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PaperclipPerfector  7mo ago (text post)   26783 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 22, 2024

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I completely agree. All political radicals face this issue, no communist thinks they’d be a manual laborer on the collective farm, they think they’d be a playwright in good standing or an academic or on the politburo.

But I also think you need to look at our current level of economic development. If a Western country became an absolute monarchy tomorrow there wouldn't be millions of peasants because farmwork has been largely automated; it would just look like a modern country that is an absolute dictatorship, and there are many examples of those.

All political radicals face this issue, no communist thinks they’d be a manual laborer on the collective farm, they think they’d be a playwright in good standing or an academic or on the politburo.

Also, as a separate point, as a monarchist/feudalist, I get this sort of critique sent my way quite often: "you only support that because you want to be king/you think you'd be a lord/etc." (despite my protestations to the contrary). But I also end up getting a sort of reverse of it, where I'm told I should think that way.

Specifically, whenever I ask how to go about being politically active — "think globally, act locally," "be the change you want to see…" and all that — as a monarchist in modern America, and on multiple occasions, I've had people respond that the only way to be an active monarchist is to try to personally become king, and if you're not a would-be king, you should do nothing at all. (This, for one, ignores that no man* has ever won a crown for himself purely through his personal actions alone; every such has had plenty of loyal supporters essential to the effort.)

I’m sympathetic to monarchism (I mean I live in a monarchy, and I don’t think it would be a worse place if the king had much more power). I do think it’s a failure state to be aware of, though.

I do think it’s a failure state to be aware of, though.

Sure.

But then, how do you suppose an American monarchist like me might go about becoming more politically active locally, particularly while keeping in mind and avoiding said failure state?

(I mean I live in a monarchy, and I don’t think it would be a worse place if the king had much more power)

By this do you mean it wouldn't be negative for the country as a whole going forward if the king had more power, or that it would be unlikely to impact your life negatively for as long as you live there?

Old soc.history.what-if newsgroup had a rather notorious poster who believed that we should reinstate feudalism and was also perfectly OK with the idea that under feudalism he'd be an equivalent of a peasant.

Or so he claimed when there was no chance of it happening.

I completely agree. All political radicals face this issue, no communist thinks they’d be a manual laborer on the collective farm, they think they’d be a playwright in good renown or an academic or on the politburo.

I keep telling people that my ideal regime — or any near it — would have me executed for being a useless parasite. And yet…

I wouldn't take input on the way society should be organized from someone who's suicidally depressed for the same reason I wouldn't take any from those who place themselves at the apex of the proposed pyramid - clear conflict of interests with not only myself but the majority.

Actual historical monarchies had tons of useless parasites supported by the state, either directly or through corruption.

Given how much of the population was involved in agriculture pre-Industrial Revolution and how little economic surplus above subsistence their was to redistribute, I'd question that. And there's definitely a difference between an "idle courtier" and your average modern welfare recipient.

Idle courtiers- and military reserves who in practice just steal the budget- took up a much larger fraction of a state’s resources in 1700 than the welfare class does today, unless you’re counting pensioners. And, of course, today’s monarchies spend gobs on welfare compared to their normal dictatorship neighbors, or to democracies.

military reserves who in practice just steal the budget

Only until there's an actual conflict.

I'm reminded of this 2020 Los Angeles Times piece: "California once had mobile hospitals and a ventilator stockpile. But it dismantled them"

In 2006, citing the threat of avian flu, then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger announced the state would invest hundreds of millions of dollars in a powerful set of medical weapons to deploy in the case of large-scale emergencies and natural disasters such as earthquakes, fires and pandemics.

“In light of the pandemic flu risk, it is absolutely a critical investment,” he told a news conference. “I’m not willing to gamble with the people’s safety.”

The state, flush with tax revenue, soon sank more than $200 million into the mobile hospital program and a related Health Surge Capacity Initiative to stockpile medicines and medical gear for use in outbreaks of infectious disease, according to former emergency management officials and state budget records.

But the ambitious effort, which would have been vital as the state confronts the new coronavirus today, hit a wall: a brutal recession, a free fall in state revenues — and in 2011, the administration of a fiscally minded Democratic governor, Jerry Brown, who came into office facing a $26-billion deficit.

And so, that year, the state cut off the money to store and maintain the stockpile of supplies and the mobile hospitals. The hospitals were defunded before they’d ever been used.

Much of the medical equipment — including the ventilators, critical life-saving tools that are in short supply in the current pandemic — was given to local hospitals and health agencies, former health officials said. But the equipment was donated without any funding to maintain them. The respirators were allowed to expire without being replaced.

Together, these two programs would have positioned California to more rapidly respond as its COVID-19 cases exploded. The annual savings for eliminating both programs? No more than $5.8 million per year, according to state budget records, a tiny fraction of the 2011 budget, which totaled $129 billion.

Better to have and not need, than need and not have, after all.

And as for idle courtiers, they may have been individually of little use, but they generally came from accomplished families; thus, if nothing else, they represented a reserve of quality genes, in a way a modern welfare bum most certainly does not.

And, of course, today’s monarchies spend gobs on welfare

Which monarchies are you thinking of here? Are you counting the monarchies-in-name-only that are democracies plus a powerless figurehead? Or are you talking about Middle East petro-states distributing shares of oil revenues to the citizenry, much as we do here in Alaska via the Permanent Fund Dividend?

Neither Bhutan nor Eswatini seem to be particularly generous welfare states — and is there anyone in Monaco poor enough to need one?

I would hope that my ideal regime would help to make me (and you) not a useless parasite. But perhaps that just means you have more self-awareness than me!

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