Paine kind of hit the nail on the head with this one:
> "The law is king!"
The 2024 Nobel prize in economics[1] was awarded to a team of three who investigated what causes a nation to prosper and identified "rule of law" as an essential ingredient[2].
Good comment. There is a trade-off between principle and loyalty, and "rule of law" puts the dial hard over to "principle". The mechanism behind its success is that it puts a society solidly into the "cooperate" Nash equilibrium. (Loyalty, by contrast, puts a society solidly into the "defect" equilibrium). I suspect that Christianity, taken broadly, also pushes the dial hard over to "principle". First, it "undermines" temporal loyalty by stressing loyalty to God. Second it installs a panopticon within the believers mind that guards access to eternal bliss. Third it provides a non-commercial venue for civic life (the church on Sunday) where "stink eye" becomes a meaningful enforcement mechanism of norms. I fear that the late 20th century focus entirely on the (real and very serious) error-modes of these mechanisms to the exclusion of understanding of their value. This throws the baby out with the bathwater. The secular reaction is to pass an ever-increasing and ever more comprehensive set of laws in a vain attempt to replace the loss of norms. When that finally fails (as it inevitably must) you decay into the "defect" Nash equilibrium, put the dial back over to loyalty over principle, abandon the fundamental innovation of the Enlightenment, and your civilization falls.
This is only first order accurate and the failure comes from higher order effects.
In your model you need the religious leaders to be aware of the ruse but still be benevolent actors. This is problematic because it makes selecting leaders from within the religion difficult (especially at lower ranks). By waiting to tell them the game many followers are likely to revolt as they've been told their entire lives and core beliefs are a lie. That risks collapsing the system. By pulling leaders from outside the faith you garner distrust from followers (maybe this could work if those members can be said to directly come from heaven rather, but that's difficult to pull off). By selecting from the followers and not revealing the ruse your system has no self realigning mechanism. In all instances you suffer from the effects of a game of telephone ("Chinese whispers"), but probably the most in the last case.
In all situations you are still vulnerable to the rise of fanatics. True believers of any philosophy can be dangerous, and the more power they possess (such as leadership) the more danger they possess. With competing religions you justify division between true believers. Even if the leaders of competing are not, the true believers will create that division and organize. A small population is all that is needed in order to upset the system.
I think you're right that there is utility to many aspects of religion (not just Christianity) but holy wars are still bloody wars. It's important to realize that these features can be met through other beliefs. Some of the greatest features are community, as organized religion forces common ground and people that have differing opinions in disjoint domains (e.g. shared religion, different politics) are forced to interact, which leads to lower tribalism (though not sub-tribes).
Maybe religion is a local optima, but it would be naïve to discount its flaws. By its nature it is dividing, even if at the same time it is unifying. Local and global structures need not be identical.
It is indeed weird, and much ink has been spilled on the subject. Luckily I'm not answerable for them. I have no good answers and my speculation on the matter tends to be rather...dark.
Only Christianity? none of the other religions? It's funny pushing religion on a Thomas Payne post since he rejected religion as corrupt and irrational.
The experiment has only been run once, and it was mostly a white, Christian project. Payne's personal values doesn't change the facts of the experiment. If we could go back in time and witness the invention of the Enlightenment, political Liberalism, and Industrialization for other (race, religion) pairs, I'd love to do it. Maybe we can, as a proxy, look across the world at how different (race, religion) pairs have adopted liberal values to see if there are any patterns.
Now remember that there's an entire current in Silicon Valley that advocates against rule of law, at least when applied to them. Oh, and a felon taking some liberties with law sitting at the White House.
Yeah, I think reminding people that you don't get prosperity without rule of law is a good idea.
They aren’t bending the law, they’re outright breaking it. The question is whether we’ll demand enforcement or not. So far there has not been sufficient outrage to demand true enforcement.
And ironically, the founding fathers did exactly that. The colonies were only started having land stolen and having their property and work taxed shortly after the formation of the federal government.
It’s impossible to successfully restrain another more powerful than you, by definition, as an individual.
And to do so as a group introduces the whole mess of politiking and intra-group dynamics that generates any significant power concentration in the first place.
there are physical laws that cannot be broken, every action has an equal and opposite reaction. therefore attempting to restrain a higher power only ends in self restraint.
have you considered that the best approach is to go on strike, depriving the higher power of something of yours, whether that be labour, or progeny.
No, billionaires should not be the countervailing power, that just turns into oligarchy. The innovation of America is that We the people, our laws and institutions are. The problem is ideological billionaires have been buying up all the propaganda outlets hobling "we the people"'s power.
> “What would America’s Founding Fathers think if they were alive today?”
> For Cross, it is pointless to speculate about the present-day views of men who could not have imagined cotton candy, let alone the machine that makes it.
Some things, like “taxation without representation” seem to be timeless. You can call it irony or perhaps in some cases, a spade is still just a spade.
It's a funny example since it looks like cotton candy might have been around in their time [0]. Machines spun cotton candy came about much later but I'm not overly suspicious of the claims in [0] as meringue[1] certainly existed in their lifetimes and the process isn't dissimilar. I'm certain these men could understand "like meringue, but with sugar!" And "a machine that spins fast!" These would not be great leaps for people at this time. It seems to make them out to be idiots rather than not being prophetic (presumably the intended meaning)
Pretty sure they could have imagined cotton candy, anyway. There's nothing special about modern people that makes them more capable of comprehending new technology, it's just a matter of exposure.
I wouldn't mind seeing the British monarchy get abolished as well. It's far outlived any purpose it may have had. Even without them actually participating in government they are basically just celebrities living off the social welfare of the people.
The older I get the more I appreciate the value of a shared mythology. In some cases that is religion. Or a creed, as it was for a long time in America. But I think it is very valuable to have it for a healthy functioning society. It feels like we have lost it in America, which does not make me optimistic for the future.
I wonder if the monarchy serves that role for the UK. Might be better to keep it.
I was a fairly ardent anti-monarchist. The problem is, I had put my faith in politicians to unite the UK. The problem is, there isn't much mileage in uniting the UK at the moment, or competence in government.
The only real way that the monarchy can survive is if the kingdom stays united.
Also, president boris, stamer or farage is just a humiliation I can't really cope with.
> Also, president boris, stamer or farage is just a humiliation I can't really cope with.
The British royal family does get some bad press from time to time, but the recent string of British PMs really does serve to remind us all that the bar is really low :)
> Also, president boris, stamer or farage is just a humiliation I can't really cope with.
I definitely appreciate the idea that if you lose confidence in the PM you can fire them pretty quickly. Being stuck with a crappy president for four long years kinda sucks.
The monarchy is demonstrably powerless and unwilling to fight the destruction of UK democracy. Right-wing populism has infiltrated all sides of the political landscape there, and with it all the self-destructing ideas we have come to love: defunding of all public services, increase in policing and control, destruction of worker protections, tax cuts for the rich, tax increase for the poor, etc.
I live in France, our common mythology, our Roman National as it is called here, is that we beheaded our king. Yet, the most authoritarian people you know will still claim the legacy of our revolution, of De Gaulle and Jeanne d'Arc. Even worse, this mythology is poised as under threat by a made-up out-group and used to seed reactionary fear and divisiveness amidst our nation.
I don't like hereditary privilege at all, but the enormous constitutional headache removing the monarchy would cause might well outweight the practical benefits of doing away with it.
Personally, I like having a figurehead head of state that is subject to a directly elected Parliament.
The King may have cerimonital power but he can never exercise it. As was proved in the Glorious Revolution we can remove our head of state anytime we like.
I would much rather see the House of Lords reformed than the monarchy ended.
I am British. I think QE2 made a good job out of this cursed tradition. Charles is a crank, but a crank that I happen to agree with, so fine. But I suspect things are going to go off the rails with his failson William.
> I would much rather see the House of Lords reformed than the monarchy ended.
I'd be very careful about that one. Making it elected would be a terrible idea. There are some reforms that are possible, but they'd need to be very narrow (for example, limiting the size, and limiting tenure).
It's the other way around: they're wealthy holders of land, like the rest of the dukes and such, who control large chunks of the land in the UK and own large businesses. The UK benefits from the royal family allowing the use of their land, including historic buildings, at a relatively low cost.
Another example: the Duke of Westminster is worth $12B and owns a large chunk of London outright, including a ton of large, notable buildings. (Also, I think, the Twinings tea company.)
There's the Crown Estate, which is controlled by the crown, but the family also owns the Duchy of Cornwall (45K acres) and the Duchy of Lancaster (45K acres), as well as numerous private holdings that are less visible. And this is predominantly highly developed city space.
If not then it's still the same question: how does the UK benefit from having the royal family allowing this rather than just some other entity that owns the land and rents it out at low cost? Why does that entity need to be a monarchy?
But this seems like the fallacy of comparing a benevolent and somewhat reasonable monarchy to a malicious or foolish non-monarchist government. Any system can wind up with stupid people doing stupid things. The difference is if you get one stupid person in as king they could sell everything off or cause who knows what damage, whereas with a more diffuse government one person can't do as much harm. (The current situation in the US also shows how it's important to keep the power diffused rather than centralized in one person.)
I intended to object, but apparently the royals cost the government ~500MM GBP/year. Which is a lot, but less than 5% of their tourism industry, so it seems possible.
They definitely do, but a lot of this admittedly is to do with the ability they have to raise revenue on things they privately own; only a handful of Royals are on what is called the Civil List (direct payment from government for their jobs, which are not inconsiderable.)
I view the money we pay the Danish royal family as the cost of not having a bloody revolution some 150-200 years ago.
When you consider how many people and how much wealth was destroyed during/following revolutions like the French or Russian, and the compound interest of that wealth over 150 years, the pennies we pay to the royals todays is probably cheap.
Just saying, if you went back in time and opted for a revolution instead of a constitutional monarchy, you'd probably be poorer today -- compound growth over 150 years is no joke.
> I wouldn't mind seeing the British monarchy get abolished as well.
Strongly suggest the USA leaves tinkering with other countries' political systems alone for at least a generation. No standing.
The British are actually quite conflicted about the monarchy.
It tends to be bound up in what a lot of people used to observe was the distinction between Royalism and Queenism (or Elizabethism specifically).
We don't much like the institution in the same way (only narrow approval overall), but we pretty much loved the Queen as close to unconditionally as we love anyone (she's like one or two rungs down from Judi Dench and the late Terry Wogan), and would not have wanted to see it go in her lifetime because it would just have been weird.
Now, not so much. Charles has yet to earn that kind of affection. Though surprisingly he is getting there, and Camilla's popularity (always a very serious problem for the monarchy) is genuinely surprising because she turns out to be a) really a friendly, kind person and b) genuinely liked by her step-family.
I think their "branding" is misguided because I would feel literally on top of the world if the people who hated me accused me of being queen. Absolutely nothing in the world would be more effective and getting me to continue down that path. I would probably start wearing a crown and trade my office for a throne room.
The problem with demonizing people is that demons are badass and powerful.
It is tempting, given the success that kingly political approaches have seen of late, to adopt those strategies: to fight "your tyrant" with "my tyrant", and to fight your untruth with my untruth, eschewing skepticism. What if the Constitution, as interpreted by the current SCOTUS, really is a suicide pact?
We can only hope that Paine's approach will win out instead.
That'd be a vaguely interesting point, if I—searching my heart—I could find any evidence of this going both way.
Congress has never folded power to a president like this before. The Supreme Court has never faced such backlash from district courts (https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/11/us/politics/judicial-cris...). Scientists & researchers have never been up in arms about us health policy or what is being done. Colleges and universities have never been policed by a president, confronted with loyalty pacts.
To cite one example: aggressive gerrymandering has required a response in the form of California Prop 50. I'm hoping that we can all find our way to competitive districts together, rather than permanently sorting into districts that are the province of one party or another, eliminating free elections in practice.
But thanks to SCOTUS interpreting any amount of political gerrymandering as permissible, we may have in fact fallen into an irreparable hole in the US Constitution.
Even if some of us are disinclined towards tyranny, we may be faced with a choice: accept that we are shunted towards it by forces beyond our control, or roll over and accept tyrannical rule by others. I continue to hope that it will not come to that and that we can fight our way out of this situation using Paine's methods.
I think there are multiple irreparable holes in the US Constitution. That doesn't mean tyranny is inevitable, though, it just means we need to start fresh (which is what they did when they came up with the Constitution anyway).
Amending the Constitution to fix such holes is impractical when it would require the approval of states whose hold on perpetual minority rule would be threatened.
So then we're looking at a constitutional convention. Can you imagine our current crop of politicians cooperating to negotiate something which improves on the current Constitution? I'd expect a prisoner's dilemma with a defect-defect outcome and the winner taking all of the diminished spoils.
I think we're stuck with what we've got and we have to hope that enough voters are persuadable, allowing us to emerge from the hole.
This is literally just a barely submarine ad for an astroturfed protest on the 18th that Indian call centers are texting millions of people about, over and over again. Hint: Kings are the people who are paying for this media campaign, in order to complain about other kings.
The only differences between the two groups are about 30% of their patronage networks. Half of the activity in this thread is probably inorganic. I'm also probably naïvely underestimating the amount, because this article says nothing. You can't even learn a thing about Thomas Paine from it.
Wouldn't it be super-cool if politicians would take moral stands, and argue for them, instead of repeating slogans in a desperate attempt to go viral and trying to figure out who can drape themselves in the most flags?
edit: thank god the patron of this site is too proud to let the inorganic run wild, even on a Sunday. It's going to be hard work to stuff this place with paid-for garbage. Also "theconversation" is a shady site with shady origins.
And all the people at the last protest were bought and paid by Soros? It's ridiculous to think those protests are not real. There are a lot of people furious about the current administration.
Yeah I'm am usually very politically inactive and even physically disabled... But I went to the last one and been planning on this for weeks. I don't like the traditional Dems or "libs" but at this point any enemy of the current treasonous admin is our friend...
Great to organize locally and network with ppl in my city/county/state so we can even organize to primary some of the shitty dem with younger blood that will deman a moral stand.
I am confident I should be able to find some equally disturbing atrocities from the other side of the aisle. If you study a little history ( from outside your personal media bubble ). You’ll find that no party has a monopoly on shockingly bad behavior.
Have you looked outside or read the news? Never in my lifetime (33) have we seen such government violence against the mass public... only thing I can see similarity was the fight for 14th amendment and civil rights act before I was born.
Also an evolution of 9/11 patriot act and ndaa expansions... People have been conspiracy theorizing for YEARS about ice expanding authority within 100 miles of the border and doing what they are doing now....even the ACLU ranted about it.... And now that it's all happening for real... The camps and everything.... We are just supposed to ignore it because it bothers your partisan sensibility???
YOU sir. Are a traitor and a coward, who confuses the path of ease and least resistance as the moral choice.that confuses peace with passive submission and slavery.
Give me liberty or give me death. I have full confidence the American people will resolve this. But it is very tragic how much blood and pain itwill cost at this point .
> Paine labels kingship "the most prosperous invention the Devil ever set on foot for the promotion of idolatry"
Given that this kind of deference to a perceived authority (which manifests in hero worship, tribalism, influencers, religion, celebrity veneration, sports figures, etc) seems to be built into the very genetic fabric of 99% of the general populace I despair at ever seeing it end.
People simply can't wait to anoint their own personal king (be it Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, MrBeast, etc.)
> People simply can't wait to anoint their own personal king
You really think there are only 1% of us that have no desire at all for any sort of king? I cannot think of a single person deserving of that role, cannot imagine what it would take for me to change my mind. I very much value our systems of government, and I do not ever want any one person to have too much control over them.
I don't think it's necessary to take the OP literally, but directionally it's correct. Looking at American society, the Trumps, Kardashians, Clintons, Roosevelts, Kennedys ... for a country that's so proudly republican, how many of their presidents and elites have been blood related? Might add Jesus to the list metaphorically
People Americans hoist into power (and many other countries do) often look like a poor man's replacement for a monarch. How many people in any country do actually lay claim to their own values and conscience? How many are genuinely emancipated and govern themselves?
In particular in this day and age where most of the wannabe kings are so obviously idiotic it's telling how eager people still are to subject themselves, sometimes in, as David Bentley Hart dubbed it crypto-erotic fashion, almost sadomasochistic and fully aware how incapable the demagogues are.
Plato spoke of a philosopher King more than 2000 years ago. I think we can do better. At the very least, I don't seek political leadership in a personality cult. It doesn't have to be this way
Thomas Paine is one strand of an ideological opposition to authoritarianism that doesn't devolve into lunacy (unlike modern "libertarianism", communism, etc). He was a good man in a time of bad men. One of the few founding fathers who was genuinely against slavery and supported real egalitarianism to the point of being ostracized for it. He was an honest to god liberal with a capital L, and he, unlike Thomas Jefferson, should be the firebrand representation of the modern democratic party.
He believed in a universal basic income (Agrarian Justice), free trade, a land value tax. He was a georgist before Henry George. To this day, I look at Georgism as the only meaningful pro-market and good-for-buisness but unapologeticly left-wing movement we have.
Thomas Paine should be regarded as our best and most read founding fathers and liberal thinkers. He's often a footnote, or forgotten about. Just like Andrew Yang, Henry George, Smedly Butler, Benjamin Tucker, Lysander Spooner, Sinclair Lewis, Upton Sinclair etc.
Instead our modern "anti-authoritarian" movement, or whatever passes for it, claims ideologically descent and active influence from the likes of charlatans and defenders of authoritarianism like Karl Marx, Hegel, Freud, Foucault, Kant, Nietzsche, etc.
> He believed in a universal basic income (Agrarian Justice)
I am, of course, only superficially familiar with his works, but calling what Paine proposed a basic income is extremely stupid.
This is a trivial concept of viewing territories as a natural resource, specifically, land, not productive assets in general. With the logic that land is not a product of human activity, and therefore, by acquiring land as "ownership", a person obtains it at the expense of everyone else, and it's logical to force them to compensate for this.
And it certainly can't be called a basic income if you look at the proposed tax burden. It's simply another form of tax redistribution, and in almost every respect, more capitalist compared to the tax distribution systems of that time, (and certainly of today).
I mean he did literally dissolve into lunacy. He also was shunned for his "blasphemous" views on the role of the church. He died in penury, and largely in disgrace.
But, he should be read more, the rights of man is surprisingly readable, especially given the time and subject matter.
Paine kind of hit the nail on the head with this one:
> "The law is king!"
The 2024 Nobel prize in economics[1] was awarded to a team of three who investigated what causes a nation to prosper and identified "rule of law" as an essential ingredient[2].
[1]: https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/economic-sciences/2024/pre...
[2]: https://news.mit.edu/2024/mit-economists-daron-acemoglu-simo...
Good comment. There is a trade-off between principle and loyalty, and "rule of law" puts the dial hard over to "principle". The mechanism behind its success is that it puts a society solidly into the "cooperate" Nash equilibrium. (Loyalty, by contrast, puts a society solidly into the "defect" equilibrium). I suspect that Christianity, taken broadly, also pushes the dial hard over to "principle". First, it "undermines" temporal loyalty by stressing loyalty to God. Second it installs a panopticon within the believers mind that guards access to eternal bliss. Third it provides a non-commercial venue for civic life (the church on Sunday) where "stink eye" becomes a meaningful enforcement mechanism of norms. I fear that the late 20th century focus entirely on the (real and very serious) error-modes of these mechanisms to the exclusion of understanding of their value. This throws the baby out with the bathwater. The secular reaction is to pass an ever-increasing and ever more comprehensive set of laws in a vain attempt to replace the loss of norms. When that finally fails (as it inevitably must) you decay into the "defect" Nash equilibrium, put the dial back over to loyalty over principle, abandon the fundamental innovation of the Enlightenment, and your civilization falls.
This is only first order accurate and the failure comes from higher order effects.
In your model you need the religious leaders to be aware of the ruse but still be benevolent actors. This is problematic because it makes selecting leaders from within the religion difficult (especially at lower ranks). By waiting to tell them the game many followers are likely to revolt as they've been told their entire lives and core beliefs are a lie. That risks collapsing the system. By pulling leaders from outside the faith you garner distrust from followers (maybe this could work if those members can be said to directly come from heaven rather, but that's difficult to pull off). By selecting from the followers and not revealing the ruse your system has no self realigning mechanism. In all instances you suffer from the effects of a game of telephone ("Chinese whispers"), but probably the most in the last case.
In all situations you are still vulnerable to the rise of fanatics. True believers of any philosophy can be dangerous, and the more power they possess (such as leadership) the more danger they possess. With competing religions you justify division between true believers. Even if the leaders of competing are not, the true believers will create that division and organize. A small population is all that is needed in order to upset the system.
I think you're right that there is utility to many aspects of religion (not just Christianity) but holy wars are still bloody wars. It's important to realize that these features can be met through other beliefs. Some of the greatest features are community, as organized religion forces common ground and people that have differing opinions in disjoint domains (e.g. shared religion, different politics) are forced to interact, which leads to lower tribalism (though not sub-tribes).
Maybe religion is a local optima, but it would be naïve to discount its flaws. By its nature it is dividing, even if at the same time it is unifying. Local and global structures need not be identical.
It's weird, then, how it was Christians who rallied behind the wannabe king who made trampling on both norms and principles his whole brand.
It is indeed weird, and much ink has been spilled on the subject. Luckily I'm not answerable for them. I have no good answers and my speculation on the matter tends to be rather...dark.
Only Christianity? none of the other religions? It's funny pushing religion on a Thomas Payne post since he rejected religion as corrupt and irrational.
The experiment has only been run once, and it was mostly a white, Christian project. Payne's personal values doesn't change the facts of the experiment. If we could go back in time and witness the invention of the Enlightenment, political Liberalism, and Industrialization for other (race, religion) pairs, I'd love to do it. Maybe we can, as a proxy, look across the world at how different (race, religion) pairs have adopted liberal values to see if there are any patterns.
Blame “secular reaction” all you want, but with the New Apostolic Reformation the temporal loyalty becomes a pre-requisite to the loyalty to God
So you get a Nobel prize for proving Benjamin Franklin right (who was rephrasing a more ancient saying).
Charlie Munger recalled it in 2003 as “Where there is no bread, there is no law; where there is no law, there is no bread.”
It's going to be some easy picking if more figure that out ...
Now remember that there's an entire current in Silicon Valley that advocates against rule of law, at least when applied to them. Oh, and a felon taking some liberties with law sitting at the White House.
Yeah, I think reminding people that you don't get prosperity without rule of law is a good idea.
Not a good enough idea, apparently, given that what you said in the first paragraph is happening.
Nice slogan but right now in America, money is king and the law is bent to accommodate the wills of rich lawless men.
Which is probably the point GP and OP are trying to make.
They aren’t bending the law, they’re outright breaking it. The question is whether we’ll demand enforcement or not. So far there has not been sufficient outrage to demand true enforcement.
Yeah,.critical reporters fall out of windows in Manhattan all the time.
</sarcasm>
That's not to say that America doesn't have problems. That the problems aren't unique.
But there has always been problems, and they have always been new.
Over time America and the rest of the western world, will adapt and move on to new problems :)
It’s not just “kings,” its concentration of power in all spheres of life.
The fact that this point is largely lost on the audience of this site just shows how bad things have gotten.
People who want to amass power for its own sake need self-reinforcing systems that restrain them.
And ironically, the founding fathers did exactly that. The colonies were only started having land stolen and having their property and work taxed shortly after the formation of the federal government.
This seems circular.
It’s impossible to successfully restrain another more powerful than you, by definition, as an individual.
And to do so as a group introduces the whole mess of politiking and intra-group dynamics that generates any significant power concentration in the first place.
there are physical laws that cannot be broken, every action has an equal and opposite reaction. therefore attempting to restrain a higher power only ends in self restraint. have you considered that the best approach is to go on strike, depriving the higher power of something of yours, whether that be labour, or progeny.
No, billionaires should not be the countervailing power, that just turns into oligarchy. The innovation of America is that We the people, our laws and institutions are. The problem is ideological billionaires have been buying up all the propaganda outlets hobling "we the people"'s power.
How does this relate to my comment?
It seems like it’s responding to something else.
> “What would America’s Founding Fathers think if they were alive today?”
> For Cross, it is pointless to speculate about the present-day views of men who could not have imagined cotton candy, let alone the machine that makes it.
Some things, like “taxation without representation” seem to be timeless. You can call it irony or perhaps in some cases, a spade is still just a spade.
[0] https://web.archive.org/web/20150701005917/http://www.cotton...
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meringue
Pretty sure they could have imagined cotton candy, anyway. There's nothing special about modern people that makes them more capable of comprehending new technology, it's just a matter of exposure.
One funny fact about the “No Kings” protests held abroad is that they were called “No Tyants” so as to not be interpreted as anti-monarchist.
I wouldn't mind seeing the British monarchy get abolished as well. It's far outlived any purpose it may have had. Even without them actually participating in government they are basically just celebrities living off the social welfare of the people.
The older I get the more I appreciate the value of a shared mythology. In some cases that is religion. Or a creed, as it was for a long time in America. But I think it is very valuable to have it for a healthy functioning society. It feels like we have lost it in America, which does not make me optimistic for the future.
I wonder if the monarchy serves that role for the UK. Might be better to keep it.
I was a fairly ardent anti-monarchist. The problem is, I had put my faith in politicians to unite the UK. The problem is, there isn't much mileage in uniting the UK at the moment, or competence in government.
The only real way that the monarchy can survive is if the kingdom stays united.
Also, president boris, stamer or farage is just a humiliation I can't really cope with.
> Also, president boris, stamer or farage is just a humiliation I can't really cope with.
The British royal family does get some bad press from time to time, but the recent string of British PMs really does serve to remind us all that the bar is really low :)
> Also, president boris, stamer or farage is just a humiliation I can't really cope with.
I definitely appreciate the idea that if you lose confidence in the PM you can fire them pretty quickly. Being stuck with a crappy president for four long years kinda sucks.
> Also, president boris, stamer or farage is just a humiliation I can't really cope with.
I always tell people I don't actually want to risk an elected presidency until Jeremy Clarkson is too old to run for it.
The monarchy is demonstrably powerless and unwilling to fight the destruction of UK democracy. Right-wing populism has infiltrated all sides of the political landscape there, and with it all the self-destructing ideas we have come to love: defunding of all public services, increase in policing and control, destruction of worker protections, tax cuts for the rich, tax increase for the poor, etc.
I live in France, our common mythology, our Roman National as it is called here, is that we beheaded our king. Yet, the most authoritarian people you know will still claim the legacy of our revolution, of De Gaulle and Jeanne d'Arc. Even worse, this mythology is poised as under threat by a made-up out-group and used to seed reactionary fear and divisiveness amidst our nation.
I don't like hereditary privilege at all, but the enormous constitutional headache removing the monarchy would cause might well outweight the practical benefits of doing away with it.
Are you British?
Personally, I like having a figurehead head of state that is subject to a directly elected Parliament.
The King may have cerimonital power but he can never exercise it. As was proved in the Glorious Revolution we can remove our head of state anytime we like.
I would much rather see the House of Lords reformed than the monarchy ended.
I am British. I think QE2 made a good job out of this cursed tradition. Charles is a crank, but a crank that I happen to agree with, so fine. But I suspect things are going to go off the rails with his failson William.
> I would much rather see the House of Lords reformed than the monarchy ended.
I'd be very careful about that one. Making it elected would be a terrible idea. There are some reforms that are possible, but they'd need to be very narrow (for example, limiting the size, and limiting tenure).
American and curious: why do you think William is a fail? Because Charles looked that way to us.
I don't disagree!
What power does the king of England have to make things go off the rails?
He doesn't have power in that sense, but if people lose "faith" in the aura of the monarchy then things could go south quickly.
> I think QE2 made a good job out of this cursed tradition.
Right. So many of us are like this -- more Elizabethists than Royalists.
It's the other way around: they're wealthy holders of land, like the rest of the dukes and such, who control large chunks of the land in the UK and own large businesses. The UK benefits from the royal family allowing the use of their land, including historic buildings, at a relatively low cost.
Another example: the Duke of Westminster is worth $12B and owns a large chunk of London outright, including a ton of large, notable buildings. (Also, I think, the Twinings tea company.)
There's the Crown Estate, which is controlled by the crown, but the family also owns the Duchy of Cornwall (45K acres) and the Duchy of Lancaster (45K acres), as well as numerous private holdings that are less visible. And this is predominantly highly developed city space.
> The UK benefits from the royal family allowing the use of their land, including historic buildings, at a relatively low cost.
How does the UK benefit from the royal family allowing this, rather than just having a non-monarchist government that does the same thing?
Does doing away with the monarchy also mean confiscating their property?
If not then it's still the same question: how does the UK benefit from having the royal family allowing this rather than just some other entity that owns the land and rents it out at low cost? Why does that entity need to be a monarchy?
Yes obviously, along with their heads.
Because it would have been sold off by a previous government. (see virtually every other money making asset.)
But this seems like the fallacy of comparing a benevolent and somewhat reasonable monarchy to a malicious or foolish non-monarchist government. Any system can wind up with stupid people doing stupid things. The difference is if you get one stupid person in as king they could sell everything off or cause who knows what damage, whereas with a more diffuse government one person can't do as much harm. (The current situation in the US also shows how it's important to keep the power diffused rather than centralized in one person.)
see any national park?
How much of the UKs national parks are publicly owned?
(dartmoor is owned partly by the crown)
If I violently conquer and area kill everyone who objects will you also defend my "property rights" ? It's all my land after all. Lol
At this point the British royals are basically tourist attractions. They probably generate more revenue than they consume.
I intended to object, but apparently the royals cost the government ~500MM GBP/year. Which is a lot, but less than 5% of their tourism industry, so it seems possible.
How much of that budget is maintenance of very very old buildings?
Tourists would also come to see their remains and preserved trappings, as they do in every other country with a former monarchy.
They definitely do, but a lot of this admittedly is to do with the ability they have to raise revenue on things they privately own; only a handful of Royals are on what is called the Civil List (direct payment from government for their jobs, which are not inconsiderable.)
as a brit it's hard to look over the pond and see that as an improvement
On a marginally positive note, at least it is largely a ceremonial position and the real power lies with the prime minister/cabinet/parliament.
They project soft power and attract tourists. I would bet that they’re actually a positive on UK’s economy and well being.
They also knocked 15-20 percentage points off our Trump tariffs because he's so easily played; he barely even left the castle grounds this time.
I view the money we pay the Danish royal family as the cost of not having a bloody revolution some 150-200 years ago.
When you consider how many people and how much wealth was destroyed during/following revolutions like the French or Russian, and the compound interest of that wealth over 150 years, the pennies we pay to the royals todays is probably cheap.
Just saying, if you went back in time and opted for a revolution instead of a constitutional monarchy, you'd probably be poorer today -- compound growth over 150 years is no joke.
> I wouldn't mind seeing the British monarchy get abolished as well.
Strongly suggest the USA leaves tinkering with other countries' political systems alone for at least a generation. No standing.
The British are actually quite conflicted about the monarchy.
It tends to be bound up in what a lot of people used to observe was the distinction between Royalism and Queenism (or Elizabethism specifically).
We don't much like the institution in the same way (only narrow approval overall), but we pretty much loved the Queen as close to unconditionally as we love anyone (she's like one or two rungs down from Judi Dench and the late Terry Wogan), and would not have wanted to see it go in her lifetime because it would just have been weird.
Now, not so much. Charles has yet to earn that kind of affection. Though surprisingly he is getting there, and Camilla's popularity (always a very serious problem for the monarchy) is genuinely surprising because she turns out to be a) really a friendly, kind person and b) genuinely liked by her step-family.
I think their "branding" is misguided because I would feel literally on top of the world if the people who hated me accused me of being queen. Absolutely nothing in the world would be more effective and getting me to continue down that path. I would probably start wearing a crown and trade my office for a throne room.
The problem with demonizing people is that demons are badass and powerful.
It is tempting, given the success that kingly political approaches have seen of late, to adopt those strategies: to fight "your tyrant" with "my tyrant", and to fight your untruth with my untruth, eschewing skepticism. What if the Constitution, as interpreted by the current SCOTUS, really is a suicide pact?
We can only hope that Paine's approach will win out instead.
The falcon listens credulously to far too many falconers.
That'd be a vaguely interesting point, if I—searching my heart—I could find any evidence of this going both way.
Congress has never folded power to a president like this before. The Supreme Court has never faced such backlash from district courts (https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/11/us/politics/judicial-cris...). Scientists & researchers have never been up in arms about us health policy or what is being done. Colleges and universities have never been policed by a president, confronted with loyalty pacts.
To cite one example: aggressive gerrymandering has required a response in the form of California Prop 50. I'm hoping that we can all find our way to competitive districts together, rather than permanently sorting into districts that are the province of one party or another, eliminating free elections in practice.
But thanks to SCOTUS interpreting any amount of political gerrymandering as permissible, we may have in fact fallen into an irreparable hole in the US Constitution.
Even if some of us are disinclined towards tyranny, we may be faced with a choice: accept that we are shunted towards it by forces beyond our control, or roll over and accept tyrannical rule by others. I continue to hope that it will not come to that and that we can fight our way out of this situation using Paine's methods.
I think there are multiple irreparable holes in the US Constitution. That doesn't mean tyranny is inevitable, though, it just means we need to start fresh (which is what they did when they came up with the Constitution anyway).
Amending the Constitution to fix such holes is impractical when it would require the approval of states whose hold on perpetual minority rule would be threatened.
So then we're looking at a constitutional convention. Can you imagine our current crop of politicians cooperating to negotiate something which improves on the current Constitution? I'd expect a prisoner's dilemma with a defect-defect outcome and the winner taking all of the diminished spoils.
I think we're stuck with what we've got and we have to hope that enough voters are persuadable, allowing us to emerge from the hole.
If we could persuade enough voters to get out of the hole, why can't we persuade enough to fix the hole (and the other holes)?
The economic policies from the 70s until nowish were new as well
Thomas Paine's church, 19th psalm:
The spacious firmament on high,
With all the blue etherial sky,
And spangled heavens, a shining frame,
Their great original proclaim.
The unwearied sun, from day to day,
Does his Creator’s power display,
And publishes to every land
The work of an Almighty hand.
Soon as the evening shades prevail,
The moon takes up the wondrous tale,
And nightly to the list’ning earth
Repeats the story of her birth;
Whilst all the stars that round her burn,
And all the planets, in their turn,
Confirm the tidings as they roll,
And spread the truth from pole to pole.
What though in solemn silence all
Move round this dark terrestrial ball
What though no real voice, nor sound,
Amidst their radiant orbs be found,
In reason’s ear they all rejoice,
And utter forth a glorious voice,
Forever singing as they shine,
THE HAND THAT MADE US IS DIVINE.
This is literally just a barely submarine ad for an astroturfed protest on the 18th that Indian call centers are texting millions of people about, over and over again. Hint: Kings are the people who are paying for this media campaign, in order to complain about other kings.
The only differences between the two groups are about 30% of their patronage networks. Half of the activity in this thread is probably inorganic. I'm also probably naïvely underestimating the amount, because this article says nothing. You can't even learn a thing about Thomas Paine from it.
Wouldn't it be super-cool if politicians would take moral stands, and argue for them, instead of repeating slogans in a desperate attempt to go viral and trying to figure out who can drape themselves in the most flags?
edit: thank god the patron of this site is too proud to let the inorganic run wild, even on a Sunday. It's going to be hard work to stuff this place with paid-for garbage. Also "theconversation" is a shady site with shady origins.
And all the people at the last protest were bought and paid by Soros? It's ridiculous to think those protests are not real. There are a lot of people furious about the current administration.
Yeah I'm am usually very politically inactive and even physically disabled... But I went to the last one and been planning on this for weeks. I don't like the traditional Dems or "libs" but at this point any enemy of the current treasonous admin is our friend...
Great to organize locally and network with ppl in my city/county/state so we can even organize to primary some of the shitty dem with younger blood that will deman a moral stand.
You’re spot on.
I haven’t heard a clear answer yet about why ‘King Red’ is bad and the prior ‘King Blue’ is any different.
It's not about King red or blue. It's about what the current president is doing right now that is completely unprecedented.
Please explain what it is that has you so upset.
I am confident I should be able to find some equally disturbing atrocities from the other side of the aisle. If you study a little history ( from outside your personal media bubble ). You’ll find that no party has a monopoly on shockingly bad behavior.
Have you looked outside or read the news? Never in my lifetime (33) have we seen such government violence against the mass public... only thing I can see similarity was the fight for 14th amendment and civil rights act before I was born.
Also an evolution of 9/11 patriot act and ndaa expansions... People have been conspiracy theorizing for YEARS about ice expanding authority within 100 miles of the border and doing what they are doing now....even the ACLU ranted about it.... And now that it's all happening for real... The camps and everything.... We are just supposed to ignore it because it bothers your partisan sensibility???
YOU sir. Are a traitor and a coward, who confuses the path of ease and least resistance as the moral choice.that confuses peace with passive submission and slavery.
Give me liberty or give me death. I have full confidence the American people will resolve this. But it is very tragic how much blood and pain itwill cost at this point .
> Paine labels kingship "the most prosperous invention the Devil ever set on foot for the promotion of idolatry"
Given that this kind of deference to a perceived authority (which manifests in hero worship, tribalism, influencers, religion, celebrity veneration, sports figures, etc) seems to be built into the very genetic fabric of 99% of the general populace I despair at ever seeing it end.
People simply can't wait to anoint their own personal king (be it Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, MrBeast, etc.)
I wonder if Paine was aware of the irony in that quote by his indirect reference to the ultimate invented king.
> People simply can't wait to anoint their own personal king
You really think there are only 1% of us that have no desire at all for any sort of king? I cannot think of a single person deserving of that role, cannot imagine what it would take for me to change my mind. I very much value our systems of government, and I do not ever want any one person to have too much control over them.
I don't think it's necessary to take the OP literally, but directionally it's correct. Looking at American society, the Trumps, Kardashians, Clintons, Roosevelts, Kennedys ... for a country that's so proudly republican, how many of their presidents and elites have been blood related? Might add Jesus to the list metaphorically
People Americans hoist into power (and many other countries do) often look like a poor man's replacement for a monarch. How many people in any country do actually lay claim to their own values and conscience? How many are genuinely emancipated and govern themselves?
In particular in this day and age where most of the wannabe kings are so obviously idiotic it's telling how eager people still are to subject themselves, sometimes in, as David Bentley Hart dubbed it crypto-erotic fashion, almost sadomasochistic and fully aware how incapable the demagogues are.
Plato spoke of a philosopher King more than 2000 years ago. I think we can do better. At the very least, I don't seek political leadership in a personality cult. It doesn't have to be this way
Thomas Paine is one strand of an ideological opposition to authoritarianism that doesn't devolve into lunacy (unlike modern "libertarianism", communism, etc). He was a good man in a time of bad men. One of the few founding fathers who was genuinely against slavery and supported real egalitarianism to the point of being ostracized for it. He was an honest to god liberal with a capital L, and he, unlike Thomas Jefferson, should be the firebrand representation of the modern democratic party.
He believed in a universal basic income (Agrarian Justice), free trade, a land value tax. He was a georgist before Henry George. To this day, I look at Georgism as the only meaningful pro-market and good-for-buisness but unapologeticly left-wing movement we have.
Thomas Paine should be regarded as our best and most read founding fathers and liberal thinkers. He's often a footnote, or forgotten about. Just like Andrew Yang, Henry George, Smedly Butler, Benjamin Tucker, Lysander Spooner, Sinclair Lewis, Upton Sinclair etc.
Instead our modern "anti-authoritarian" movement, or whatever passes for it, claims ideologically descent and active influence from the likes of charlatans and defenders of authoritarianism like Karl Marx, Hegel, Freud, Foucault, Kant, Nietzsche, etc.
Remember Thomas Paine.
I question Thomas Paine's liberal cred given that he supported confiscation of Loyalists' properties.
> He believed in a universal basic income (Agrarian Justice)
I am, of course, only superficially familiar with his works, but calling what Paine proposed a basic income is extremely stupid.
This is a trivial concept of viewing territories as a natural resource, specifically, land, not productive assets in general. With the logic that land is not a product of human activity, and therefore, by acquiring land as "ownership", a person obtains it at the expense of everyone else, and it's logical to force them to compensate for this.
And it certainly can't be called a basic income if you look at the proposed tax burden. It's simply another form of tax redistribution, and in almost every respect, more capitalist compared to the tax distribution systems of that time, (and certainly of today).
> that doesn't devolve into lunacy
I mean he did literally dissolve into lunacy. He also was shunned for his "blasphemous" views on the role of the church. He died in penury, and largely in disgrace.
But, he should be read more, the rights of man is surprisingly readable, especially given the time and subject matter.
Next up: Fight the political class and the bureaucrats. Enlightenment step by step.