I wouldn't mind seeing the British monarchy get abolished as well. It's far outlived any purpose it may have had. Even without them actually participating in government they are basically just celebrities living off the social welfare of the people.

The older I get the more I appreciate the value of a shared mythology. In some cases that is religion. Or a creed, as it was for a long time in America. But I think it is very valuable to have it for a healthy functioning society. It feels like we have lost it in America, which does not make me optimistic for the future.

I wonder if the monarchy serves that role for the UK. Might be better to keep it.

The monarchy is demonstrably powerless and unwilling to fight the destruction of UK democracy. Right-wing populism has infiltrated all sides of the political landscape there, and with it all the self-destructing ideas we have come to love: defunding of all public services, increase in policing and control, destruction of worker protections, tax cuts for the rich, tax increase for the poor, etc.

I live in France, our common mythology, our Roman National as it is called here, is that we beheaded our king. Yet, the most authoritarian people you know will still claim the legacy of our revolution, of De Gaulle and Jeanne d'Arc. Even worse, this mythology is poised as under threat by a made-up out-group and used to seed reactionary fear and divisiveness amidst our nation.

I'm not sure the public being able to vote for Farage or whoever is undemocratic.

> Also, president boris, stamer or farage is just a humiliation I can't really cope with.

I definitely appreciate the idea that if you lose confidence in the PM you can fire them pretty quickly. Being stuck with a crappy president for four long years kinda sucks.

> Also, president boris, stamer or farage is just a humiliation I can't really cope with.

The British royal family does get some bad press from time to time, but the recent string of British PMs really does serve to remind us all that the bar is really low :)

> Also, president boris, stamer or farage is just a humiliation I can't really cope with.

I always tell people I don't actually want to risk an elected presidency until Jeremy Clarkson is too old to run for it.

I think prez Jezza would be quite entertaining.

That's entirely the problem.

I don't like hereditary privilege at all, but the enormous constitutional headache removing the monarchy would cause might well outweight the practical benefits of doing away with it.

Are you British?

Personally, I like having a figurehead head of state that is subject to a directly elected Parliament.

The King may have cerimonital power but he can never exercise it. As was proved in the Glorious Revolution we can remove our head of state anytime we like.

I would much rather see the House of Lords reformed than the monarchy ended.

I am British. I think QE2 made a good job out of this cursed tradition. Charles is a crank, but a crank that I happen to agree with, so fine. But I suspect things are going to go off the rails with his failson William.

> I would much rather see the House of Lords reformed than the monarchy ended.

I'd be very careful about that one. Making it elected would be a terrible idea. There are some reforms that are possible, but they'd need to be very narrow (for example, limiting the size, and limiting tenure).

> I think QE2 made a good job out of this cursed tradition.

Right. So many of us are like this -- more Elizabethists than Royalists.

American and curious: why do you think William is a fail? Because Charles looked that way to us.

Brit here - I think William is fine. I had doubts about Charles but he's doing ok. The worry is you get someone like the king of Thailand - https://www.tattoodo.com/articles/thailands-king-maha-vajira... Or MBS.

I don't disagree!

What power does the king of England have to make things go off the rails?

He doesn't have power in that sense, but if people lose "faith" in the aura of the monarchy then things could go south quickly.

Technically he's the head of the armed forces, and also can dissolve the government.

In practice with a Hitler type he could dissolve the government and there'd be new elections. I guess if the people voted the same guy back that might be the end of it but it's a bit of a failsafe to this kind of thing https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42943973

It's the other way around: they're wealthy holders of land, like the rest of the dukes and such, who control large chunks of the land in the UK and own large businesses. The UK benefits from the royal family allowing the use of their land, including historic buildings, at a relatively low cost.

Another example: the Duke of Westminster is worth $12B and owns a large chunk of London outright, including a ton of large, notable buildings. (Also, I think, the Twinings tea company.)

There's the Crown Estate, which is controlled by the crown, but the family also owns the Duchy of Cornwall (45K acres) and the Duchy of Lancaster (45K acres), as well as numerous private holdings that are less visible. And this is predominantly highly developed city space.

> The UK benefits from the royal family allowing the use of their land, including historic buildings, at a relatively low cost.

How does the UK benefit from the royal family allowing this, rather than just having a non-monarchist government that does the same thing?

Does doing away with the monarchy also mean confiscating their property?

If not then it's still the same question: how does the UK benefit from having the royal family allowing this rather than just some other entity that owns the land and rents it out at low cost? Why does that entity need to be a monarchy?

Mostly: tourism. The royal family is widely thought to bring in a lot more than it costs.

Also, they provide a lot of face-time for the government. They show up at a lot of events, the kind of thing for which you might hire a celebrity to give it a sense of occasion. The actual dollar value of that is hard to estimate, and it's less valuable than the tourism, but the fact that people still want it suggests that it's providing something of value.

Yes obviously, along with their heads.

Because it would have been sold off by a previous government. (see virtually every other money making asset.)

But this seems like the fallacy of comparing a benevolent and somewhat reasonable monarchy to a malicious or foolish non-monarchist government. Any system can wind up with stupid people doing stupid things. The difference is if you get one stupid person in as king they could sell everything off or cause who knows what damage, whereas with a more diffuse government one person can't do as much harm. (The current situation in the US also shows how it's important to keep the power diffused rather than centralized in one person.)

> if you get one stupid person in as king they could sell everything off

Thats the point, its not trivial to sell it off, because it was set up to counteract a fooling king in exchange for a stipend.

This system was explicitly designed to take an asset from the crown and place it in trust so that the king could get a steady income, ostensibly from assets that had unpredictable income.

Thus the crown estate was born, which has a bunch of rules, most notably about taking on debt.

see any national park?

How much of the UKs national parks are publicly owned?

(dartmoor is owned partly by the crown)

If I violently conquer and area kill everyone who objects will you also defend my "property rights" ? It's all my land after all. Lol

At this point the British royals are basically tourist attractions. They probably generate more revenue than they consume.

I intended to object, but apparently the royals cost the government ~500MM GBP/year. Which is a lot, but less than 5% of their tourism industry, so it seems possible.

How much of that budget is maintenance of very very old buildings?

They definitely do, but a lot of this admittedly is to do with the ability they have to raise revenue on things they privately own; only a handful of Royals are on what is called the Civil List (direct payment from government for their jobs, which are not inconsiderable.)

Tourists would also come to see their remains and preserved trappings, as they do in every other country with a former monarchy.

as a brit it's hard to look over the pond and see that as an improvement

On a marginally positive note, at least it is largely a ceremonial position and the real power lies with the prime minister/cabinet/parliament.

They project soft power and attract tourists. I would bet that they’re actually a positive on UK’s economy and well being.

They also knocked 15-20 percentage points off our Trump tariffs because he's so easily played; he barely even left the castle grounds this time.

I view the money we pay the Danish royal family as the cost of not having a bloody revolution some 150-200 years ago.

When you consider how many people and how much wealth was destroyed during/following revolutions like the French or Russian, and the compound interest of that wealth over 150 years, the pennies we pay to the royals todays is probably cheap.

Just saying, if you went back in time and opted for a revolution instead of a constitutional monarchy, you'd probably be poorer today -- compound growth over 150 years is no joke.

Brit here. I used to think of them as celebrities who entertain the tourists but there's a Chesterton's fence thing where you shouldn't abolish them without understanding their deterrent effect to dictators taking over. See the other European countries who abolished their monarchies and got Stalin, Putin, Hitler, Mussolini, Napoleon and so on.

I think their "branding" is misguided because I would feel literally on top of the world if the people who hated me accused me of being queen. Absolutely nothing in the world would be more effective and getting me to continue down that path. I would probably start wearing a crown and trade my office for a throne room.

The problem with demonizing people is that demons are badass and powerful.