I’m sorry about socialism, but I’m not sorry about monarchism…

by Raheem Kassam, Editor of TrendingCentral.com

While it is true that socialism was the reactionary response to capitalism – the old aristocrats fighting a new wave of wealth and land-owners – the philosophy of socialism has today metastasized from a just being a protectionist ideology to one of intractable totalitarian ideals.

No more is this more visible in the Western world than in Britain, whereby membership of a right-wing political party can lead to your children being taken away from you, and where any anti-National Health Service rhetoric could well lead to you becoming a social outcast.

I should know how very difficult it is in modern Britain to espouse tenets of conservatism or libertarianism around a dinner table. I had that very experience this week. This, by the way, was at a dinner party made up entirely of self-described conservatives. We were of course talking Syria, and while my inclination is for our respective countries to intervene (don’t shoot me just yet), my gripe was particularly with the over-democratisation of the process by which we find ourselves gauging the decision. There, I said it.

The fetishisation of representative democracy, or rather, the “X-Factorisation” of big decisions effectively rules out what rational thinkers believe is the correct way to institute limited government. That is through great leadership.

Now you have to understand that our political systems are different. Here in Britain, we do not directly elect our leaders. We elect our local representatives (members of parliament, councillors, mayors etc), who have a leader atop their party structure. In the event that members of parliament from one particular party obtain a majority in the House of Commons, that party’s leader is swept in as Prime Minister. The Prime Minister appoints an executive, usually from within the House of Commons, but it is not unheard of for Lords or indeed non-career politicians to fill that role (the latter being my preference, of course).

With this in mind, it is understandable to you, I hope, that I am increasingly perplexed by the tyranny of the majority (democracy) as being our guiding light the world over. To my mind, free people and free markets should trump the ballot box. Self-determination will rise through economic liberty, not vice versa. And yet we protest, and pretend that somehow giving a vote on Syria, for instance, to members of parliament rather than as an executive decision could at all be constructive for our countries.

Besides, would anyone have truly been “against” the intervention if our leaders were unable, legally, to mount up debts in government? If any action had to be revenue neutral or indeed profitable for us, would we have shirked our other responsibilities in the world so quickly? I doubt it. So let’s seek to reform our government finances and the rules regarding them, rather than any War Powers Acts or otherwise, eh?

Cutting out the middle-man (our directly or indirectly elected leaders, or indeed the monarch!) is to claim that governments need no leadership. That bureaucracy and democracy can thrive and flourish with just a point man at the helm. Someone to deliver speeches and shake hands and do nothing more. This is all rather working out for the European Union, right? Oh, wait…

And I know there will be many amongst you that quiver at some “dictatorial” undertones in my writing. Believe you me, I am no statist, and I will have nothing of tyranny. But nor am I an anarchist. And for this I make no apology. After time, democracy is as unproductive as anarchy.

Societies need some structure, and yes, leaders need lots of limitations – this is what America’s founding fathers envisaged when they framed your republic, and it is what centuries of evolution within Britain’s system has achieved through the remit of the monarch, the executive, and two legislative houses. Consulting parliament for a ‘final’ approval, rather than simply as an overseeing body. I cannot stand for it, and I am afraid I still do believe in the Royal Prerogative. Erik Kuehnelt-Leddihn argues it much better than I ever could, in his magnum opus, Liberty or Equality.

My increasing penchant for monarchism seeks to have been vindicated today, just a few days after I was called “archaic” or words to that effect by my dining chums. It seems liberty, or at least a reversal of tyranny, is being led upon in at least one European country, framed by a reigning monarch. This is precisely what Kuehnelt-Leddihn argues when he says that monarchical government is more inclined towards liberty, while democracy naturally advocates for equality, even by enforcement.

Elmer T. Petersen wrote in the Daily Oklahoman in 1951, claiming to quote Alexander Tytler (unverified), and said, “A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the majority discovers it can vote itself largess out of the public treasury. After that, the majority always votes for the candidate promising the most benefits with the result the democracy collapses because of the loose fiscal policy ensuing, always to be followed by a dictatorship, then a monarchy.”

The King of the Netherlands, Willem-Alexander this week declared the “end of the welfare state”, claiming that a “participation society” should rise in its place, with people taking personal responsibility for their own well-being and financial safety nets. This sounds to me like voluntarism, the likes of which only a refutation of the tyranny of the majority can achieve. This all may be a “Big Society” public relations stunt by Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte for all we know, but it is significant that he should use the King’s annual address make the point.

WATCH: Dutch King kills the welfare state! Lauds new “Participation Society”

“The classic welfare state of the second half of the 20th century in these areas in particular brought forth arrangements that are unsustainable in their current form.” said the King, echoing Petersen, echoing Tytler.

And while I assure you the irony of a hereditary monarch who lives in government housing and is subsidised by the public talking about austerity is not lost on me, it seems to be the first real wave of fight back against the public voting itself largesse in Europe, and so perhaps we can make this whole socialism business up to the rest of the world, by being among the first to start really rolling back the welfare state and the state in general.

I do feel however, that we will struggle to do such things while the likes of Barack Obama and David Cameron are directly and indirectly chosen by a feckless public. And if King George III and his tyrannical demands for taxation without representation spring to mind throughout all this, ask yourselves perhaps – would you prefer taxation with representation, or no taxation and no representation?

I know I which I would prefer…

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Raheem Kassam is the founder and editor of TrendingCentral.com