Interesting video with an (unintended) Hoppean twist to it

[ClaytonB]

@I. Ryan

@ClaytonB

Austrian methodology precludes the blind use of historical correlations to establish praxeological knowledge - a perfect example is the “democracies never go to war with other democracies” myth. Even if it is true that no democracy has ever gone to war with another democracy (it happens to be patently false), nothing can be said of why this is the case. Such observations are interesting, at best. The end of many monarchies resulting in chaos and dictatorship is at most interesting. It can’t give us any meaningful knowledge regarding human behavior because it contains no causal content.

What I find fascinating is the successive, rapid collapse of monarchies in the 19th century. Why did this happen? It happened almost entirely in the West. Some Muslim, Asian and other countries still have monarchies. Something was different in the West than everywhere else in the world. And that thing that was different caused a “cluster of errors” on the part of many monarchs. Monarchs, like entrepreneurs, can make predictions and foresee impending events. How come so many monarchs - almost exclusively in the West - failed to foresee their impending doom? I feel like there must be some hidden history here, something that isn’t taught in the history books. I no longer believe in chance in human affairs. Whenever something interesting or important happens in the realm of human affairs, it happens for a reason. Why did all these monarchs collapse in such rapid succession? The cluster of errors suggests a common cause. What was it? More importantly, who was it?

Clayton -

I just figured that they all got overthrown in favor of democracy. (Just like if people were to start to hate democracy and want to go back to monarchy in the west, democracies in the west would start to collapse “in such rapid succession” and get replaced by monarchies.)

But people have been getting tired of monarchs for millenia. Why the overthrow of “monarchy itself”? And why in so many places at once? How is it that people of such varied backgrounds, cultures, religions, etc. came to overthrow such a wide diversity of monarchs, almost simultaneously? I don’t buy the “random chance” argument anymore. There is some common cause.

Clayton -

[AuthoritarianCommerc]

Democracy does not preclude dictatorship.

What’s wrong with dictatorship? Granted there are bad dictators (as their are bad CEOs), but the model is not the problem - the problem is likely the people who select the dictator. National Socialism was a solution to democracy, it was a reactionary theory built on left-wing tactics. Unfortunately its leader was, well, bats**** crazy. That’s what happens when you select a ‘man of the people’. It was also fake-socialist, which was part of the reason it was so ruthless and self-defeating. That being so, if England had minded its own business (and especially if Adolf Hitler had not been the leader of the party) I can quite imagine National Socialist Germany being a massive improvement upon the democratic morass it was elected to solve.

[I_Ryan]

@ClaytonB

But people have been getting tired of monarchs for millenia. Why the overthrow of “monarchy itself”? And why in so many places at once? How is it that people of such varied backgrounds, cultures, religions, etc. came to overthrow such a wide diversity of monarchs, almost simultaneously? I don’t buy the “random chance” argument anymore. There is some common cause.

Clayton -

Well, I did not imply that it was just “random chance”. I just meant that I figured that what led to the systematic collapse was a systematic change of ideology, one which favored democracy over monarchy.

[AuthoritarianCommerc]

@I. Ryan

@ClaytonB

But people have been getting tired of monarchs for millenia. Why the overthrow of “monarchy itself”? And why in so many places at once? How is it that people of such varied backgrounds, cultures, religions, etc. came to overthrow such a wide diversity of monarchs, almost simultaneously? I don’t buy the “random chance” argument anymore. There is some common cause.

Clayton -

Well, I did not imply that it was just “random chance”. I just meant that I figured that what led to the systematic collapse was a systematic change of ideology, one which favored democracy over monarchy.

Indeed. Just because people believe it doesn’t make it so.

‘People’, that is disaffected young persons who are unwilling or incapable of getting the status they delusionally believe they are owed by the Universe, often have a problem with monarchy and authority and thus organize coalitions to gain status for themselves (disguised as ‘for the people’ and other such rubbish). In the hands of any competent government, such rabble-rousers and firebrands are rapidly ridiculed and/or crushed. But once the government - and even the monarch himself - have become tainted with such foolishness, there is no end to the amount of damage such anarchists can cause. Take a look at the situation in Greece right now.