debonair, Frederick II, and Leopold II. These three figures ruled for a combined 6 years, less than 1% of the total duration under consideration. So, I’ll ignore them.

The five true failures ruled for a combined 145 years, with 30 of those years by Ferdinand Charles, who ruled only 20% of Austria, and 44 under Sigismund, same deal. So, we’ll call that equivalent to 15 years of ruling Austria. Add that together with Ladislaus’ 17 years, Rudolf II’s 37, and Albert V’s 7, and we have 76 years of failure out of 640 years, or 12%.

Is it possible that some of these monarchs had bad periods which I haven’t read about? Certainly. But if so, they ultimately never held Austria back from continued expansion and success over an extremely long time period. Based on my knowledge of American history, I’d say that the ratio of bad Presidencies to bad monarchs is similar here, if not a bit higher. Only by reading about the Austrian dukes, archdukes, and monarchies one by one can you get an impression of how stable the system was. Not by reading Scott Alexander’s Anti-Reactionary FAQ, looking at his three or four cherry-picked examples, and saying, “by golly, monarchy is unstable!” (This is all David Brin could manage.) I know ancient Rome had crazy emperors, and I don’t know why, but Rome and post-1600 Europe were not equivalent situations. Our present situation is much closer to 18th century Europe than it is to ancient Rome.

The history of Austrian monarchs from reunification in 1665 to the dissolution in 1918 reads like a parade of excellence. Many of these monarchs became legendary in their own time, and are remembered fondly to this day. They helped make Europe what it is today, economically, culturally, and otherwise. When there was repression of the people, it was usually in the form of putting down Protestant rebels in adjacent lands, not in Austria itself. These rebellions threatened the integrity of the empire, and the emperors responded in kind. As Americans with hegemonic control over the North American continent, it’s hard to put ourselves in their shoes, a dangerous world with close existential threats. Throwing up their hands and saying, “let the Protestants destroy our Empire, because freedom” was not in their mental frame of reference, nor should it have been.

In his FAQ, Scott Alexander implies that having a secret police and repressing the people was par for the course for monarchs, which is completely untrue. The repressive policies of Ivan the Terrible are well known, for instance, but there is not a lot of repression over 640 years of Austria, a highly literate and sophisticated country which kept many detailed records. If there was severe repression, it wasn’t documented. What documents do exist communicate a general happiness and satisfaction with the realm. In France, the ultra-royalist secret police only existed for five years, and operated without the king’s knowledge.

Maybe part of the answer for the success of Austria as a country and monarchy in particular has to do with the extraordinarily low time preference of its people. Time preference is a term from economics and psychology that signifies whether people are willing to work and save or consume all their goods right away. The analogy is between ants, who build and save, and grasshoppers, who eat everything they get right away. Austrians are like ants, industrious and thrifty.

In the study, “How Time Preferences Differ: Evidence from 45 Countries,” participants were asked whether they wanted a hypothetical $3400 this month or $3800 next month. 89% of the German participants chose to wait for the $3800. Assuming the sample of respondents was representative, that would correspond to about 71 million German people, whose ancestors occupied over three hundred kingdoms, city states, feudal “duchies”, baronies, counties and imperial free cities collectively known as the Holy Roman Empire, an agglomeration which lasted for almost a thousand years. They all are blessed with low time preference, whether due to genetics, culture, or a combination of the two. Low time preference means patience, high time preference means impatience.

There were 17 countries in the time preference study where more than 70% of respondents chose to wait for the $3800, these were (in order): Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Norway, Denmark, Hong Kong, Czech Republic, Canada, Israel, Estonia, Hungary, Sweden, Japan, South Korea, the UK, Slovenia, and Lebanon. Not very surprisingly, these are all quite successful societies in modern times, with the exception of Lebanon. Taiwan, the United States, and Turkey were close behind, with about 68% of respondents choosing to wait. In Nigeria, only 8% chose to wait. In Russia, that number was 38%. In Italy, 42%.

If you think about it, the number of participants who choose to wait correlates roughly to the general level of success among the societies sampled, with a few confounding factors. This is hardly surprising, as the very concept of civilization is to build things that last and provide prosperity to the future. Nigerians clearly have a scarcity mentality and culture which is based on immediate consumption. If they are going to build a civilization like the countries early in the list, they’re going to need to lower their time preference. Perhaps success drives this; there is probably a feedback effect between abundance and lowering time preference. Still, one can no more build a civilization out of high time preference than one can build a skyscraper out of bricks.

Returning to Alexander’s critique of monarchy, much of it is based on straw men. For instance, he refers to a “absolutely secure monarch” theory based on Mencius Moldbug’s Fnargl thought experiment. There is also a ring of Fnargl thought experiment which is closely related. The thought experiment is about an invading alien ruler would be able to best exploit earthlings by allowing us to enjoy our lives and operating a successful economy much in the way we currently do, rather than putting us all in chain gangs. An insightful thought experiment, but that’s all it is — a thought experiment. Not to be taken literally. Alexander takes it far too seriously when he implies that all Reactionaries believe that the Fnargl thought experiment leads to us think that a perfectly secure monarch will be perfectly benevolent. We don’t.

Alexander’s implication is a straw man because no Reactionary is stupid enough to think that perfect security implies a perfectly benevolent monarch. That is absurd. A monarch is a human being like any other, subject to greed, sadism, rage, jealously, paranoia, and all the rest. It’s a bit disconcerting that I have to spell this out.

When Alexander answers the question “Are traditional monarchs secure?” he lapses into strawman mode on the forth sentence (bolded), and revisits this many times throughout the FAQ:

Much of the Reactionary argument for traditional monarchy hinges on monarchs being secure. In non-monarchies, leaders must optimize for maintaining their position against challengers. In democracies, this means winning elections by pandering to the people; in dictatorships, it means avoiding revolutions and coups by oppressing the people. In monarchies, elections don’t happen and revolts are unthinkable. A monarch can ignore their own position and optimize for improving the country. See the entries on demotism and monarchy here for further Reactionary development of these arguments.

Some points are being missed here. First, there are many features of the Reactionary argument for traditional monarchy. The simplest one is the Democracy is based on deep flaws of reasoning. “Vote on important decisions, so that the average opinion of the masses directs the country” is not based on anything more than the conceit of the average man. We can see how this works because every human organization based on voting or consensus is dysfunctional while every organization with a strong leader tends to be effective, as long as the leader knows what they are doing. Imagine, for instance, if the content of the core Less Wrong sequences were based on topics voted on by readers who walk right off the street. Or if MIRI were directed by the popular vote of humanity, rather than its leadership.

When stuff actually matters; whether it be the operation of a supermarket, the design of a new jet engine, the running of a non-profit, the invasion of a country, even the building of a house, it is directed by a leader. This is elementary. The reason why is that human beings are hierarchical social animals, evolved to live in a pecking order for hundreds of thousands of years, if not millions. The absence of a clearly defined leader creates conflict, endless argument, and people stepping on one another’s toes, not elegance and productivity.

The facts are plain to see by anyone who has done scholarly work on the evolution of leadership among hominid species. For instance, take the abstract from this one paper I found in ten seconds of Googling, which by no means is the best possible paper to communicate the concept, but communicates ideas I’ve read about over a hundred times:

Paper title: Evolution, Leadership, and Followership
This paper reviews the topic of leadership from an evolutionary perspective and proposes three conclusions. First, leadership and followership are adaptive responses for dealing with various group challenges, most notably group movement, peacekeeping, and intergroup competition, that were prominent in human evolutionary history. Second, leadership and followership are complimentary strategies for dealing with such problems, but the interests of leaders and followers do not always correspond. Third, many modern organizational structures are inconsistent with our evolved leadership psychology, which explains the alienation and frustration of many citizens and employees. Finally, we note various implications of this evolutionary analysis.

For anyone who is a student of evolutionary psychology, none of this is hard. People crave leadership and guidance. When a person takes leadership in a given group, his brain goes into alpha male mode and he feels (more or less) responsible for making concrete decisions and issuing commands for followers to follow. Even though the interests of followers and leaders do not perfectly coincide, leadership happens anyway, and makes everyone better off (on average). When modern organizational structures influenced by the French Revolution promote disarticulated management structures, everyone suffers. This is because we evolved in a hierarchical social context and feel best when things are run to an approximation of that. You can nitpick this general model as much as you like, but those are the basic facts.

When it comes to running a company, or a hospital, or an airport, or a supermarket, or a design firm, or… (I could go on forever) we see the necessity of leadership as obvious. The buck has to stop somewhere. When two employees have a serious conflict, a higher-up has to resolve it. The highest leader ultimately takes responsibility for mediating these conflicts and the final results. In traditional societies, when circumstances became very bad, such as crop failures, the tribal chieftain was ritually sacrificed. Point is, being top dog is not all fun and games. If a chimp troop is undergoing prolonged misfortune, the beta males may very well gang up, murder the alpha male, and replace him with one of their own. A chimp troop without a leader of any kind is doomed, however.

Only when it comes to the highest level—the national and state level, where good leadership matters the most—do we operate a four-year carousel which consumes billions of dollars and billions of hours of citizens’ time. Only when it comes to the highest level do we put on the pretense that leadership need not be stable and should rotate like a merry-go-round. Only when it comes to the overall structure of society do we do away with hierarchy, though we happily utilize it on the micro-scale—within companies, the family, and so on—as naturally as we breathe.

Alexander lapses into strawman mode in his critique when he says “revolts are unthinkable”. Revolts are never unthinkable because we are human beings, not robots. The objective is to channel the impetus towards revolt in a constructive manner, upwards towards the top of the hierarchy. If the yeoman has a complaint, he brings it up to his chief, who brings it up to his chief, and so on, until it may (but probably not) reach the level of the monarch. Not every complaint will reach the monarch, since he (or possibly she) has a finite amount of attention to spend, but if many people are making the same complaint, you can be damn sure that the monarch will eventually hear about it. All-out failures of communication, where the monarch mass-murders their subjects instead of listening to genuine concerns, are so rare that the few historical examples (within Europe, at least) are looked upon with great concern, sadness, and regret. The only real examples are limited cases in Russia, which is by its nature a harsh place.

In general, if a monarchy is fulfilling its function, the populace doesn’t want to revolt. A universal Reactionary idea is that most of the urge to revolt derives primarily from subversive ideas feeding on human jealousy and envy rather than legitimate grievances. I do think that many of the French Revolutionaries had legitimate grievances, but they expressed them in the wrong way. As I’ve mentioned repeatedly, there is no connection between actual inequality and mass preferences over redistribution.

Especially when it comes to discussing the possibility of a modern Restoration and an associated monarchy, suggesting “revolt is unthinkable” is off the table. Revolt is obviously thinkable. Regarding the relationship between the monarch and the populace, Voltaire said:

A minister is excusable for the evil he may do when the helm of the government is forced into his hands by storms of state; but when there is a calm, he is answerable for all the good he does not do. Mazarin did good to no one but himself and those related to him; of the eight years of absolute and undisturbed authority which he enjoyed, from his last return till the day of his death, not one was distinguished by any honorable or useful establishment; for the college of the four nations was erected only in consequence of his last will. He managed the finances like a steward whose master is immersed in debt.

The king would sometimes ask Fouquet for money, who used to answer: “Sire, there is none in your majesty’s coffers, but my lord cardinal can lend you some.” Mazarin was worth about two hundred millions, according to the present value of money. It is said, in several memoirs, that he acquired a great part of his wealth by means which were beneath the dignity of his post; and that he obliged those who fitted out privateers to allow him a share in the profits of their cruises; this has never been proved; but the Dutch suspected him of something of this nature, a suspicion they could never have entertained of his predecessor, Cardinal Richelieu.

We may judge of a man’s character by the nature of his undertakings. We may safely affirm that Richelieu’s soul was full of pride and revenge; that Mazarin was prudent, supple, and avaricious; but to know how far a minister is a man of understanding, we must either have frequently heard him discourse, or have read what he has written. That which we every day see among courtiers frequently happens among statesmen. He who has the greatest talents often fails, while he who is of a more patient, resolute, supple, and equable disposition succeeds.

In reading Mazarin’s letters, and Cardinal de Retz’s memoirs, we may easily perceive de Retz to have been the superior genius; nevertheless, the former attained the summit of power, and the latter was banished. In a word, it is a certain truth, that, to be a powerful minister, little more is required than a middling understanding, good sense, and fortune; but, to be a good minister, the prevailing passion of the soul must be a love for the public good; and he is the greatest statesman who leaves behind him the noblest works of public utility.

Cardinal Mazarin was a bad man. He was regent while Louis XIV was a child. The point that Voltaire is making here is that for a leader to be effective, he must care about the public. If that quality is not present, the kingdom is at risk, no matter how intelligent the minister or monarch. Note how this contrasts with what Scott Alexander claims that reactionaries believe:

Such a formulation need not depend on the monarch’s altruism: witness the parable of Fnargl. A truly self-interested monarch, if sufficiently secure, would funnel off a small portion of taxes to himself, but otherwise do everything possible to make his country rich and peaceful.

The problem is rarely a self-interested monarch, and when the monarch is truly self-interested, the population may indeed suffer, or at the very least be on its own. The thing is that truly self-interested monarchs, who cared little for the people, were so rare. In France after 1600, the most notable example was Cardinal Mazarin, and he wasn’t even a monarch, but a de facto ruler while Louis XIV was a young boy and his mother was regent. Contrary to what Alexander says, a truly self-interested monarch may indeed not do everything possible to make his country rich and powerful. He may, but he may not. It’s probably in his self-interest to do so, as the parable of Fnargl argues, but he may fail to do it anyway. Luckily, such negligent monarchs are historically rare, especially in the most important countries like France, Austria, and the most prominent German states.

When a country has a solid cultural and/or ethnic identity, it becomes easy for the monarch to love the people. In our modern, multicultural, individualistic, atomized, capitalistic, short-sighted society, it is hard for us to imagine a person who genuinely cares about his people, when offered the temptation of power without accountability. But, for instance, to the monarchs of the Habsburg line, it must have been difficult for them to imagine anything else. Same for the French monarchs. How could someone raised in the French court not know anything but France? The pride of Frenchmen for their country is legendary. For a contemporary monarchy to work, the monarch would need a similar level of cultural identification with his people.

Voltaire, who was one of the best-educated men of his age and among the most impressive Renaissance writers, thankfully lowers the number of variables to worry about when trying to optimize for a good monarch. A good monarch, historically speaking, does not need to be exceptionally brilliant, or trustworthy, or have unique talents—though these certainly don’t hurt—he needs to care about his people. If this quality is present, the benefits of environment, that is, excellent upbringing, government, and advisors, should do the rest. Civil servants can be selected via competency tests which select for intelligence. That is all that is needed.

Returning to Alexander’s critique, he says:

But some of my smarter readers may notice that “your power can only be removed by killing you” does not actually make you more secure. It just makes security a lot more important than if insecurity meant you’d be voted out and forced to retire to your country villa.

It doesn’t make you more secure, but it certainly lowers your time preference, since the government is the property of your family. Long and thorough arguments to this effect can be found in Democracy: the God That Failed by Hans Hermann-Hoppe. It’s not radically more important than any ruler trying to avoid assassination, because if you are assassinated, your eldest son (or depending on the laws, daughter) inherits the throne. It does not make you radically less secure than a democratic President, as Alexander is implying.

It does make security more important, but miraculously, most monarchs throughout history managed to avoid being assassinated. Alexander goes on to imply that the life of a monarch is a precarious one, with assassins around every corner, but thorough study of the lineages of European monarchs shows how rare regicide really is. Since I know firsthand that Alexander has a fairly deep knowledge of European history, I find it hard to believe that he really thinks typical monarchies are like this:

Actual monarchies are less like the Reactionaries’ idealized view in which revolt is unthinkable, and more like the Greek story of Damocles – in which a courtier remarks how nice it must be to be the king, and the king forces him to sit on the throne with a sword suspended above his head by a single thread. The king’s lesson – that monarchs are well aware of how tenuous their survival is – is one Reactionaries would do well to learn.

If a monarch’s survival is tenuous, how come only one out of the 50 Habsburg monarchs we reviewed were assassinated? That’s a prior of 2%. The prior for U.S. Presidents being assassinated is 9%. Must be all that oppression the Archdukes were up to, breaking the spirits of potential assassins before they even pick up a knife. (Sarcasm.)

Of course, the heir presumptive to the Austrian throne, Franz Ferdinand, was assassinated in 1914, kicking off World War I, so that brings us up to a prior of roughly 4%, if you like. The point is that the difference between democracy and monarchy here isn’t very statistically significant. I would be willing to bet that 2-10% of all really important leaders are assassinated, and that’s there little that can be done about it, aside from making them live in a bulletproof bubble.

The idea of an Austrian emperor forcing a subject to sit under a sword of Democles is utterly ridiculous. Anyone who thinks that would be in character for any of these men has not read anything about how they lived. Franz Joseph I, for instance, was beloved among his people, though he was plagued by nationalism and had to put down the Revolutions of 1848.

In his FAQ, Alexander compares monarchs in general to Kim Jong Il, or Oriental despots like Zhang Xianzhong, who murdered millions of people. But was Franz Joseph I anything like Kim Jong Il? How about Joseph II, called “the Musical King” for his patronage of classical music, which included patronage of Beethoven? Perhaps the monster Louis XIV, who took France from being a rural backwater into a unified kingdom and superpower of the time? Or Frederick the Great, whose flute compositions, which he performed, play on classic music radio stations today? To compare them to mass murderers and psychopaths is a profound insult to these great men.

Alexander’s strategy in his FAQ is to cherry-pick the worst possible examples of monarchy; the rise of Elizabeth to the throne, the evil of the leftist brigand Zhang Xianzhong, the brutality of Ivan the Terrible, then pretend these are typical. To those with little knowledge of history outside of America post-World War II, they might assume that Alexander’s examples are typical and take him at his word. But these are profoundly misleading examples, completely antithetical to the historical record of Continental Europe from the Renaissance onwards.

I could just as easily cherry-pick elected officials who worked great havoc—Adolf Hitler’s party was given great gains through democratic means, as was Ahmed Sékou Touré, who murdered 250,000 Guineans in extra-judicial killings. Africa is filled with dysfunctional so-called “democracies,” (as they are often called) which truly are democracies. Demotists use the “No True Scotsman” fallacy to attempt to dismiss the failures of African democracies, saying they are not true democracies, because of voter fraud or intimidation. These are just excuses, however, because one can always come up with an artificially high standard of democracy that African states do not meet, and even if there were no voter fraud or intimidation, the victory of certain candidates would cause tribal chaos regardless.

Instead of literally murdering one another in democratic conflict, as Africans do, Europeans take the more civilized route of calling each other names on talk shows and spending millions of dollars sending out junk mail and sending agents door to door. From the reactionary point of view, this constant agitation embodies political instability. The justification for this wasted energy rests primarily upon a pithy Churchill quote, offered without substantiation.

To continue making my point about the stability of monarchy, I will now review another royal line, the Hohenzollerns, who led Prussia from 1525 until the abolition of the monarchy in 1918. Note that this is particularly in response to what Scott calls an instability in succession among monarchs, rather than highlighting stability (or lack thereof) during their reign. (A separate topic.) Scott’s claim is that successions themselves are unstable. Keep that in mind as you read the below highlights, noting that each succession happened quite stably, and the same family ruled Prussia for 393 years. The stability, or lack thereof, during monarchical reigns will be reviewed in a future post.

Here is what the the Hohenzollern ancestral home looks like today:

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Leaders of the House of Hohenzollern, Brandenburg-Prussian Branch

Margraves of Brandenburg

  • 1415-1440 Frederick I — installed as Margrave of Brandenburg after the previous Margrave died under unusual circumstances (probably killed). Put down rebellious nobles and restored security. Continued feuding with nobility. His son Frederick II inherited his title without incident.
  • 1440 – 1471 Frederick II — some Berlin citizens revolted against him when he took city territory to build what became the Berlin Palace. He prevailed and the city’s rights were curtailed. Weary of an external struggle with the Duchy of Pomerania, he abdicated in 1471 in favor of his younger brother Albrecht.
  • 1471-1486 Albrecht III Achilles — Leading figure among German princes, especially resistant against self-government by towns. Defeated in military conflict by a princely alliance led by Count Palatine, Frederick I, and Louis IX, during a power struggle, but survived. Left behind “a considerable amount of treasure”. His son John inherited the government.
  • 1486-1499 John Cicero — typical Elector of Brandenburg, implemented an excise tax on beer which led to some disturbances. No evidence of a police state, just like every other Margrave listed here. Died of natural causes and passed his title to his eldest son without incident. (4th inheritance in a row without incident, I think I’m seeing a pattern here.)
  • 1499-1535 Joachim I Nestor — he “succeeded in restoring some degree of order through stern measures.” He also “improved the administration of justice, aided the development of commerce, and was sympathetic to the needs to the towns.” Used indulgences to cover his expenditures. Patron of learning who founded the University of Frankfurt. Died of natural causes and passed his title to his eldest son without incident. (That’s five seamless transitions and counting.)
  • 1535-1571 Joachim II Hector — given his inheritance on the condition that he sign a pact to remain Roman Catholic. Eventually converted to Lutheranism in 1555. Fought against the Ottomans over control of Hungary but was forced to retreat due to a lack of military experience. Built a palace in Köpenick. His son John George inherited the Margravate without complication.
  • 1571-1598 John George — “Faced with large debts accumulated during the reign of his father, John George instituted a grain tax which drove part of the peasantry into dependence on a nobility that was exempt from taxation.” For this little incident, we’ll give John George the label of bad ruler. We may be reactionaries, but we are not without compassion. Like every other Margrave here, his son succeeded him without fuss.
  • 1598-1608 Joachim III Frederick — Insufficient information. Passed it on to his son.
  • 1608-1619 John Sigismund — First Elector of Brandenburg to also serve as Duke of Prussia. From here on out, Brandenburg became the core of the Duchy of Prussia. For several years before becoming Duke, he had served as regent of Prussia on behalf of his “mentally-disturbed” relative Albert Frederick. (More evidence that losers and the mentally disturbed have their power taken from them and given to more competent relatives.) He converted from Lutheranism to Calvinism and equalized the rights of Catholics and Protestants in Prussia. The vast majority of his subjects, including his wife, remained Lutheran. At one point he planned a forcible conversion of the populace, where there was too much push-back (including from his wife) and it was never carried out. From then on, Prussia was a bi-confessional state.

That’s all the Margraves of Brandenburg. From then on, they were upgraded to Dukes of Prussia. At this point, let’s quote Scott Alexander from the Anti-Reactionary FAQ:

Let’s review how Elizabeth I came to the throne. Her grandfather, Henry VII, had won the 15th century Wars of the Roses, killing all other contenders and seizing the English throne. He survived several rebellions, including the Cornish Rebellion of 1497, and lived to pass the throne to Elizabeth’s father Henry VIII, who passed the throne to his son Edward VI, who after surviving the Prayer Book Rebellion and Kett’s Rebellion, named Elizabeth’s cousin Lady Jane Grey as heir to the throne. Elizabeth’s half-sister, Mary, raised an army, captured Lady Jane, and eventually executed her, seizing the throne for herself. An influential nobleman, Thomas Wyatt, raised another army trying to depose Mary and put Elizabeth on the throne. He was defeated and executed, and Elizabeth was thrown in the Tower of London as a traitor. Eventually Mary changed her mind and restored Elizabeth’s place on the line of succession before dying, but Elizabeth’s somethingth cousin, Mary Queen of Scots, also made a bid for the throne, got the support of the French, but was executed before she could do further damage.

So now we’ve been over 50 Austrian rulers and 10 Prussian rulers. None of their successions were as bloody and chaotic as what happened in England during the rise of Elizabeth. Not one. The fact is that the rise of Elizabeth, and English succession politics in general around that time, were uniquely messed up, even for the era. The reader who calls Alexander’s FAQ a “devastating” refutation of reactionary ideas does not know this, however. Most inhabitants of Anglosphere countries are far more familiar with the history of royalty in England than in Austria or Prussia, if they are familiar with the history at all, so they greatly underestimate the average stability of monarchy. As I mentioned before, I know from firsthand experience that Alexander knows plenty about the history of mainland Europe, so I wonder why he specifically chose Elizabeth as an example, when he probably knows all about the lineages I’ve outlined here. He also chose the Roman Emperors as another example, many of whom came to bloody ends, and China, which is legendary for bloody oriental despotism and wars. Why not focus on mainland Europe in the post-Renaissance era, where the vast majority of successful monarchies took place?

Contemporary monarchists such as myself are not proposing monarchies based on the ethics of ancient Rome, or the religious factionalism of old England, or the oriental despotism of China. We are proposing the restoration of monarchy among modern Europeans in modern European lands, and/or America. So, the history of Continental post-Renaissance monarchs seems like the closest model. I’m not sure whether the relative neglect of these monarchs in the Anti-Reactionary FAQ was intentional, but it sure is suspicious.

Let’s continue with the Dukes of Prussia, and include notes on the overall stability of their reign as well as any succession issues.

Dukes of Prussia

  • 1619–1640: George William I — “His reign was marked by ineffective governance during the Thirty Years’ War. He was the father of Frederick William, the “Great Elector”.”  The Thirty Years’ War was the greatest catastrophe of pre-Napoleonic Europe, and George William was a weak ruler, making matters worse. Clearly we will assign him the title of bad ruler. His poor rule was due to weakness–not despotism. Alexander does not note in his FAQ that poor leadership among monarchs is more frequently due to not enough authority, rather than too much. Think about that.
  • 1640–1688: Frederick William the Great Elector — Known as the “Great Elector,” Frederick William was as great a leader as his father was a bad one. An advocate of trade and domestic reform, Frederick William elevated Prussia from the ashes of the Thirty Years’ War and set it on a long-term course to being among the greatest powers in Europe. He would be fondly remembered for centuries to come. Prior to his rule, Prussia was essentially an uncivilized place, but after it, rose in technology, culture, education, trade, and military might. Frederick William had a religious policy characterized by tolerance in a context where surrounding states were ravaged by religious conflict. Frederick William was also an excellent military commander, and his rule began the era of Prussian military history. By 1678, he had raised an army of 40,000 soldiers.
  • 1688–1713: Frederick I — Son of Frederick William, Frederick I was Duke of Prussia until 1701, at which point he became elevated to King in Prussia. That is, he was granted the status of a King although Prussia itself was still a duchy rather than a Kingdom. (It’s complicated.) Known as a patron of the arts, Frederick I made a great deal of money lending out his troops as mercenaries in foreign wars. His grandson Frederick the Great said of him, “All in all, he was great in small matters, and small in great.”

That is the history from 1415 to 1713, almost two hundred years. Let’s pause and make judgments on these rulers, with the leisure of hindsight. We have 12 rulers, each ruling an average of 16 years. In the United States, that would be equivalent to four elections. The 2012 elections cost the country $7 billion in spending… multiply that by four, and that would be $28 billion. That’s quite a bit of opportunity cost, but not too much compared to the economy itself, or other expenditures like wars or entitlement spending. It does illustrate one of the most obvious expenses of democracy, however.

How many of these Prussian rulers rose to power based on Elizabethan intrigues? Zero. There were no unusual successions here. None.

How many of these rulers were bad rulers? It’s hard to say, based on our current standards and data. Not a lot of information on the earlier rulers was available, and Europe was quite feudal and brutal at the time. The most detailed book on Prussia in English, the 800-page tome Iron Kingdom, begins coverage in 1600. The only ruler who is prominently remembered poorly is George William I. If there are detailed English sources about the reigns of rulers prior to the Great Elector, I haven’t heard of them. Brandenburg was just a principality during the rule of most of these men, and they were said to have “meager [territorial] possessions”. Brandenburg was not nearly as big of a deal as Austria during the same time period. I am currently going through Germany in the Later Middle Ages: 1250-1500, but I haven’t finished it yet.

Because of a lack of translated historical records prior to 1619, let’s begin our assessment of the effectiveness of rule at that time. Between 1619 and 1713, there were three rulers, and one of them was weak. That puts our success rate for Prussian monarchy during this time at just 2/3. In terms of duration, the poor rule was for 21 years, 21/94 is 22%, or a success rate of 78%. I would argue that democracies have comparable ratios. When comparing the United States in the 19th-20th centuries (the default time period of historical analysis for Americans) and Prussia in the 18th century, we should also note that Europe was a more violent place overall, wrought with religious strife, and that is the background on which this leadership is all taking place. None of this is any excuse for the poor rule of George William, however.

After Frederick I, there were two more Kings in Prussia. In 1772 the Duchy of Prussia was elevated to a Kingdom, and the rulers finally became Kings of Prussia. From 1871 onwards, the German Empire was formed, and these became German Emperors, until the curtain fell in 1918. Here are the leaders:

Kings in Prussia

  • 1713–1740: Frederick William I — “Uncontrollably violent in temper, vulgar in speech and manner, scornful of education and culture, and so deeply pious that he considered theaters “temples of Satan.”…He made a fetish of cleanliness, washing and grooming himself many times each day.” However, “This royal neurotic was the most remarkable reformer of his dynasty….He was the real father of Prussian militarism and Prussian bureaucratic efficiency.” Wiki says: “His rule was absolutist and he was a firm autocrat. He practiced rigid economy, never started a war, and at his death there was a large surplus in the royal treasury (which was kept in the cellar of the royal palace).” On balance, he obviously was an important ruler, if something of a brute. The Western model of education is based on the Prussian model, and modern Western bureaucracies, when they work well, owe a debt to Prussian inspiration from this period. Iron Kingdom has the details.
  • 1740–1786: Frederick II — Frederick the Great was the Prussian ruler. Fitting his accomplishments into a few lines of notes would do injustice to his reign. In 1772 he was upgraded from “King in Prussia” to “King of Prussia”. He died childless and was succeeded by his nephew.

Kings of Prussia

  • Frederick William II (1786–1797) — Frederick William II was seen as “Pleasure-loving and indolent” and “the antithesis to his predecessor”. Prussia weakened during his reign, but he implemented “a series of measures for lightening the burdens of the people, reforming the oppressive French system of tax-collecting introduced by Frederick, and encouraging trade by the diminution of customs dues and the making of roads and canals. This gave the new king much popularity with the masses.” Since he was so popular with the masses, we won’t go so far as to call him a bad ruler, but we will look upon his reign with some misgivings. His rule does not seem appreciably better or worse than say, the Harding Administration. Near the end of his reign, Prussia increased its territories by a third from the Partition of Poland, its population growing from 5.5 to 8.7 million. (Source: Iron Kingdom.)
  • Frederick William III (1797–1840) — Near the start of his reign, from 1806-1814 Frederick William III had to deal with the disaster of Napoleon’s invasions. In 1806, Napoleon defeated Prussian forces and occupied Berlin until 1808. It wasn’t until 1814 that Napoleon was finally defeated. The wars left Europe exhausted. After the wars, however, there were extensive beneficial reforms. The economy was deregulated, the ground rules of rural society were redrawn, and the relationship between the state and civil society was changed. Reformist bureaucrats gained a new level of importance and were supported directly by their monarch.
  • Frederick William IV (1840–1861) — A conservative known as the “romanticist on the throne,” remembered for fabulous architecture projects and the completion of Cologne Cathedral. Toned down reactionary policies promoted by his father. When a Revolution broke out in 1848, instead of putting it down, he decided to put himself at the head of it, forming a liberal government, introducing a constitution, and even forming a popular assembly. The popular assembly was dissolved when he secured his position, however, and he wanted to reestablish Holy Roman Empire traditions in Germany, pushing back against pan-German nationalistic sentiments.

German Emperors

  • William I (1861–1888) — Kaiser Wilhelm I was Emperor while Otto von Bismarck was Chancellor, and was overshadowed by him. Presided over the greatest period of economic expansion in German history up until that point, however Scott Alexander questions the reactionary credentials of the German Empire, so I’ll leave the summary at that.
  • Frederick III (1888) — Emperor for only a few months.
  • William II (1888–1918) — Kaiser Wilhelm II, the last German Emperor, ruled during a period of great economic growth, like his immediate predecessors. Had the bad habit of saying bombastic things without screening them with his advisors first, which made him a lame duck by 1908. Lost power at the conclusion of WWI and went into exile.

That’s it for Prussia. No Elizabeth-style transitions anywhere in there. Instead, we have a clean, unbroken line of successions from 1415-1918, more than five hundred years. How anyone can argue that this system is insecure or unstable is beyond me. 20 rulers, 503 years, each ruling an average of 26 years. That’s a lot of stable succession and long average reigns which presided over an enormous amount of military, cultural, economic, and social activity. The ratio between the volume of beneficial civilizational activity and the merely 20 men that ruled over it is enormous. Few American presidents can take credit for anything comparable.

Reading Iron Kingdom and examining the history of Prussia in detail, it’s difficult not to consider monarchy as a viable form of government (for Europeans) in any era. Prussia went from a tiny city-state to the core of one of the world’s foremost powers. During the 43 years of its existence, the German Empire had more Nobel Prize winners than Britain, France, Russia and the United States combined. Its government was a federal monarchy, which you can verify on la Wik’. Though the power of the emperors waned during the late 19th century, the numerous rulers prior to that period did in fact take a hands-on role in ruling their Kingdom. That’s monarchy for you.

Adding the 20 Prussian rulers together with the 50 Austrian rulers, we now have an example of 70 rulers, 65 of which:

  1. Made independent policy decisions with the help of their advisors throughout their entire reign.
  2. Were cognitively capable of ruling and did so.
  3. Played a crucial role in governmental affairs.
  4. Had an intimate familiarity with the national economy and military, and made decisions accordingly.
  5. Passed on the government in a smooth fashion to their lawful heir, to the best of their ability.

No Elizabeth, no Ivan the Terrible, no Roman Emperors facing bloody ends. Only 21 years of Prussian history was shaped by a truly incompetent ruler, and that was all the way back in 1619-1640, a mere 21 years out of 500. That’s 4.2%. If we add the 10 years of Joachim III Frederick, for which we have insufficient information, that makes 31, or just 6.2%. Add in a few years here and there for good measure, and we maybe have 10%, or 50 years of ineffective governance. Is this not comparable to the success rate of liberal democracies? Were the domestic errors of bad monarchs in Austria or Prussia even vaguely comparable to the human cost of democracies in places like Africa today? Were “bad” monarchs in Austria or Prussia any worse than bad Presidents in the United States?

If anyone thinks my appraisal is wide off the mark, please let me know. Our email address is right in the sidebar. I’ve read plenty about Prussia, Austria, and world history in general. It’s quite possible that’s not enough, and I’m missing something, but after so many hundreds of hours of reading about Prussian history you eventually become confident that monarchy worked for them and can probably work for other human groups in different times and places, including the present. In a future post I will address the problem of taking traditional monarchies and adapting them to the circumstances of the modern world. The primary difference between then and now which is relevant to monarchy is that the present world is dominated by liberal democracies which could—maybe, but maybe not—be actively hostile to newly formed monarchies. That’s the biggest stumbling block, not monarchy being “obsolete” in some deeper psychosocial or geopolitical sense.

Are we going to stop there? No, I’m afraid. The in-built bias that children raised in a modern liberal democracy have against monarchy is great, especially in America, so I will need to review more lineages to continue making my point. The weight of confirmation bias against monarchy is immense, and to counteract it requires a great deal of contrary information. It took me several years of reading European history and politics in detail before I even began to consider it seriously. I can’t put those years of reading into a single blog post, but I can do my best to provide an overview. There is no substitute—after 13 years of public schooling and 4 years of college inundating us with the supposed merits of liberal democracy like a jackhammer, it’s going to take more than an hour or two of thinking for us to consider the classical alternatives with a clear mind.

To rub it in more, here’s a paragraph from the Anti-Reactionary FAQ:

Actual monarchies are less like the Reactionaries’ idealized view in which revolt is unthinkable, and more like the Greek story of Damocles – in which a courtier remarks how nice it must be to be the king, and the king forces him to sit on the throne with a sword suspended above his head by a single thread. The king’s lesson – that monarchs are well aware of how tenuous their survival is – is one Reactionaries would do well to learn.

No, we would not do well to learn it. I just reviewed 50 Austrian monarchs and 20 Prussian monarchs, their positions weren’t that tenuous. In fact, the Austrian monarchs were all the same lineage—the Habsburgs—and the Prussian monarchs were all the same lineage—the Hohenzollerns. Even when Albrecht III Achilles was defeated by other princes in 1460, he kept his position as Prince-elector and his dynasty continued. It wasn’t until the apocalypse of World War I that these lineages were cut short. It took the full military might of Great Britain, Russia, and France to stop them.

The next monarchy I’m going to review (briefly) is France, specifically the Bourbon dynasty. Five monarchs, whose reigns are among the most impressive in the history of Western civilization, and by extension human civilization in general. Here’s their dynastic portrait, complete with a child-on-a-leash:

Nicolas_de_Largillière_003

Their architectural legacy, of course, was the greatest palace ever built, Versailles:

Chateau_de_Versailles_1668_Pierre_Patel

I’ll spare you the summaries this time, the bottom line is this: smooth successions, impressive reigns, no mass murders. 203 years.

The issue of what caused the French Revolution, and whether it was justified or not (I’m sure you can predict my position) is a large one, and will be saved for a future post. I just list these five monarchs to add them to the pile, another four that demonstrated stability up until the last one. I’ll go ahead and put Louis XVI in the “bad monarch” pile due to his indecisiveness and lack of popularity which contributed to the French Revolution.

So, in total, we now have 75 monarchs. Austria had five bad ones, Prussia had two, and France had one. 8 bad applies out of 75.

This post is pushing 10,000 words, so I’ll leave it here for now. The takeaway is that if you want to understand monarchy, you’ll have to read about it. What your second grade teacher told you about King George and the American Revolution is not enough, and Yvain’s pithy posts are not enough either. Here are three books I recommend, each corresponding to the dynastic periods overviewed above:

The next Monarchy FAQ post will address the question, “Are traditional monarchies more free?”

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Domine, Salvum Fac Regem.