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1. Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Saturday, 26-Oct-2024 16:18:57 JST Aral Balkan

   It’s amazing to me how otherwise intelligent people keep getting surprised by kings¹ choosing monarchy² over democracy.

   ¹ billionaires
   ² fascism

   • Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Saturday, 26-Oct-2024 20:35:11 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Patrick Gillam

     @patrickgillam Of course; without monarchy, there is no nobility.

     And we so often mistake power plays within the monarchy for popular resistance or democratisation.

     Take the Manga Carta, for instance. Often portrayed as a bill of rights for everyday people, it was just a power play between the nobility and monarch.

   • Patrick Gillam (patrickgillam@mastodon.online)'s status on Saturday, 26-Oct-2024 20:35:12 JST Patrick Gillam

     in reply to

     @aral

     This raises a question I would like to ask a medievalist: Do lords tolerate kings because the nobility needs a monarchy? It’s as if they recognize the need for an umpire or something.

     Related: The Founding Fathers were as lords in their way, and created a government they could dominate. (I’m thinking of the Senate in particular.) Many of today’s lords, the billionaires, treat government as a beneficent king, dispensing favors and overlooking the lord’s crimes.