The
following is part two of a speech is was presented by yours truly at a town
hall meeting discussing corruption in Jamaica and how it should affect our view
of a republic.
The point being made here is that replacing the monarch with a president
will never ever enhance development but it may stifle it, depending on who is
in office, I can point to solid evidence for this. In 1962, Uganda became
independent with the Queen as its head of state, a year later they amended the
constitution to remove the Queen however contrary to popular belief, they did
NOT become a republic. Instead it became an elective monarchy where the kings
of the different Ugandan tribal states would take turns as head of state with
the inaugural holder of the “presidential” office being Mutesa II, Kabaka of
Buganda. From 1962-1966, Uganda was noted as one of the fastest growing
economies in Africa. Then in 1966, The Prime Minister decided that no kind of
monarchy was good enough, not even a local based elective one and as such
decided to overthrow the Kabaka in order to make himself president (this time
the presidency was truly republican). Suffice it to say that this started the
road to Uganda’s decline. Unlike the monarch who was already independently
wealthy, both Obote and his successor Idi Amin looted the country’s coffers to enrich
themselves and the nation suffered a great deal from the hands of their
presidential tyrants, suffice to say that had Uganda remained a constitutional
monarchy (either tied to the Commonwealth or a local elective monarchy), the
executive would have never have had the power to engage in its widespread
corruption as the government would have be limited by the fact of a higher
authority above them. Is it any wonder that the constitutional reform agenda
has no other focus? as German sociologist Max Weber once stated “Parliamentary
monarchy fulfils a role which an elected president never can. It formally
limits the politicians’ thirst for power because with it the supreme office of
the state is occupied once and for all.”
But this discourse is not one on democracy but one on corruption, yet it
is still important to point this out because if the very root of the
presidential office is less than honest, everything else can be called into
question. Now turning to corruption, let’s do the analysis for that one.
According the latest corruption perception index, the most corrupt countries
are Somalia, South Sudan, Syria and Yemen again all republics. In contrast to
this, the least corrupt countries are Denmark, Finland, New Zealand, Norway and
Singapore. Of these 5, 3 are still monarchies and other 2 actually became
republics against their will (Finland in 1917 Russian revolution and Singapore
being expelled from Malaysia in 1965).
So with that history, that begs the question, why is our government so
keen on a republic? Is it to heal slavery? The gullible may believe that, but
I’m not so convinced, the men who wrote our independence constitution were much
closer to slavery days than we are now yet they saw it fit to give us a
constitutional monarchy. Or is it they will tell you that we need to be
independent. Again this argument holds no water because Jamaica is already a
recognized sovereign state the world over, nor can they legitimately claim that
our constitutional structure is backward because there are first world
developed countries that do it as well such as Canada or Australia, so it is
hardly convincing that this is about developing ourselves because a King is no
hindrance to development or independence, any more than a president is a help
to it. Some republicans will posit national pride as the reason and this is
notion I find this most bizarre and a bit offensive and here is why? Jamaica is
a beautiful country, we have so much to offer the world from our music to our
sporting achievements to our unique cuisine and more, the very idea that I need
someone to call Mr. President or Madam President before I can feel any pride
for my country is one I utterly reject.
Thatcher saw the truth of that when she rightfully declared “Those who
imagine that a politician would make a better figurehead than a hereditary
monarch might perhaps make the acquaintance of more politicians.” And speaking
of a figurehead especially the need for one who looks like us, I reckon we
already a governor-general for serve that purpose. The organization Monarchy New Zealand refers
to a set up like ours as a “team of three” in which the power of the executive
is more diffused because it is shared between three individuals, the monarch,
the governor-general and the prime minister. This arrangement works because each office
helps to keep the other two in check thus power is diffused rather than fused.
Why
does this arrangement work in a monarchy but not in a republic? First of all, we must ask ourselves, what is
the purpose of the state? Of any state?
According to Otto von Hapsburg (a former MEP and also heir to the
centuries-old Hapsburg dynasty of Austria), the purpose of the state is to
exist not for its own sake but for the sake of the people that it is meant to
serve. Its
authority is circumscribed by the rights of its citizens. It is only free to
act in those fields within their remit. The State is therefore at all times the
servant of natural law. Or perhaps we could comprehend it if it is stated more
crudely, Pierre-Joseph
Proudhon, a French socialist politician puts it as follows “Authority, which in monarchy is the principle of governing, is in
republics the aim of the government.” What does that mean to us? And why should
it matter? There are many who are of the view that all we need is change in the
title of the governor-general to president, remove all reference to The Crown
and everything will go on as they always have. I will however disabuse you of
that notion. One of the biggest arguments republicans use to bolster their
cause is the fact that we live in the 21st century, the royals being
acutely aware of this fact are not going to commit any infraction that will
effectively abolish themselves and the governor-general also being aware of
this sentiment will also tread very carefully. A president on other hand does
not have anyone calling for his/her head constantly simply by virtue of their
existence, therefore without this sense of foreboding hanging over them they
would not be subjected to the same careful inclinations in the exercise of
their duties.
One of the primary goals of every monarch is to leave behind a strong
legacy for their heirs to inherit, in his book “Democracy: The God that Failed”
Professor Hans Herman Hoppe made mention of the fact that in a republic, a
president holds the use of the current resource of the government but does NOT
own its capital value since unlike a king, a president cannot pass on his title
to an heir, in fact in some cases his successor might even be an enemy (e.g.
Trump and Biden). With this in mind a president has no incentive to maintain or
even enhance the value of the government estate but instead as a mere trustee,
he knows he has but a short time to acquire whatever he can from his office
before term limits eventually force him out to make room for his replacement
(and this we see in the fact that most US presidents leave office considerably
wealthier than they were at inauguration). We are often told that president
would give our children a chance to aspire to something, but the truth is there
is no president that really goes into office thinking about any future office
holder. King Charles on the other hand would most certainly have succession at
the forefront of his mind, the legacy that he would leave behind for Prince
William and Prince George, hence his own notion on how to conduct himself on
throne would be guided by this consideration in a way a president will not.
This fact alone lessens any likelihood of a monarch’s involvement in corruption
since he knows it will mean not only the end of his reign but the end of the
monarchy itself (another thing a president need not worry about)
An example of such a
scenario playing out can be seen approximately a decade ago in the uprising
known as the Arab spring. Several nations in West Asia and North Africa went
through a revolutionary fervor with citizens demanding more rights, better
living conditions and greater representation in governments. In the wake of
this, republics such as Egypt, Tunisia, Libya and Yemen all experienced a complete
breakdown of civil authority as exemplified by the complete overthrow of
existing governments. In contrast, monarchies like Jordan, Morocco and Bahrain
served as a moderating influence, yes changes were indeed made to these
countries but the changes were smoother and did not come in the wake of any
long lasting instability. This is due in no small part to Kings who proved
themselves open to changes. Yom and Gause argue that the “Arab Spring might just
as well be called the Arab Republics’ Spring” because monarchies remained
relatively stable while republican regimes in the region collapsed or
experienced monumental shifts. What was
it that caused the difference where King Abdullah II and King Mohammed VI were
able to retain their thrones while men like Hosni Mubarak and Abdullah Saleh
were forced demit office? Were not the latter democratically elected by their
people as a president should be? First of all, neither president was chosen by
the people, they were selected by a small group of elites, secondly both
presidents headed regimes that were notorious for corruption and repression of
dissent and third, both of these presidents were siphoning state resources,
lining the pockets of their cronies. In stark contrast to this stands the Kings
of Jordan and Morocco both of whom being in the position that they were in
recognized that if they wanted a secure monarchy to pass to the next
generation, social and political changes were necessary which allowed them to
survive and their people to thrive,
But wait, you might ask, doesn’t that mean that the
royals are just as self-interested as elected politicians? Yes, this is so.
However, it is in human nature to be self-interested even those are doing good
often do so with self-interested motives in mind e.g. European powers didn’t
abolish slavery out of the goodness of their hearts but because it was
economically beneficially to them. Yet the slaves enjoy the benefit of freedom
from the taskmasters once emancipation was proclaimed. Similarly, when companies
participate in charity work, is it because they are benevolent heroes? Not at
all, they are looking for the tax breaks that come with it. Yet the
disadvantaged persons who benefit from the charity efforts are still grateful
for it. What is my point here, the Kantian worldview of innate human goodness
is a fallacy, yet many republics claim this as their legacy simply by virtue of
that fact they have a head of state who claims some electoral legitimacy (which
at times does not even exist). The Machiavellian worldview on the other hand is
far more accurate and this is especially because many misunderstand it in the
first place. In his 1532 masterpiece
“The Prince” Machiavelli makes mention of the fact that while a monarch should
deal ruthlessly with foreign powers, he should also deal justly and kindly with
his own citizens in that way, he will be loved at home and feared abroad. Yet
in discussing the Machiavellian point of view, scholarship often mentions only
half the story. The point is this, both monarchs and presidents are human and
both are flawed and self-interested, what makes the difference however is that
a monarch has far more to lose as he has the next generation to consider
whereas a president can only ever see as far as the end of his term. Even while still Prince of Wales, we often
heard Charles III talk about the kind of world he is leaving behind for his
upcoming grandchildren, Joe Biden and Donald Trump on the other hand cannot
seem to think beyond the 2024 polls. Is it not better then to cast our lot with
a head of state that has a longer, more visionary view in mind?
To be Continued in Part three
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