Property rights and monarchy

I’m reading Lysander Spooner’s “No Treason, The Constitution of No Authority.”

In it Spooner makes his case abundantly clear. The Constitution of the United States of America has no legitimate, voluntary binding effect on the people who live here. If you are interested in his arguments, go read it. It’s short.

What he doesn’t understand is that governments only coincidentally have voluntary adherents. Governments rule by force. They always have and always will.

Additionally, governments will always arise. The anarchists and libertarians don’t understand this. They ALWAYS arise.

In a state of anarchy a powerful man comes to the fore. The dude is normally a warlord. An upstart. Eventually this man consolidates resources, land, and power. He’s the new king.

He’s not interested in working at regular jobs. His job is war and wielding power. In order to continue to hold his territory and power he grants the right to farm, use land, water, and other resources to his “subjects.” In exchange for the use of the resources he demands payments. Taxes.

In the best case scenario his children are being educated by the church. The real church.

Eventually his oldest son takes over the kingdom. He inherits his dad’s property.

Being educated by the church, the new king has a notion of the good. By farming, working, producing, his subjects are taking care of his resources. In fact, by doing this work, the subjects are among the kings resources. As result, the kingis VERY interested in improving his subjects in virtue.

As the subject increase in virtue, so does the kingdom increase.

All the while, this king rules by force. He obtained his power by force, he retains it by force.

His subjects did not consent to his government. But neither did we.

A representative government has no responsibility to it’s subjects. It is irresponsible to the subjects.

The subjects ARE the responsibility of the monarch. Should he act otherwise, he won’t be monarch long.

The monarchy is the best way to get a virtuous ruler in place and for the subjects to reap the benefits of this.

The system of representative government is designed to prevent truly virtuous people from obtaining power.

6 thoughts on “Property rights and monarchy”

  1. Scott you give me a lot to think about in these blogs. I completely agree with your time change blog and how it demonstrates our government’s inability to actually follow the people’s will.

    However I am struggling going full tilt monarchist. Polybius outlined the cycle of regimes really well in his history and how pure governments invariably decay into their corrupted forms. I think his argument that the mixed form of government was a strength of Sparta and Rome’s constitutions is pretty strong. It seems that if democracy, aristocracy and monarchy are mixed you are more likely to miss out on the tremendously violent swings of government that can occur.

    The problem with monarchy is that you can get the best of government and worst of government depending on the king. I know there is only one neck to hang but getting to that neck can be difficult. The Roman empire had plenty of civil wars where awful emperor’s still maintained some support.

    I worry that monarchy is as or more prone to violent civil wars than a government with some representative elements. What is the guarantee of stability in governance? How important do you think stability is to a government?

    Thank you for writing these.

    1. Polybius outlined the cycle of regimes really well in his history and how pure governments invariably decay into their corrupted forms. I think his argument that the mixed form of government was a strength of Sparta and Rome’s constitutions is pretty strong. It seems that if democracy, aristocracy and monarchy are mixed you are more likely to miss out on the tremendously violent swings of government that can occur.

      Your “founding fathers” thought so to. We are seeing the results of this. Without the property rights the monarch has, the mixed government will take modern banking and loot the country in short order. Polybius couldn’t have imagined this.

      Stability is the MOST important thing.

      The longest-lived, most stable have been monarchy.

      1. Where will a Caesar or warlord come from? Does the country need to splinter first? Our culture seems like battery acid to virtue and the Church God bless her seems wounded too.

  2. I was going through my mobile phone, deleting apps and old notes and found a note from 2018 that made me think of your “No Treason” episode of OGB podcast. Glad I found this associated blog post. My note read:

    “Immigration to a country serves as consent to be governed by that country

    The colonies were offered representation in the UK government but they turned it down because it was too far away”

    I think these must have been separate thoughts at the time, but I figured I’d leave them both here just for kicks. I haven’t read the Spooner essay yet (for shame!) but I plan to. It sounded like I would find much to agree with in it. What do you think about my first though, that immigration to a country should be proof of their consent? Should they be considered differently than someone born under and into a constitution?

    On a similar topic, years ago I saw a comment on another blog that said “self-defense is the only true natural right” and I think about that often. I believe all other rights are man-given and can be revoked just as easily as they are granted, but you always have the right to defend you and yours (family, property, honor, other “rights”). You just might not win that fight…

    From this Yankee, keep up the Good work at OGB, M&I, here and elsewhere.

    1. There’s no such thing as consent. The immigrant might consent in the instant, but the conditions change almost immediately. New parliament, new monarch, etc.

      Consent is a red herring. It doesn’t matter. You’ll be governed by whoever is willing to kill you.

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