Comments on: Patching The Holes Of Monarchy With Social Technology

By: AntiDem

AntiDem — Wed, 10 Jun 2015 03:47:01 +0000

Lord Norwich’s book is a great place to start on the history of Venice:

http://www.amazon.com/History-Venice-John-Julius-Norwich/dp/0679721975

By: Preston S. Brooks

Preston S. Brooks — Tue, 09 Jun 2015 15:44:51 +0000

The Princely House of Liechtenstein has avoided these issues through having family/corporate governance and incredible fecundity. I would recommend reading up on their history to any budding monarchist. Also, it’s worth noting that they (and the Grimaldis) are the only European royals who rule as well as reign.

By: August

August — Tue, 09 Jun 2015 14:00:14 +0000

Are there any particularly good books on Venice? I suspect I will find Venetians in general attempted to marry up, and that one of the reasons the Doge system worked well was because whoever he was, he at least tended to be related to those who mattered. I know I am somewhat biased on the subject, but I tend to think relations make the ground beneath the throne solid.

By: AntiDem

AntiDem — Tue, 09 Jun 2015 04:40:23 +0000

I agree that feudalism is a robust and excellent system.

Also, a word should be put in for the Venetian system, which provided an impressive combination of liberty, decency, prosperity, and staying power. The Doge was (I oversimplify, as one must do when explaining *anything* having to do with Venice) essentially an elected king who served for life, voted into power by a small hereditary oligarchy of noble families from which he was almost always chosen. That system worked well all the way from the Fall of Rome to Napoleon Bonaparte – it’s hard to argue with a success record like that.

It’s a fine system. The only real concern is how far it would scale.

By: Garrett L. Gray

Garrett L. Gray — Tue, 09 Jun 2015 04:23:07 +0000

Great article. It’s worth noting that, with the exception of “royal rearings,” every example of social technology described in this article functions as a structural systemic component, rather than as an ongoing employment of particular methods over time; the only art necessary to maintain, once these structures are in place, is the art of maintaining the structures themselves.

On the question of raising kings, though, this article doesn’t seem to establish a conclusion so securely as seems implied in its summation. It is explained how upbringing as a fledgeling king leads to second generation degeneracy, but then examples are given of adopted kings who, we read, succeed because they were groomed from childhood for command. Clearly, a comprehensive evaluation of royal parenting styles and strategies would have been off-topic here, but an understanding of why certain upbringings work while others miserably fail is just-as-clearly a well warranted component of any discussion on the effects of social tech on monarchies.

By: PolarWashington

PolarWashington — Mon, 08 Jun 2015 20:12:48 +0000

Venice, and extremely long-lasting and stable “Republic” solved the dynastic issue by forbidding the sons of a Doge from themselves becoming the Doge.

By: August

August — Mon, 08 Jun 2015 14:22:43 +0000

I would go for primogeniture with a sort of corporate vetting; the corporation being made up of family members, of course. Incentives must be high for all within the realm to maintain the current order, and the promise of being able to place their own children in advantageous positions above themselves helps cut down on conflict.
A clear hierarchy with clear paths of social advance, and one that takes Erasmus’ advice about not marrying outside of the realm. I have read somewhere (possibly Mangan) that ruling classes tend to go effeminate because the men will pick very feminine women- North Korea was the example- and the women tend to seek foreign alliances instead of marrying within a lower class inside the realm. Possibly this issue could be mitigated by contests which would bestow young men of the realm with more status.

I also have hopes for genetics. I don’t think engineering will work all that well, but careful genetic matching can. If the coming trainwreck is survivable, and we continue to have a similar level of technology, we could well see mothers testing their infants and reintroducing betrothals, because they will figure out who they think is best match long before the child is old enough to worry about it.

How to deal with property and debt over generations also needs to be addressed. Debt clearly causes perverse incentives. Meanwhile, especially with regard to land- well, there tends to be more people in the third generation than there were in the first. For war to be averted the integrity of the realm needs to be perceived as a net benefit to all. A corporate structure may help here too- though I have thought that any stock probably needs to be linked to a deed; when a person’s ownership interest is in stock alone the incentives seem to shift somewhat, away from the incentives that an individual has when his ownership interest is in a particular piece of land.