Guest post: Compelling arguments for monarchy
Originally a comment by Bjarte Foshaug on One’s estates.
The third* most common argument I hear from pro-monarchy Norwegians is something along the lines of “Would you rather have something like the American model and get someone like Trump as the Head of State?”. This seems to presuppose that the monarchy does indeed serve a real function that must be served somehow, so if the monarchy is abolished we need to put something else in its place. My answer is the same as the one I give when religious apologists ask what atheists want to put in religion’s place: Neither the monarchy nor religion serves any function that needs to be served at at all, so we can just abolish both and have nothing in their place.
The fourth most common argument is that the monarchy supposedly plays some unspecified yet vitally important role in luring foreign investors to Norwegian companies. At this point I always imagine someone like Bill Gates or Elon Musk sitting there and thinking to himself “I was going to invest my money where one would expect the highest returns, but then I learned that Norway has a monarchy, so now I’ve decided to invest everything in Norwegian salted and dried cod instead and watch my financial empire crumble”.
*The first two are (1) “I still get warm fuzzies about the King’s admirable refusal to concede to the Nazi occupiers in 1940, therefore monarchy good” and (2) “but the Norwegian royal family is so much nicer and more in tune with ordinary people than those pompous snobs they have in Britain!”
I don’t think there is a foolproof way of running a government that prevents sufficiently powerful and committed bad actors from subverting it if they really want to. The USA’s much vaunted checks and balances have proven to be as much smoke and mirrors as any other system. New Zealand’s system openly relies on good will and co-operation to function. Australia (functionally similar to NZ) has had what amounted to a soft coup in many people’s opinion when the Governor General dismissed the Government of the day under questionable circumstances. The Convention for the British Monarchy is that they have to appear to be apolitical and the major speeches they give relating to parliament, government and policy are based on scripts prepared by the government of the day.
I don’t see the advantage for a country like Norway in retaining a monarchy in even a figurehead stance as part of government. Surely they’re smart enough to device a system that relies on social consensus and would be difficult to subvert. I think the key point is to work to prevent your society from fracturing and having one half go AWOL in the way it has with the USA.
It amazes me how ill-educated so many monarchists are. The US Presidential model, they think, is the only alternative to a monarch. It is not, as is shown by Republics around the world.
The British monarch provides no advantages to Australia, it simply marks us out as 30 year olds still living in mum’s basement, too afraid to go out and meet the world on our own terms.
The incoming Australian government has established a Ministry for the Republic to lay out a road map for a truly independent nation. The monarchists are wailing into their Earl Grey tea, complaining that the Prime Minister has pledged allegiance to the “Queen, her heirs, and successors” and then immediately undermined “Her Majesty”. Until we are a Republic, all PMs and ministers are compelled to swear an oath to a foreign monarch. That must change.
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@Rob – the dismissal of the Whitlam government was brought about as it was the only government in our history determined to set a foreign policy that was in our national interest, rather than serving the interests of Washminster. US bases in Australia were to be closed, borrowings would not be restricted to US & UK Bankers, and a pivot to Asia were some of Whitam’s goals.
His dismissal was not only an immediate catastrophe for Australia, but so wounded the Labor Party that it has steadily marched away from its foundation principles of Socialism and cosied up to the big money end of town.
A quick aside to the reverend: we are not tied to the British monarchy. Out head of state is whoever holds the office of Queen/King of Australia, a separate office to that of the UK. I know, it’s a bit of a distinction without a difference, but the important bit is that as far as Australian governance is concerned, Liz has powers solely granted to her by the Australian constitution and no other. As for meeting the rest of the world ‘on our own terms’ – we already have that. All Australian foreign policy is determined by our elected executive government; it’s just a damn shame that they always turn out to be willing lapdogs to USA.
@Holms: Better a willing lapdog to the USA than an unwilling one to China, I suppose.
There is a necessary function to be fulfilled by a Head of State, which is to be Head of State. Somebody has to be at the apex of the pyramid, whether or not they perform an executive function, if only to prevent someone else from usurping that position. Countries have tried to do things differently – Troika arrangements in the Soviet Union, for example – but things always reverted to having an individual on top.
Also, a society can indeed largely dispense with conventional religion. Unfortunately, it may then find that an unconventional religion such as gender ideology has come in through a side entrance.