Continuing on the series of why various political mechanisms fail, this installment will be dealing with monarchism.

If you were to reference the previous articles in this series, you would see that it is very easy to note how frail governments can become due to their design and setup. Communism and socialism fail because of humanity’s innate need to be lazy and lax when they are given everything and do not have to work for what they need. Capitalism and democracy fail because they rely on the uneducated masses to make decisions for everyone when they can barely handle themselves. That leaves to question one other form of government.

If we transport ourselves a few centuries back, we can see the prevalence of royalty. Monarchism is one of the oldest forms of ruling masses, aside from tribal setups (which will not be discussed in the series). This form of government designates one original person that was chosen by the heavens to lead their people. This sort of divine right to the throne can be seen as early as the pharaohs, in which the Egyptians thought that the pharaoh was a medium between the people of Egypt and the gods. They were also thought to transform into the god Osiris after their death. This is obviously not the case, as various forms of monarchism, whether it be shogunates, caliphates, etc., were based on having a singular ruler, and occasionally they would have an accompanying court.

So if people are too lazy or incompetent for the other forms of government, why will this one work? The thing is, this is another form that is doomed to fail. Monarchies have two problems: The king and queen are decided by lineage. Whoever is in that genetic line has access to the throne. There is also the fact that their power is absolute, so if they are an unfair ruler, the countrymen are out of luck as they cannot just wait a few years to elect a new one. While there have been many great rulers of monarchies, empires, etc., there are also a few terrible ones.

There have been greats such as Napoleon of France, Elizabeth I of England, Genghis Khan of the Mongols, Julius Caesar of Rome and so on. These figures stood proudly as the heads of their nations and brought glory to their empires. There are, however, those who decided to run rampant with their power. These people are among the ranks of Gaius Caligula of Rome, Queen Mary I of England and Charles II of Spain. These are people who were either unfit for the job due to sickness, corruption, or those who ran rampant with their power.

Monarchism is based too much on chance for it to work. You can either get a really great king, or a terrible one depending on who is up next to take the throne of the nation.