Democracy was a failed system. It was merely better than all the other systems.

Disclaimer: Some may misunderstand this post and use it to argue we shouldn’t strive for democracy at all. This is not the intention. As long as we have no better alternative, we should very much strive for democracy above all other systems of government. This post is intended to explore what a better alternative could look like.

As I write this, it is evident that democratic systems are under attack from various actors, both within and outside those systems. In a sense, this is nothing new: corrupting powers have been present since the invention of democracy itself. It could even be argued that democracy was created in an attempt to contain the inevitability of systemic corruption.

As such, the measure by which it should be judged is this: has it succeeded in the containment of said corruption? The unfortunate conclusion is that no, it has not.

Abstract

The mere fact that democracy as a system is prone to failure does not imply the values that underpin it are not worth striving for. I believe those values are worthwhile, even if it requires a rethinking of our means to achieve them. In this manifesto, I will present a vision for a different kind of government structure, and attempt to argue how it may be better posed to resist the challenges that democracies fall to.

In summary, New Monarchy is based on a union of districts, each governed by a monarchy. Monarchies are constrained by a constitution to guarantee citizen rights, including the right to depose unjust or unfit rulers, while districts are sworn to protect each other’s constitution.

Value Statement

Before diving into the system itself, I will present the values that I aim to achieve. It should be expressed that these values do not exist in a vacuum, and they are not absolute. By allowing selected compromises on the very values we aim to achieve, I hope to maximize the practical achievement of those values.

I will start with an iteration of the most fundamental rights that I would like to explicitly strive for, and which will be protected by each district’s constitution:

• The right to live in freedom, without fear of war or persecution.
• The right to have access to shelter, clothes, food, and other basic necessities.
• The right to equal treatment by the law.
• The right to freely express beliefs and opinions.
• The right to organise and associate with one another.
• The right to have access to education.

The proposed system should strive to maximize these values, even when select rights need to be compromised in specific circumstances described in this manifesto.

Definition of Corruption

Given the above values, corruption can be defined as any attempt to subvert these values, usually to elevate one person’s rights over those of others.

Philosophy of Power

Democracies rely on the separation of powers, also known as the Trias Politica, and their checks and balances in order to prevent any one branch of government from becoming too powerful and to keep them from consolidating power. Unfortunately, these checks and balances can make democracies slow to act, including against the corruptions they are intended to prevent. Moreover, the branches of government in a democracy often rely upon good faith from the other branches to respect the imposed limits. Such limits have proven toothless against adversaries who do not share this respect.

This brings us to the heart of the system I wish to propose: a new mechanism to separate power. I will do so from the following philosophical assumptions:

• The population is as corruptible as government is, so we need checks and balances against them as well.
• Ultimate power comes from the ability to wield violence. Yet violence should be avoided except when it is used to prevent greater violence. As such, the threat of violence is an acceptable measure if it can be used to prevent actual violence.
• Assuming the absence of corruption, it is easy to see how a capable, benevolent dictator could provide for more stability and welfare than a democracy could. Yet it is exactly because a dictatorship is so prone to corruption that democracy is generally preferred instead. This manifesto attempts to preserve most of the efficiency of a capable dictatorship, encourages it to remain benevolent, and proposes a new set of checks and balances that can hopefully make the system less prone to corruption than democracy is.
• No system of government can ever fix the tension between the ruling class and their subjects if the latter lose their trust in the former. In such an event, the best that can be achieved is a non-violent transfer of power, but this moment leaves the government vulnerable to the installment of a corrupt regime. Therefore, the key to making government more resilient against corruption is to split the responsibility for deposing the old rulers from that for electing the new ones.
• The vast majority of people will never hold a significant amount of power. Democracy tried to fix this by giving electorate power to the masses. However, in doing so it became vulnerable to manipulation of the masses. In contrast, New Monarchy posits their lack of power doesn’t require much fixing at all. Instead of giving electorate power to the masses, it merely gives them the ability to depose unfit or unjust rulers without guarantee for their replacement.

Class-based Governance

I believe this section may be most likely to upset people’s ideas about just governance if they strongly believe in democracy. This is because it will compromise the equal treatment of a population by law. And yet no system of government, including democracy, has ever been able to eliminate the de facto separation between an elite class and a common class. As such I believe it is both more intellectually honest to acknowledge the existence of an elite class, as well as more productive to safeguard both classes to prevent one from becoming more powerful than the other.

To accomplish this, there will be two classes: the monarchs and the citizens. Both will have clearly separated privileges, constraints, and responsibilities.

The Monarchy

In the New Monarchy, the monarchs are the hereditary ruling class of a district. They are responsible for creating the law, as well as acting as a District Court for resolving disputes that cannot be resolved by lower courts. Monarchs are also in control of the army.

Monarchs are free to choose their internal organisation. There may be a District Ruler, such as a King or Queen, but they may also organise themselves through a parliament or other means.

Monarchs are rewarded for their service through wealth and luxury, but they are forbidden from holding any personal property. The monarchy acts as a collective with shared ownership across all its members.

Monarchs are also allowed to run enterprises, but any income must benefit the district as a whole rather than the monarchy alone.

Assuming the monarchy has a budget of 1% of the Grand District Product (GDP) but comprises about 0.01% of the population (both arbitrary but reasonable numbers) their wealth would be about a hundredfold larger than that of an average citizen. These riches are more than a mere reward however: it should be intentionally difficult for a citizen to attempt to buy any favours from a monarch.

Children of monarchs also become monarchs by birthright. If this were not the case, it would lead to a natural path for corruption as children of the monarchy would likely be treated favourably by their parents.

Citizens

Citizens form the common class and have largely the same rights as those in a democracy, with the major distinction that they cannot vote to elect the monarchy. They do have other voting rights however, to which I will dedicate a separate section.

Citizens can have personal property and their society is capitalist and/or socialist as deemed appropriate by the monarchs.

A Cap on Capitalism

No single corporation owned wholly or partially by citizens may be responsible for generating more than 1% of the GDP. This is intended to prevent them from overshadowing the monarchy and achieving the means to buy their influence.

Any corporation exceeding the limit shall be bought by the district and come under the control of the monarchs instead. Corporations are allowed to divest business units in order to prevent this from happening.

These limitations are not part of the constitution, but common laws in the interest of the monarchs.

Class changes

While the class a person belongs to is initially determined at birth, citizens can ascend to the monarchy, while monarchs can be deposed and become citizens again.

Ascension

Citizens of outstanding accomplishment may ascend to become a monarch at the invitation of existing monarchs.

Adding monarchs does not increase the budget for the monarchy, so monarchs have an intrinsic motivation to not grow their own class. Therefore it is reasonable to assume that ascension will primarily occur to gain favour from the citizenry, possibly to prevent their own deposal. This is an intended balancing effect, since it is better to prevent than to resolve tension between the classes.

Deposal

While citizens don’t get to elect the monarchy, they do receive voting rights to depose members of the monarchy whom they feel are inadequate to rule.

Voting happens yearly and any monarch who receives a vote to depose from more than 50% of the voting citizens will be deposed within a week after the counting of the votes has concluded.

No more than 50% of monarchs can be voted out at once. If more monarchs received a vote to depose, only those with the most votes will be deposed. This guarantees continuity of government while still sending a very strong warning to the remaining monarchs: if they don’t change course they risk being halved again.

Given that monarchs have no personal property, they will not keep any wealth or possessions when they are deposed from the monarchy. Assuming they have no network to rely on — other monarchs are forbidden from granting favours to a deposed monarch — this means they will be among the poorest of the citizens, which will hopefully motivate monarchs to maintain the existence of a decent social security net while they’re still in power.

Monarchs cannot be deposed before the age of 18.

Deposed monarchs are not allowed to ascend anymore and will remain citizens for the rest of their lives.

Constitution

Despite being the ruling class, monarchs do not have absolute power. They will be bound by a constitution that guarantees the rights of citizens, and prescribes the procedures related to the rules of the New Monarchy.

The budget allocated for the monarchy is also defined in the constitution.

Although monarchs cannot change the constitution at will, it is not entirely immutable either: changes can be made after a referendum if an absolute majority of the voting citizens are also in favour. Proposed constitutional changes need to be announced at least 6 months in advance, and the referendum will be voted on together with the annual vote of deposal.

Districts

So far I have proposed many rules, but without methods to enforce them, there is not much to stop corrupt actors from breaking those rules. This is where we need to consider the possibility of violence, and what we can do to prevent it. After all, if the monarchs are in control of the army, how can the citizens make sure the monarchs play by the rules? What if a deposed monarch refuses to leave? Or what if votes are no longer organised at all?

This is where districts become relevant: neither monarchy nor citizenry exist at the level of the union. Instead, they exist at the level of a district.

A district is a segment of the union with its own distinct monarchy and citizenry. It doesn’t really matter whether they are provinces in a nation, countries within a union, or something else entirely: the purpose of districts is to balance one another. In terms of scale this means it doesn’t really matter how big they are, as long as their relative sizes are not too far removed from one other.

District Responsibilities

Districts have a responsibility to enforce each other’s constitution. Since each district has an independent army, the ultimate way to enforce the constitution of a malfunctioning district is through a military coalition of the other districts whose aim will be to replace the monarchy of the district that is in violation.

Given that this is effectively a call for war, this method of enforcement should be an absolute last resort. Before forming such a coalition, the other districts should issue a formal warning and give the citizenry another chance to vote to depose their monarchs. This time window can also be used by the offending monarchs to alter their course of action of their own volition.

Forfeiture of Life

If a monarch has been deposed by the citizenry but refuses to leave, their life will become forfeit one week after the deadline to leave (two weeks after the conclusion of the vote). This means that assassination of the monarch will become an act without legal consequences. Assassination is legal regardless of whether it happens by someone from the same district or another one.

Since constitutional enforcement can only happen through military means by other districts, assassination is considered the lesser of evils if it can prevent such war.

If the monarchs in a given district have not organised a vote at all in their allotted voting month, the entire monarchy will become forfeit at the end of the next month, unless a stay is authorised by the other districts. A valid reason for extending such a stay could be a natural disaster, for instance.

District Distribution

Districts are intended to balance one another and as such one should not be allowed to overpower the others. To prevent any district from becoming so powerful that others would fear to intervene, no district is allowed to have more than 1/6th of the total population of the union, or have a GDP that is greater than 1/6th of the total union’s combined GDP.

While any specific threshold would have some amount of arbitrariness to it, the number of 1/6 is chosen with the following rationale: Assuming there are 7 districts (the practical minimum allowed by such a scheme), and one is malfunctioning, then even if half of the other districts don’t wish to intervene (having a legal obligation doesn’t always mean they will abide), the three remaining districts are likely to be sufficient to pose a credible threat to the malfunctioning one.

If a district reaches the 1/6 threshold in either population or GDP, it may be forced to either split itself into separate districts, or to divest territory or enterprises until the threshold is sufficiently out of reach again.

Any two districts that combined make up less than 1/12th of the total population and less than 1/12th of the total combined GDP may choose to merge into a single new district.

Supreme Constitution

A small segment of each district’s constitution is shared across all districts: The Supreme Constitution. The Supreme Constitution lists the responsibilities of districts and their procedures.

The Supreme Constitution cannot be changed by any individual district. Instead, it may be changed in one of two ways:

• Districts that collectively represent at least 50% of the population may call for a referendum to change the Supreme Constitution. If an absolute majority of voters votes in favour, the change is adopted.
• Districts that collectively represent at least 67% of the population may change the Supreme Constitution without referendum.

The latter method of change is permitted because with sufficient consensus across districts there would be no feasible counterforce to deny the change.

Voting Rights

Even though they are not able to elect monarchs, all citizens from the age of 16 have voting rights. Every year, a vote is organised where citizens can vote which monarchs need to be deposed. In addition, if there are any constitutional changes proposed, those will be voted on at the same time. Optionally, any other topics on which the monarchs wish to hold referenda may be included as well.

Given that the monarchy may be a large group of people, votes to depose can be made in one of three variations:

1. Keep all monarchs in power.
2. Depose one or more monarchs whose names are given.
3. Depose every monarch except one or more whose names are given.

Given that citizens have no right to elect, it could very well happen that they become disinterested in voting. This would be troublesome because it would likely mean that content citizens won’t vote, while those that are unhappy with the monarchs do vote. If this goes too far out of balance, it would lead to undesirably fast turnover of monarchs. To prevent this from happening, citizens may be offered a financial incentive to vote. It should still be stressed that such incentives are allowed to be provided by the government only, and may not be made in the name of any individual monarch or any other private party.

If this appears as a “bribe” to vote in favour of the monarchs, do consider that a slow turnover of monarchs is very much an intended effect in the New Monarchy. Voting to depose a ruler should be the exception rather than a common occurrence, thereby ensuring longevity in government policy and general stability.

The intention of deposal being the exception is also what enables the relatively short turnaround time of having a yearly vote. Yearly votes are not intended to be an instrument for yearly changes; longterm rule should be the norm. But having a vote every year serves as a powerful reminder to the monarchy to keep fulfilling their role, and it allows the citizenry to step in relatively quickly when the situation demands it.

Voting must always be anonymous and any financial incentives may not come with a suggestion of what to vote.

The age of 16 was chosen because without electorate power, there is relatively little risk to lowering the age threshold. After all, voters from ages 16 to 18 are but a small fraction of the citizens. It merely makes the job of monarchs a little bit harder in that they need to satisfy a more diverse range of voters. This too is intrinsic to the system: Monarchs are granted privileges on the premise that they can be good rulers as long as there is a mechanism to keep them honest.

Election of Monarchs

Monarchs are generally not elected. The monarch is a hereditary class, meaning that new members are born into it. Upon invitation, citizens may also be invited into the monarchy.

However, in the event that the monarchy gets repeatedly halved because of continued discontent from the citizens, it could happen that the monarchy becomes too small to properly function. To prevent this, election of monarchs may become necessary.

In the event that after deposal less than 144 monarchs remain that are over the age of 18, a special election is held to make sure the amount of adult monarchs becomes 144 again. This election is held among the members of the monarchy of all other districts. In this election, both voters and candidates must be monarchs.

(Yes, I admit the number of 144 is entirely arbitrary, similar to the amount of seats in most parliaments.)

Vote Planning

Votes must be organised such that they are evenly spread around the year across districts. This is done by assigning each district a month in which to organise their vote. If there are more than 12 districts, multiple districts may be assigned the same month, but no month shall be assigned to more districts than the amount of districts assigned to the month with the least amount of districts plus one.

Example I: If there are 6 districts, they will all organise their vote in a different month.

Example II: If there are 16 districts, there will be 8 months where a single district organises their vote and 4 months where two districts organise their vote.

By spreading the voting events, other districts have the time to elect monarchs for a district that has too few of them before their own vote comes around.

Cross-District Voting

Voters are allowed to vote not only in their own district, but may also vote to depose rulers in every district that is part of the union. This is done to prevent districts from adopting laws or policies that are perceived as threatening by (populations of) other districts.

Votes to depose rulers of other districts are cast at the same time as votes to depose rulers of their own district.

A monarch is deposed through cross-district voting if after any district’s vote at least 60% of voters across the entire union have voted to depose that monarch in their most recent vote. If this happens, the same rules are followed as for a regular deposal.

The number of 60% is a somewhat arbitrary choice based on feeling. 50% might be too low and result in too little autonomy for districts, yet anything higher feels like it would be an unachievably high standard given that it requires consensus across the entire union.

No additional financial incentives may be offered for voting in other districts.

Army

Each district has an independent army, although they may be tightly integrated in order to be effective against external threats.

The army is controlled by the monarchs, but every member of the army is sworn to protect the constitution first and foremost.

If a member of the army assassinates a forfeit monarch they should become eligible for a promotion in rank. They cannot be charged with breaking the chain of command for this.

Each district shall allot at least 3% of its GDP to the budget of its army.

Evaluation

While we cannot perform a real-world evaluation of the New Monarchy until it has been tried in practice, we can still attempt to evaluate to what extent it upholds the values it strives to protect.

The rights listed in the Value Statement can be protected by the Constitution with only a few exceptions:

• The right to live in freedom seems easy to guarantee for citizens, but it may be desirable to restrict monarchs from moving between districts. If so, it is unclear what the exact conditions should be.
• The right to equal treatment by the law will have an explicit exception for the difference in class between monarchs and citizens. This raises some questions, such as:
  • If monarchs have no personal property, how can they pay fines? Should they be punishable through alternative means? What crime would be considered severe enough that it may lead to deposal and punishment as a citizen?
  • If a citizen ascends, does their immediate family ascend as well? What if they don’t want to?
• The limitation on the maximum income of an enterprise seems like a limitation on the right to organisation. While this seems easy to enforce for new or smaller organisations, it begs the question how or if it is desired for multinational corporations to interact with districts.

At first glance, while this leaves some open questions, it does appear these should be solvable through legal means without posing major challenges to the system of government.

Lack of Self-Determination

Perhaps one of the rights most infringed upon by the New Monarchy, is a right we have not yet discussed: The right to self-determination.

The right to self-determination means that people have the right to determine their own governance. It is considered fundamental in democracies, but this right does not exist in the New Monarchy because the citizens have no direct say in their own government. But is this really true? And if it is, how problematic is this?

First it can be argued that citizens do have some say in their own government. After all, they can depose their own rulers. This may not appear to be much, but it is something that monarchs will naturally try to avoid. In trying to avoid it, monarchs would be inclined to gauge the will of the citizenry, so they can appease them. It is indeed not real self-determination, but the will of the people will still determine the course of government to some extent.

Is “some extent” enough to satiate the people’s desire for self-determination? Even in today’s democracies, the vast majority of people will never get more than an extremely small extent of self-determination anyway.

But what about those that do want real power of self-determination? Maybe the conclusion of the failings in democracy we can witness today is that people are actually better off if self-determination were withheld. Power works as a magnet for corruption. If we want to really prevent corruption of our ideals, it may be unavoidable that we separate those who want power from those who have it.

Therefore, the lack of self-determination is an intentional feature to limit access to power. Make it so that those who want power cannot attain it, while those that have it can be deposed if they abuse it.

Free Press

Another topic I haven’t yet covered is the free press. Voting ultimately relies on a system of trust. If there is no foundation of trust between rulers and subjects, the only method of enforcement is violence.

So it should be obvious that the New Monarchy would rely upon the existence of a free press as well. It should be easy to introduce such a system similar to that existing in a democracy. At least it wouldn’t be worse than a democracy, and it might even already be better than what democracy offers. After all, with a cap on capitalism in place, one important corrupting influence on the free press would already be lessened.

But can the free press be restructured further to make it even less susceptible to bias or outright corruption? It’s an interesting idea that deserves further thought. Maybe it deserves a manifesto of its own.

Threats and Weaknesses

Naturally I also thought about other weaknesses in the system. For instance, what if all monarchs bend together and scrap the rules across districts? But thus far, I have not found a convincing argument for why New Monarchy would be more vulnerable to such a threat than democracy is.

So instead of trying to come up with more threats and weaknesses myself, I’d like to leave this section as an exercise to the reader: Have I missed obvious (or less obvious) gaps in the system? And if I have, are they fixable?

Conclusion and Future Work

Hopefully I have made a plausible case that the proposed New Monarchy may indeed be a better alternative to today’s democracies. It preserves most of the value of democracy, while having checks and balances that should be enforceable in ways the Trias Politica are not.

Of course we cannot truly know if it is better without putting it into practice. Which brings us to the next problem: How can we create a system such as this in practice? New Monarchy is certainly not compatible with democratic constitutions, meaning that convincing any democratic country to adopt it will be a tall order. Going from an autocratic regime to a New Monarchy may even be easier, but good luck trying to convince an autocratic ruler to give up their autonomy in favour of a system like this.

It appears as if any intention of adopting a system like this would require either a revolution or the ashes of a failed state from which it can be erected.

I am not in a position of power to command either, so it seems for me this is about as far as I can take the idea. As a writer, maybe I can use the system in a future novel to promote it further. For now though, my best hope is that someone reads this and is inspired by it. Someone who can take these ideas to places I can’t. If you think you know someone like that, please send it their way and let them read it.

Democracy may be a failed system, but I sure appreciated the heck out of it. This is my little way of trying to pay it forward. Peace!