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Geeks For Monarchy: The Rise of the Neoreactionaries
Third Position writes "Many of us yearn for a return to one golden age or another. But there's a community of bloggers taking the idea to an extreme: they want to turn the dial way back to the days before the French Revolution. Neoreactionaries believe that while technology and capitalism have advanced humanity over the past couple centuries, democracy has actually done more harm than good. They propose a return to old-fashioned gender roles, social order and monarchy."
Bringing back serfdom.
"Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power." -- Mussolini
As long as _I_ am the one who's in power.
No, thanks.
Sure, a monarchy works great until you get someone like Kim Jung Il or Kim Jung Un at the top. Then your screwed.
I bet that women and minorities are underrepresented in this movement to turn the calendar back.
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
Please! Someone buy these idiots a history book. This is such a perfect example of people who think they're smart but they actually know jack shit about anything except pushing bits. The funny thing is, after the first arbitrary detention and execution of a dissident for "lesse majesty" or "treason against the crown" they'd all be up in arms and in jail. I really hope they're not all really this stupid and this is all just a way to get a reaction.
"Malo periculosam, libertatem quam quietam servitutem." -- Jefferson
“If residents don’t like their government, they can and should move,” he writes. “The design is all ‘exit,’ no ‘voice.’”
Any business can tell you the value of switching costs. Once you reel them in, it is expensive to move. So, even though another city-state might be better, people will still not move since the cost of moving, even assuming the State doesn't actively interfere with exit taxes or similar measures, would prevent most from moving. This is why retail chains all want you to sign up for their cursed club cards, to try to create switching costs that will keep you around even though they suck. Plus, we don't live in Bruce Sterling's cladist space utopia, there are limited options for moving in space while stuck on Earth's surface, even ignoring the costs. Why don't all those North Koreans just move? Perhaps these fellows have answers to these criticisms, I haven't spent all day reading their FAQ or anything.
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Apparently somebody's been going to too many medieval reenactments, and spicing them up with some conspiracy theorist meetings. Monarchies were nasty places to live for the majority of people. I like the part about nations being very small and people free to move between them to find one they like. Sure, and communism would have worked great if the people in charge were just nicer! Why would a king not try to conquer more territory, and allow his subjects to take off and leave whenever they want?
"Neoreactionaries believe 'The Cathedral,' is a meta-institution that consists largely of Harvard and other Ivy League schools, The New York Times and various civil servants" Don't let the pentaverate get you! "I hated the Colonel, with his wee beady eyes!"
That explains why this article was submitted by someone with the loathsome name of Third Position.
If you read TFA, the neoreactionaries are proposing that the monarch at the top of the hierarchy be selected by genetic fitness. The smartest, fittest, and most handsome men (one assumes only men) would rule. So there's no danger of anyone from the Kim Jung family being in charge. We're much more likely to end up with Hitler.
Genocide Man -- Life is funny. Death is funnier. Mass murder can be hilarious.
Since 1988, the House of Bush has occupied the Presidency for 12 years, the House of Clinton for 8 years and been a major player in another administration for 4 years as well as having better than average odds of gaining the White House for at least another 4 years if not 8.
It gets even more like that if you start looking at the House, Senate and Governorships and factor in other family dynasties like the Kennedys, the broader House of Bush.
Then there are various corporate/government crossovers where scions of capitalists enter politics. Minnesota's governor is the child of the Dayton family (retail shopping, family was behind Dayton's and now Target Stores).
I'm not sure we need to declare a new monarchy or aristocracy; we've just more less quietly reinstated it.
That tends to be the tradeoff, when monarchies work well they work really well, and when they work badly they work really badly. Democracy tend to pull things more to the center, so things never work all that well, but they do not get nearly as bad either.
As is often the case with rose tinted glasses, I guess some people are looking back to the best cases and not really thinking about what also goes wrong and why we moved away from those structures in the first place.
Eh, when you have that much political power (or the military behind you), the criteria for genetic fitness has an odd way of adjusting to whoever is already in charge.
No, monarchy is shit even if you get an enlightened, benevolent, philosopher-king at the top. You cannot live in a free society if there is a class of people that are born with rights to which the majority have no claim. Some people might be happy to be slaves in the off chance that they are treated well and given light work, but it is rude of them to think the rest of us would want anything to do with it, and it is evil of them try and force it onto their children.
Or the Bushes. A president, one of his sons president, another son governor of a state. You don't get that kind of occurrence by chance alone. You get it by social capital: Passing advice, endorsements and connections down the family line.
Democracy of itself is the tyranny of the majority. In the USA, the Bill of Rights provides some protection against this tyrant, by putting some limits on democratic processes. The USA is far from a pure democracy (thank the Powers That Be).
One of the options TFA talks about is a system where CEOs become monarchs with stockholders becoming nobles or gentry. If I understood correctly, the author says that this is one proposed neoreactionary system of governance. However it fits the definition of fascism, and would certainly fail for the same reason fascist regimes always fail: they are too susceptible to internal corruption, when policy makers put selfish concerns ahead of societal concerns. "Yes, I have decided that we need to build a flood control dam, and my company will supply the concrete for the job. It's true that we have never had a flooding problem but it is good social policy to be prepared."
Pure monarchies have serious problems when an incompetent gains the throne. And they have troubles with filling a vacancy at the top without a lot bloodshed.
Churchill once said that democracy was the worst form of government... except for all the others. That's as true now as it was in the last century.
Will