As the modern West is slowly and grindingly beginning an Imperial Transition from Republic, now is a good time to concern ourselves with how best to build a Monarchy
1. Elective monarchies can generate the same kind of intrigue and instability as republics, especially if all people may vote for the next titleholder. Succession should be hereditary by default, and should of course follow the male line. The eldest son specifically would be trained for leadership from birth while others can be given smaller estates, or join the military. Just like in the past, incompetent heirs can be disinherited, incompetent monarchs can be removed through various methods or forced to abdicate.
2. It is a fundamental misconception that the nobility is a small oligarchy consisting of a few dozen titleholders and that their younger sons become plebeians. Nobility is a social class that encompasses between 0,1% and 2% of the population depending on country, and up to 15% in some parts of Poland and Hungary. Most nobles are untitled. All male-line descendants of a nobleman are part of his family and noble, even if they do not have a title. Historically, the nobility provided professional officers and high-level bureaucrats, but also scientists and priests. Merchants ascended to the nobility by swapping their businesses for land and sending their sons to the military. IF there are elections and IF there is a House of Commons, they should surely be restricted to the nobility. The King, or perhaps individual lords, should be able to ennoble commoners as a reward, with or without granting them small estates. Most people will never come close to obtaining a title when there is a vacancy, but it should be perfectly normal for a military veteran, or a beloved local administrator, to be raised to nobility and given a coat of arms and a farm with 50 or so peasants.
1] the line is followed in this model, and whether you accept only male heirs or are gender neutral is left ambiguous because I'm not sure which is best. Also, who it is that does the voting is also left ambiguous by intent. Only married men or only couples with children are good options there. A significant flaw with the unelective model is the granting of 'smaller estates' to other members of the family. Maintaining stability in a monarchy requires the titles not balloon out of proportion over time.
2] Keeping the nobility smaller in number promotes stability over time. In an ideal world, there are fewer high nobility than Dunbars number. In the 22nd century there'll be a larger entrepreneur class than in the 15th. It also prevents administrative bloat. The purpose of the nobility is regional direct governance, not the provision of merchants or scientists. The disfavored children shall surely join the armed forces or become merchants or scientists, but there's no reason to ennoble them for that purpose.
The goal is a new system that builds on the benefits of capitalism and monarchy rather than create a system identical to historical systems with the same flaws.
1. I am strictly against gender-neutral inheritance, because noble families go through the male line, and because I believe in gender complementarianism in which the optimal model is to have a King Regnant and a Queen Consort, not the other way around. As for minor estates: this is not mandatory in any way, but I think it should be clear that whenever an estate is vacant because it was confiscated from an inept baron, the second or third son of the King should be one of the candidates to get it. As for voting: primogeniture should be the norm because this is what makes the hereditary principle stable and complete. Exceptions are possible, but they should be exceptions. The sons of a King should not normally compete over who should be the next King, it is even worse than having unrelated politicians compete over who becomes the next President, because the latter at least doesn't result in a family breaking apart. There's a reason why all elective monarchies eventually became de facto and finally de jure hereditary.
2. The class of titleholders can be defined as a narrower "peerage" as in the UK then, but their descendants (as long as they descend in the male line, legitimately) should not sink to the level of an ordinary commoner, they should be entitled to the family name and coat of arms, to delineate the social class of nobility which is never limited to titleholders themselves. Separating the nobility into a narrow Peerage and a wider Gentry that consists of the extended families of Peers and families ennobled without a title is very common. Japan has kazoku and samurai. Spain has grandees, ordinary titleholders and hidalgos. Even in Poland, where titles were never granted, nobles who had actual political power were called "magnates" unofficially but all other nobles were still considered noble.
I think that primogeniture will be the norm in practice, even in a system where all male siblings are available candidates. That said, the inducing competition between siblings in terms of honor and skills in leadership will create an environment where better leaders will rise to the top. The king can be sure that one of his kids shall be the next king, but placing the siblings in competition helps ensure a lifetime of good behavior between them. If one is caught murdering his brothers the King (or high council in this case) will disinherit the princeling.
I suspect that there will be some type of peerage that develops, but that they'll take the form of Knights of the nobility. Which is their personal militias and leaders. Still, I suspect that those titles will not be heritable. There's no need to add another level of complexity.
In either case, I'm open to proposals, but don't see how those systems would function well in a high-tech monarchy. Most modern monarchies (vietnam, thailand, oman) don't have a broad peerage as it isn't necessary for governance.
Competition reduces stability and makes outcomes worse in the long term. Remember, the whole point of monarchy is that the heir is clear from the beginning, and that he has to be prepared for the job from birth.
Why should the hereditary principle be arbitrarily limited? Every pre-Enlightenment society was divided into a caste system, and there was an intermediate upper caste between magnates and the commonality. It's not complex to say that people who are granted a title or a high honour by the King, or achieve a high office, are also granted a coat of arms and become the founders of a noble family with all of their male-line descendants belonging to it. The ordinary noble may only have minor privileges such as a place in the order of precedence and a special honorific that commoners have to use when addressing him, but he should still have some kind of status.
Most modern European monarchies have some sort of nobility system, it's just that due to the influence of leftist governments who want to phase it out over time, no new titles or only non-hereditary titles are granted.
It worked like this for centuries until the "Enlightened" came in and tried to change things for the sake of change. It worked well, as long as the nobility remained broadly hereditary and belonged to the family, not a single individual, on the one hand, and was periodically renewed by new ennoblements on the other hand.
And as for how it would work under a high-tech monarchy? Well, in 1200 the King's most loyal knight, or the merchant who gave him money in times of need, was ennobled. In 2200, it will be the person who creates and programs a new AI to assist the government, genetically engineers a new breed of supersoldiers or builds the first base on a newly colonised planet. In the end, regardless of whether it's a title with 5000 hectares and an equal number "souls" or just a fancy new surname and the right to an extra slice at government-funded pizza parties, it's a very traditional and very Right-wing way of saying "thank you" to a person or family that served the country.
Controlled competition improves stability. Who better to keep you and your siblings in line than your own father? Competition is the basis for capital flow in functional systems. Guaranteed systems breed incompetence and laziness over a few generations. Institute competition, keep it controlled.
Why are you so insistent on ennobling random citizens? if they don't serve a purpose in the hierarchy, why do they need a title? In the proposed system above, titles come with a lot of responsibilities and restrictions. I'd imagine most citizens wouldn't want titles in the first place. If you just want a family crest, no one is stopping you from making one.
We need to synthesize monarchy, capitalism, materialism, and mysticism in the next century or two. We need to do it in governance, philosophy, science and religion. The fact that things were like this for centuries several hundred years ago makes it a good starting point, but we can't simply roll back the clock. We need new ideas that are effective.
I’m pretty sure this competition would lead to insurrections and rebellion at a much higher rate than a system where the heir is known from birth and all the siblings are raised to know their place.
I think the real problem is transcendent evil. The binaries of good and evil cannot be synthesized. The resolution is that we do not live in a transcendent reality. Rather, we live in an emanation where the binaries of sympathy and cooperation are easily synthesized. The Cosmos is expanding! Think of it!
“He talks for six hours, the convention is listless—“
“Bright young man”
“YO, who the F is this?”
In all seriousness, Copernican, this is a spectacular concept, and it arrived at a providential time for me personally.
I’ve been writing fantasy/scifi stories set in a far-future Earth but struggled when it came to the matter of government. I wanted to build a monarchy and feudal system, to lend to the chivalric and mythic themes— but how would that work, I wondered, with the Internet and other tech we have developed (and will, in the setting) and the history we have experienced?
Well, long story short, you’ve given me a fabulous sandbox to work with! It isn’t utopian, but that’s impossible without Heaven. Even if it was, that’d remove conflict from the story and make things boring; instead, it isolates conflict. It facilitates duels and intrigues, and guilds and cottage industries, and all the best stuff. The idealistic and the practical to become one and the same once again.
I gotta ask personally: Do I have your permission to draw from/build on these concepts in my stories?
Of course, you have permission! I share ideas in the hopes that other people will find them useful. I'm happy I could help.
Let me know when you publish your book and I'll be excited to review it. I'm chewing on a similar concept. I want something new in fiction that's somewhat down-to-earth but open to new interpretations of identity and culture. I'd love to read fiction/science fiction in a setting based on the system of governance proposed above.
Wonderful! Many thanks. And my first book’s an anthology of shorter stories set in this universe that I’m publishing on my own blog. The first two are there for all to enjoy!
What is the system for splitting or merging noble territories to account for dramatic population changes? A small town under a wise count may balloon into a major city in a few generations, requiring barons and a multitude of baronets, or the opposite may occur, such as when the population of Venice collapsed due to the rise of the railroads across Europe, and the emergence of transatlantic trade superseding transmediterranean trade.
This mechanism, whatever it is, needs to be somehow insulated from the flow of ambulatory voting.
I'm not sure. I'd imagine that this is a "The king has to deal with it" type of situation. It's why I prefer monarchies... because you can have some one in charge capable of making calls like that. Probably involves moving some nobles around rather than removing or creating new titles.
We are a feudal system. The legal class are already our overlords. Remember a prosecutor and a judge can basically do whatever they want and owe very little explanation.
This is something I have thought about extensively. There will always be a de-facto aristocracy/oligarchy, however an elite of opportunity, "we rule because we can", is very different from an elite of duty, "We rule because we must". The difference is entirely the mentality of the elite, but it makes all the difference in terms of the QoL of the citizens.
That's not entirely unreasonable... basically what I'm supporting. Just without most of that silly 'voting' nonsense. Though it does appear that individuals are capable of rallying mass-support even in the West at this time for proposed monarchic systems. See Lord Miles (article below): https://alwaysthehorizon.substack.com/p/fuck-it-lets-invade-haiti-lord-miles?r=43z8s4
You'll never separate one from the other as long as election cycles exist. That's why multi-generational investment from the leadership of a nation/kingdom is needed.
This is what I'm thinking at the largest scale. Beyond individual kingdoms you'd have an Emperor... and in all likelihood that Emperor will end up being an AI system at this rate.
I have comments on this post.
1. Elective monarchies can generate the same kind of intrigue and instability as republics, especially if all people may vote for the next titleholder. Succession should be hereditary by default, and should of course follow the male line. The eldest son specifically would be trained for leadership from birth while others can be given smaller estates, or join the military. Just like in the past, incompetent heirs can be disinherited, incompetent monarchs can be removed through various methods or forced to abdicate.
2. It is a fundamental misconception that the nobility is a small oligarchy consisting of a few dozen titleholders and that their younger sons become plebeians. Nobility is a social class that encompasses between 0,1% and 2% of the population depending on country, and up to 15% in some parts of Poland and Hungary. Most nobles are untitled. All male-line descendants of a nobleman are part of his family and noble, even if they do not have a title. Historically, the nobility provided professional officers and high-level bureaucrats, but also scientists and priests. Merchants ascended to the nobility by swapping their businesses for land and sending their sons to the military. IF there are elections and IF there is a House of Commons, they should surely be restricted to the nobility. The King, or perhaps individual lords, should be able to ennoble commoners as a reward, with or without granting them small estates. Most people will never come close to obtaining a title when there is a vacancy, but it should be perfectly normal for a military veteran, or a beloved local administrator, to be raised to nobility and given a coat of arms and a farm with 50 or so peasants.
1] the line is followed in this model, and whether you accept only male heirs or are gender neutral is left ambiguous because I'm not sure which is best. Also, who it is that does the voting is also left ambiguous by intent. Only married men or only couples with children are good options there. A significant flaw with the unelective model is the granting of 'smaller estates' to other members of the family. Maintaining stability in a monarchy requires the titles not balloon out of proportion over time.
2] Keeping the nobility smaller in number promotes stability over time. In an ideal world, there are fewer high nobility than Dunbars number. In the 22nd century there'll be a larger entrepreneur class than in the 15th. It also prevents administrative bloat. The purpose of the nobility is regional direct governance, not the provision of merchants or scientists. The disfavored children shall surely join the armed forces or become merchants or scientists, but there's no reason to ennoble them for that purpose.
The goal is a new system that builds on the benefits of capitalism and monarchy rather than create a system identical to historical systems with the same flaws.
1. I am strictly against gender-neutral inheritance, because noble families go through the male line, and because I believe in gender complementarianism in which the optimal model is to have a King Regnant and a Queen Consort, not the other way around. As for minor estates: this is not mandatory in any way, but I think it should be clear that whenever an estate is vacant because it was confiscated from an inept baron, the second or third son of the King should be one of the candidates to get it. As for voting: primogeniture should be the norm because this is what makes the hereditary principle stable and complete. Exceptions are possible, but they should be exceptions. The sons of a King should not normally compete over who should be the next King, it is even worse than having unrelated politicians compete over who becomes the next President, because the latter at least doesn't result in a family breaking apart. There's a reason why all elective monarchies eventually became de facto and finally de jure hereditary.
2. The class of titleholders can be defined as a narrower "peerage" as in the UK then, but their descendants (as long as they descend in the male line, legitimately) should not sink to the level of an ordinary commoner, they should be entitled to the family name and coat of arms, to delineate the social class of nobility which is never limited to titleholders themselves. Separating the nobility into a narrow Peerage and a wider Gentry that consists of the extended families of Peers and families ennobled without a title is very common. Japan has kazoku and samurai. Spain has grandees, ordinary titleholders and hidalgos. Even in Poland, where titles were never granted, nobles who had actual political power were called "magnates" unofficially but all other nobles were still considered noble.
I think that primogeniture will be the norm in practice, even in a system where all male siblings are available candidates. That said, the inducing competition between siblings in terms of honor and skills in leadership will create an environment where better leaders will rise to the top. The king can be sure that one of his kids shall be the next king, but placing the siblings in competition helps ensure a lifetime of good behavior between them. If one is caught murdering his brothers the King (or high council in this case) will disinherit the princeling.
I suspect that there will be some type of peerage that develops, but that they'll take the form of Knights of the nobility. Which is their personal militias and leaders. Still, I suspect that those titles will not be heritable. There's no need to add another level of complexity.
In either case, I'm open to proposals, but don't see how those systems would function well in a high-tech monarchy. Most modern monarchies (vietnam, thailand, oman) don't have a broad peerage as it isn't necessary for governance.
Competition reduces stability and makes outcomes worse in the long term. Remember, the whole point of monarchy is that the heir is clear from the beginning, and that he has to be prepared for the job from birth.
Why should the hereditary principle be arbitrarily limited? Every pre-Enlightenment society was divided into a caste system, and there was an intermediate upper caste between magnates and the commonality. It's not complex to say that people who are granted a title or a high honour by the King, or achieve a high office, are also granted a coat of arms and become the founders of a noble family with all of their male-line descendants belonging to it. The ordinary noble may only have minor privileges such as a place in the order of precedence and a special honorific that commoners have to use when addressing him, but he should still have some kind of status.
Most modern European monarchies have some sort of nobility system, it's just that due to the influence of leftist governments who want to phase it out over time, no new titles or only non-hereditary titles are granted.
It worked like this for centuries until the "Enlightened" came in and tried to change things for the sake of change. It worked well, as long as the nobility remained broadly hereditary and belonged to the family, not a single individual, on the one hand, and was periodically renewed by new ennoblements on the other hand.
And as for how it would work under a high-tech monarchy? Well, in 1200 the King's most loyal knight, or the merchant who gave him money in times of need, was ennobled. In 2200, it will be the person who creates and programs a new AI to assist the government, genetically engineers a new breed of supersoldiers or builds the first base on a newly colonised planet. In the end, regardless of whether it's a title with 5000 hectares and an equal number "souls" or just a fancy new surname and the right to an extra slice at government-funded pizza parties, it's a very traditional and very Right-wing way of saying "thank you" to a person or family that served the country.
Controlled competition improves stability. Who better to keep you and your siblings in line than your own father? Competition is the basis for capital flow in functional systems. Guaranteed systems breed incompetence and laziness over a few generations. Institute competition, keep it controlled.
Why are you so insistent on ennobling random citizens? if they don't serve a purpose in the hierarchy, why do they need a title? In the proposed system above, titles come with a lot of responsibilities and restrictions. I'd imagine most citizens wouldn't want titles in the first place. If you just want a family crest, no one is stopping you from making one.
We need to synthesize monarchy, capitalism, materialism, and mysticism in the next century or two. We need to do it in governance, philosophy, science and religion. The fact that things were like this for centuries several hundred years ago makes it a good starting point, but we can't simply roll back the clock. We need new ideas that are effective.
I’m pretty sure this competition would lead to insurrections and rebellion at a much higher rate than a system where the heir is known from birth and all the siblings are raised to know their place.
Game of Thrones meets Dungeons and Dragons; I love it!
I think the real problem is transcendent evil. The binaries of good and evil cannot be synthesized. The resolution is that we do not live in a transcendent reality. Rather, we live in an emanation where the binaries of sympathy and cooperation are easily synthesized. The Cosmos is expanding! Think of it!
“He goes and proposes a new form of government”
“What”
“A whole new plan for a new form of government—“
“WHAT”
“He talks for six hours, the convention is listless—“
“Bright young man”
“YO, who the F is this?”
In all seriousness, Copernican, this is a spectacular concept, and it arrived at a providential time for me personally.
I’ve been writing fantasy/scifi stories set in a far-future Earth but struggled when it came to the matter of government. I wanted to build a monarchy and feudal system, to lend to the chivalric and mythic themes— but how would that work, I wondered, with the Internet and other tech we have developed (and will, in the setting) and the history we have experienced?
Well, long story short, you’ve given me a fabulous sandbox to work with! It isn’t utopian, but that’s impossible without Heaven. Even if it was, that’d remove conflict from the story and make things boring; instead, it isolates conflict. It facilitates duels and intrigues, and guilds and cottage industries, and all the best stuff. The idealistic and the practical to become one and the same once again.
I gotta ask personally: Do I have your permission to draw from/build on these concepts in my stories?
Thanks again!
Of course, you have permission! I share ideas in the hopes that other people will find them useful. I'm happy I could help.
Let me know when you publish your book and I'll be excited to review it. I'm chewing on a similar concept. I want something new in fiction that's somewhat down-to-earth but open to new interpretations of identity and culture. I'd love to read fiction/science fiction in a setting based on the system of governance proposed above.
Wonderful! Many thanks. And my first book’s an anthology of shorter stories set in this universe that I’m publishing on my own blog. The first two are there for all to enjoy!
I'll look, thanks!
This is quite the vision!
Thanks! It's a long publication, but I think that people need to see a functional vision laid out for how a theoretical monarchy *could function.
The newspaper headlines of "King Fails His Saving Throw!" would make the entire enterprise worth it.
What is the system for splitting or merging noble territories to account for dramatic population changes? A small town under a wise count may balloon into a major city in a few generations, requiring barons and a multitude of baronets, or the opposite may occur, such as when the population of Venice collapsed due to the rise of the railroads across Europe, and the emergence of transatlantic trade superseding transmediterranean trade.
This mechanism, whatever it is, needs to be somehow insulated from the flow of ambulatory voting.
I'm not sure. I'd imagine that this is a "The king has to deal with it" type of situation. It's why I prefer monarchies... because you can have some one in charge capable of making calls like that. Probably involves moving some nobles around rather than removing or creating new titles.
We are a feudal system. The legal class are already our overlords. Remember a prosecutor and a judge can basically do whatever they want and owe very little explanation.
We need to formalize it... you can't hold leaders to account if your political system is entirely built around not acknowledging who your leaders are.
This is something I have thought about extensively. There will always be a de-facto aristocracy/oligarchy, however an elite of opportunity, "we rule because we can", is very different from an elite of duty, "We rule because we must". The difference is entirely the mentality of the elite, but it makes all the difference in terms of the QoL of the citizens.
Rulership will be automated, robots will be the subjects. #mxtm
That's not entirely unreasonable... basically what I'm supporting. Just without most of that silly 'voting' nonsense. Though it does appear that individuals are capable of rallying mass-support even in the West at this time for proposed monarchic systems. See Lord Miles (article below): https://alwaysthehorizon.substack.com/p/fuck-it-lets-invade-haiti-lord-miles?r=43z8s4
You'll never separate one from the other as long as election cycles exist. That's why multi-generational investment from the leadership of a nation/kingdom is needed.
Ideally so...
This is what I'm thinking at the largest scale. Beyond individual kingdoms you'd have an Emperor... and in all likelihood that Emperor will end up being an AI system at this rate.