Best King ever?
Ethan Smith
Origin name: Beart4toArlington, VARegistered User regular
Origin name: Beart4toArlington, VARegistered User regular
I've been thinking a lot about autocratic systems since...well, pretty much my whole college career. And the general thinking on autocratic systems is that they become most efficient when they become, essentially, unelected democracies, with rule of law, a large number of rulers, and several other things. Personalistic dictatorships are destined to failure. This then got me thinking on Kings. Monarchy is pretty much as inefficient a modern system as you can get--it arises from a period when we only had enough learned people to teach a very small number of people. However, there have been some pretty awesome kings. So this thread is looking at who, in all of history, was the best King, and could an elected official have done better. However, when you look at 'good' in ruling, we need to ask yourself a number of other questions--
Do we value martial prowess over administrative ability? Would Alexander the Great, who mostly just conquered, be valued as highly as Justinian, who spread the rule of law to a massive empire?
Do we value personal abilities over the systems created parallel to the King's rule? Caesar, when he became dictator, brought something Rome hadn't seen in decades--real stability. However, once he died the republic fell back into disarray. King George III was pretty grossly incompetent, but without an incompetent King, Parliament would have had a far harder time taking power.
Now, on a personal level I think that the most competent King, as well as my personal favorite, has to be Fredrick II. He was as enlightened a monarch as you could get, and under his rule Berlin went from a backwater to a flourishing cultural center. His rationalism was without par, and he pretty much did all he could to bring the Enlightenment to Prussia without setting up parliament, and it's hardly his fault that the reaction to Napoleon in Germany resulted in the destruction of Enlightenment thinking.
Do we value martial prowess over administrative ability? Would Alexander the Great, who mostly just conquered, be valued as highly as Justinian, who spread the rule of law to a massive empire?
Do we value personal abilities over the systems created parallel to the King's rule? Caesar, when he became dictator, brought something Rome hadn't seen in decades--real stability. However, once he died the republic fell back into disarray. King George III was pretty grossly incompetent, but without an incompetent King, Parliament would have had a far harder time taking power.
Now, on a personal level I think that the most competent King, as well as my personal favorite, has to be Fredrick II. He was as enlightened a monarch as you could get, and under his rule Berlin went from a backwater to a flourishing cultural center. His rationalism was without par, and he pretty much did all he could to bring the Enlightenment to Prussia without setting up parliament, and it's hardly his fault that the reaction to Napoleon in Germany resulted in the destruction of Enlightenment thinking.
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Also, it was always my understanding that Louis XIV was a pretty rad king.
In that vein, the best king (as far as my limited knowledge goes) was either Marcus Aurelius or Suleiman the Magnificent. Both kings commanded significant military campaigns while accomplishing significant reforms. The failure of both was that they both destroyed the systems that had secured the series of effective leaders that had preceded them, and their immediate successors were both completely incompetent.
Both are excellent examples of the possible "best king" because they both embodied the best of what monarchy was capable of. Their only fault was that their brilliance resulted in their sons achieving the worst.
With Henry V getting honorable mention because Henry IV, Part 1 is such a great play.
The worst elected official is better than the best monarch.
edit: And yes, that includes George W. Bush.
That's a completely ridiculous stance. Democracy is in no way inherently superior. In fact, the opposite is easily true; the best monarch is inherently better than the best elected official, as the best monarch would have no limit to the good they could do, and the best elected official would be limited by law (and the flaws of his constituents).
Democracy is inherently superior over the long term since it provides a much better method of transitioning power than monarchy does.
You can't praise Caesar without mentioning Nero and Caligula, for example.
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Fair enough, I was a bit...overzealous in my response; I blame needing to sleep. I still think the initial statement is ridiculous, though.
Oh, sure. Except I do think that a lot of people tend to romanticize authoritarian government by taking "the good dictator" out of a longer-term historical context.
History tends to create positive impressions of antiquity; if it didn't we wouldn't have people pining for the good old days.
Again, Suleiman the Magnificent was an extraordinary man. Selim II left the empire to the empire and spent his reign occupied with drunken orgies. Future emperors were more in the mold of Selim than Suleiman, which is the primary reason that the Ottoman Empire decayed.
Fredrick II, though the non-military training was kinda butchered by reactionaries after the Napoleonic wars.
Which now that I think about it would lead pretty easily to the dominance of the officer corps in the Kaiserreich.
edit--I agree with the consensus of this thread of autocracy being worse in the long term. However, personalistic autocracy (IE, a dictator or king) is even worse because so much of it depends on that one person. Bettering autocracy requires you to destroy one of autocracies greatest advantages--that of the possibility of a fantastic ruler unlimited by checks or balances, while also connecting the government to the people. Thus, the best form of autocracy can quite simply be a more corrupt version of democracy, though the board's not yet in on whether the CCP's (which could easily be considered the most advanced autocratic party in history) corruption is institutional or because of specific factors going on in China (rapid growth for instance)
Charlemagne
What the fuck?
The problem with autocracy isn't that transitions are difficult. It's that you have an entire group of people arbitrarily governed by some asshole with a fancy hat. Human rights do not exist in this system. I cannot believe I have to actually type these words.
There are boatloads of examples of supposedly democratic governments not respecting human rights, often in truly blatant ways.
There are fewer examples of autocrats and monarchs having an often limited respect for human rights.
However, even if a single autocrat or monarch manages to rule in an enlightened way, non-democratic transitions of power dramatically increase the chances that the next monarch or autocrat will undo any advances or rights protections the "enlightened" monarch accomplished.
I see what you're getting at with the possibilities of an enlightened king, and how they could do a world of good that would be dashed as soon as their idiot relative takes the throne. My point is that, no matter how enlightened the king, they inevitably exist in a system that denies the population a voice in how they govern themselves. That is the problem.
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He ran out the vikings in a long brutal war, built most of England's first earth and mud fortifications, set a standard for education and literacy, built the first English navy and army, unified the English kingdoms, and set up Highway and military roads all through England.
Basically, he created the Kingdom of England as we know it, arguably the most influential Kingdom in history.
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Best monarch ever.
Queenie
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What if the people are retarded?
Lack of democracy is an inherent evil, that said I think it's obvious that it does not count as an ultimate evil.
A democratic state where 51% of the population committed genocide against the other 49% and vast numbers of people died from malnutrition and poverty for example would not be better than a peaceful state ruled by a monarch with restraint and wisdom.
This.
I don't know what the fuck is wrong with Generation-Glee or whatever the fuck the under 30 set is calling themselves these days, but the passionate romanticizing of authoritarianism is distressing.
We're two years out from under Bush and I still hear constantly about how we'd be better off with a "benevolent dictatorship" than a democracy.
"Benevolent dictatorship" of course being code for "Trample all over the rights and feelings of all the groups I disagree with and advance my personal ideology".
Grow up. Please just grow up.
Which isn't too different from democracy which, in the US, is essentially an "open" aristocracy. In order to achieve any amount of actual power one must be inducted into the "old boy's club".
I'm a huge fan of Mussolini prior to the racial laws of '39.
Frederick William's father, a man wishing to emulate the court of Louis XIV like most princes of the time, had secured the title of King for the rulers of the Duchy of Prussia. The usual spendthrift, he blew huge amounts of money to show off his wealth. Though in love with his wife he took a mistress, thinking it the proper thing for a real monarch to do. Anyway, you get the picture. His son was completely different.
Frederick William I turned the new Kingdom of Prussia into a state that could rival the great powers of Europe. He reformed everything. As an administrator he worked tirelessly to improve the state, tweaking everything to the peak of efficiency. The same taxes he imposed he paid himself. All unnecessary wastes of money were eliminated. He built Prussia's large and disciplined army which his son would later put to use, a strong army being important in a time of predatory princes looking to expand the breadth of their realms. Despite his love of military pomp and display he was never excessively militaristic. Frederick William never started a war.
In contrast, as a father he could only be called a dismal failure. However, as a monarch he raised his successor fairly well. Though extremely abusive he molded his poor son Frederick into an exceptional soldier who would expand Prussia further.
He was a lunatic at times but that doesn't detract from how great a ruler he was.
Yeah, pretty much.
Anyway, it's a hard question to ask. I'm pretty anti-monarchial, just because of my upbringing and political traditions. My personal favorite would probably have to be Napoleon Bonaparte, i.e. Emperor Napoleon I.
Not for any of his military measures, mind you, though I guess things like promoting the modern nation state, etc., are all important. The idea of the Napoleonic Code is just something I consider incredibly important and revolutionary, being a major step to established rule of law, and the spread of Civil Law.
I'd probably put Augustus up there too, just for transforming the city of Rome and the Roman State as a whole, or anyone who was crucial to kicking the Vikings' asses. That's just me though. It'd be a lot easier for me to say who my least favorite monarchs are than my favorite (*cough* *cough* Fucking Nikolay Romanov *cough*). Are we only considering people who formally declared themselves monarchs?
A state that has free and fair elections is democratic. That's the condition. It doesn't imply any sort of adequate standard of living, or that the rights of anyone are actually respected. Gang rape is democratic.
The reason why democracy is the best is because in most situations it's correlated with these other goods - respect for rights, economic prosperity.
I'd argue, and I'd be surprised if other would contest though, that a dictator in Rwanda who could've prevented the genocide would have been better than the actual history of what happened.
Sound democracy is preferable, but sometimes a good monarch isn't so bad.
I'd have to choose between Louis Napoléon Bonaparte, the lesser-known brother of the Napoleon and William I.
Louis Napoleon was probably supposed to do whatever his brother told him to, but didn't. He genuinely tried to do whatever was best for his new country and when tragedy struck he personally oversaw the relief efforts, making sure that everything went quickly and smoothly. His reign was short-lived because he didn't rule to the liking of France, but he did gain a lot of popularity.
So much so, in fact, that after Napoleon had been defeated, the Dutch decided to forego to ancient and corrupt Republic of generations past and become a Monarchy.
Enter William I, the first real King of the Netherlands since Phillip II. He was determined to drag the Netherlands into the industrial age and spent a lot of money laying down railroad tracks, digging canals and funding people who wanted to build factories and form companies. Unfortunately, he also wasted a lot of money trying to keep the Belgians from getting their independence. And he tended to go "Fuck you guys, I'm king" whenever someone objected to whatever plan he wanted to implement.
So... here we have two monarchs who cared deeply for their country and really wanted to make it a better place no matter who was against them.
I suppose I wouldn't call either of them "The Best King Ever", but... well, we could've done worse.
- the Prime Minister of Britain, Charles Grey, 1831.
OP doesn't know enough political science :P
In practice there is no dictatorship so strong that it can outright ignore popular opinion; what it can do is survive higher levels of opposition. At minimum a monarch or dictator still needs substantial support, especially from the armed forces and police - but the cost of maintaining this entails a large and minimally corrupt civil service that can generate enough growth and tax revenue.
Dictatorships are very much a modern institution, where information control is difficult especially if economic growth and the wealth it brings is desired, so managing any opposition in the context of a nominally democratic system is much easier than declaring yourself a god. The DPRK has pervasive information control, but even then it is terrible (South Korean movies still leak into North Korea), and it comes at the cost of Kim not being able to persuade the government which he is theoretically leader of to actually work efficiently.
So studying ancient monarchies isn't going to be very helpful. Caesar didn't have to worry about attracting foreign direct investment, or managing state-owned industries, or how to allow internet access without allowing your opposition to organize through it. Rome just had to conquer and then let local governments send them tribute revenue every now and then. This isn't a workable model if you want modern economic growth - no matter how awesome the king is, personally, he's still going to have to govern in a somewhat democratic framework. Something must allow information to flow back up the hierarchy. The system is not the individual.
And if you want to compare autocracy to democracy... well, the quality of both varies, doesn't it? Deng Xiaoping delivered much better growth than India ever had under any of its democratic governments during the License Raj. India had too much democracy and too many entrenched interest groups. Governments in Singapore and Malaysia and Indonesia would collapse into ethnically divided partisanship in the absence of authoritarian rule; this was demonstrated vividly when authoritarian rule did collapse in Indonesia at the end of the Suharto administration - mass murder, looting, and rape of the Chinese minority. Thousands of people died.
Take North Korea and South Korea. Both are presumably similar culturally. And both were under military dictatorships for most of the two decades after the end of the Korean War. North Korea even started off richer than South Korea, being mostly not rubble at the end of the war. But by the time Park was assassinated South Korea was already enormously richer.
Suffrage is easy when it's only 10% of your adult population, tops, anyway. More like 5%, and who knows, because it's not like you're obligated to take a census anyway.