• thetentacle@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    5
    ·
    edit-2
    1 month ago

    It would seem the common problem in any political system is always authoritarianism? Is there historical case where a king or similar actually helped the people that I can study more?

    • Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      8 days ago

      I mean i’d imagine there were quite a lot of kings that were much like the modern king of e.g. Norway, where they really don’t do much other than PR and rubber stamping decisions.

      Any ruler needs support from other powerful people, and since crowns were usually hereditary that means sometimes the new king won’t be a miserable sack of shit.
      I mean put yourself in the position of some medieval prince whose dad was poisoned by an advisor or something, yeah sure you can live in luxury but it’s fucking risky, so if you don’t just opt to flee 5 countries over in hope of peace you’d probably try to be as inoffensive as possible and just gently nudge things in a non-shitty direction whenever possible.

      So granted, not “good” kings, but considering how many rulers have and continue to be absolutely horrible i’d be pretty happy to live under a king who does nothing…