In international news, the Queen of England passed away last week after 70 years on the throne. Her official role seemed fairly minimal to me, but she apparently had a greater impact on Britain and it's culture than I was aware. I did see the Queen a decade ago, within 6 hours of my arrival in London. I was staying at a hotel across the street from Buckingham Palace, and they were throwing a full ceremony for a visit of the Prime minister of Indonesia that day. So I saw the Queen and many other dignitaries going by in royal carriages, with hundreds of Cavalry on horseback riding behind them, and thousands of Red Coats in the tall furry hats, with modern assault rifles. It was quite the spectacle, but that appears to be one of the main points of having royalty, a country showing off. But they may also serve a purpose beyond that, and we are about to see more about their impact during this transition.
My initial impression of her was negative, based on my original introduction to the idea of her existence during Princess Diana's death and ensuing the publicity. Similar to Ford pardoning Nixon, her responses at the time were not popular, but in hindsight appear to be wise in the long term.
She also appears to have been a good 'ruler' by most measures, especially compared to others in her role. It will be interesting to see how her much less popular and respected son Charles handles the throne, and if the position survives to pass to his descendants. Which raises the question: should that position continue to exist in the modern world? My initial reaction is 'no,' based on my values for freedom and assumed equality. I am fairly opposed to nobility and royalty being determined by birth, instead of everyone starting out equal and moving from there. But they may serve some useful purpose, when compared to the polarized politics in America, royalty appears to have a unifying effect. The UK's royal family may have a stabilizing effect on the country and culture, and I have one friend who believes the queen's influence has been restraining the effects of "wokeness" on British culture, compared to the rest of Europe. They exist outside of the political party structure, and have just enough power to be relevant, but not enough to be in danger of becoming tyrannical.
The one aspect I think may need to be adjusted, is the level of ostentatious excess involved. Charles' 100 staff members may be laid off as he inherits the queen's 541 household staff. Couldn't that be cut by 90%, and they make due with 50 staff members? And not everything in sight needs to be made of gold, and inlaid with jewels. An austere royalty would be an interesting concept, vested with power but not wealth, in the service of leadership. But then we find ourselves with the question of how are these austere leaders selected? The one benefit of the current hereditary system is that they have been groomed from birth for the position. Another option would be a pool of high achievers, who are then chosen from at random, once meeting a certain qualification. (Maybe military service, an advanced degree, and a few other specific accomplishments to apply) America did something similar for choosing astronauts, why not leaders? But to be clear, they would only be vested with a limited power within a divided government, maybe a fourth branch. The UK basically has a symbolic branch of government. But much of the benefit should be achievable without the same level of expense and waste.
And that extravagant wealth is relevant to the question of what is next for the UK. If they were to abolish the monarchy, what would happen to all of those assets? What would be a fair way of handling the billions of dollars currently controlled by the royal family, outside of the British tax system. The palaces can continue to be museums and tourist attractions, but the other assets and holdings would need to be dealt with. And while the surviving members of the house of Windsor should not be dumped on the street, it would be hard to justify their current wealth. It will be interesting to see if the new monarch is worth the expense.
