Monarchism and Socialism: A Reconciliation

Were They Really so at Odds to Begin With?

The first thing that people often say to me when I tell them that I am a Monarcho-Socialist — or, more specifically, a Monarcho-Syndicalist — is usually something along the lines of: “Wait, monarchism and socialism? Aren’t those two inherently, diametrically opposed ideologies? How can you possibly be a monarchist and a socialist at the same time?” Such thoughts, of course, are not unwarranted. Ever since proto-socialist thought first arose in groups such as the Diggers of 17th Century England and the Dithmarschen’s peasants’ republic of Medieval Germany, monarchs have almost universally been opposed to such practices. In return, socialist movements — most famously, of course, the Russian Bolsheviks, but also proto-socialists such as the French Jacobins — have been almost universally opposed to monarchs, either deposing or plainly executing them once the revolution had been achieved. However, both I and my fellow Monarcho-Socialists — of all stripes and colors, including Monarcho-Communists, Monarcho-Syndicalists, and yes, even Monarcho-Anarchists — believe that historical precedent is not sufficient to disprove the potential compatibility of monarchism and socialism altogether.

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Some have considered me pedantic for being so focused on definitions, but I whole-heartedly believe that if we are to have a meaningful conversation on the compatibility of monarchism and socialism, that we must first define what monarchism and socialism even are. As it is an altogether easier thing to define, let us first discuss socialism. Many will cite Karl Marx as the first true socialist thinker, and that all definitions of socialism must thus relate back to Marx in some way, and his writings of Das Kapital, The Communist Manifesto, and so forth.

However, I would argue that people previous to Marx such as Charles Fourier, Sir William Thompson, David Ricardo, and Sir Thomas More — the last of which even the Soviet Union itself recognized as an early communist from his writings in Utopia — had ideas that more than qualify as socialism. If we then take the most basic common elements from every strand of socialist thought — Marxist socialism or otherwise — we can manage to very easily arrive at the following definition for what “socialism” means at the simplest of levels: Socialism is an economic system wherein the means of production are socially owned by the workers, as opposed to privately owned by capitalists. The nitty-gritty details of what “worker ownership of the means of production” can, of course, be argued among the different schools of socialism — syndicalism versus anarchism, communism versus democratic socialism, so on and so forth — but I would hazard to say that most socialists can agree on at least that basic definition.

Defining monarchism, however, is a bit tougher, given that there has been very little formal thought given to monarchist political theory apart from the likes of Thomas Hobbes, Niccolo Machiavelli, and a few others. Thus, this is where I find myself attempting to formulate my own formal definition of what constitutes the ideology of monarchism, of what constitutes a government of monarchy, and what constitutes the position of a monarch altogether.

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In a move that even I myself can recognize as pedantic, I would like to direct our attention to the ultimate root words behind the term “monarch”. First is the Ancient Greek “monos”. Most can immediately recognize this as meaning “one” or “singular”, which is indeed a valid definition for that word. However, “monos” can also mean “alone”, “solitary”, or — my personal favorite — “unique”. Before we consider those definitions in further detail, let us continue onto the Ancient Greek “arkhos”. As with “monos”, most can immediately recognize “arkhos” as being a word relating to “rule”, given that it is also the root word behind other such terms as “autocracy” or “democracy” and so-forth. However, in addition to referring to rulership, “arkhos” and its root “arkho” can also refer to “leading”, “governing”, “commanding”, “sovereignty”, “dominion”, “authority”, or — again, my personal favorites — to “begin” or to be “first”.

Such definitions being so far established, let us now ignore the concept that all monarchs must necessarily be landed nobility lording over peasants in a feudal system; even though such is the historical precedent set for monarchs, such a system does not necessarily have to be the case in a monarchy. Let us instead think of monarchs as being people who possess “unique sovereignty” or who are “uniquely first” amongst all citizens of the nation, or who are some sort of “beginning” for the politics of a nation, whatever that may be. They are not necessarily “rulers”, but can instead be “leaders” or “governors” or “commanders”. None of this necessitates the possession of land or estates, and none of it contradicts the definition of socialism as “public ownership of the means of production”.

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For the sake of continuing this argument, let us temporarily say that we all agree that monarchism and socialism are not contradictory, that they are not incompatible, and that they could indeed co-exist within the same political system. What, then, would be the actual point of having monarchism and socialism together? What purpose can they serve, what benefit do they offer to one another? In order to answer that question, let us first declare that monarchism is a means, and that socialism is an ends.

What good, after all, does it serve merely for a society to possess a monarch? Does the existence of a monarch automatically improve the lives of the people? Perhaps it could be said that a monarch — or the institution of monarchy itself — provides an emotional, psychological, or spiritual bulwark for the people to look to in times of hardship and crisis, and we have seen such a precedent set in times such as Britain, the Netherlands, or Denmark and Sweden during the Second World War. However, a monarch acting as such a bulwark still does not serve an actual practical, governmental, or material function to the people.

As such, we must now say that in order for the monarch to have a positive function for society, that the people must not serve the monarch — as has unfortunately been tradition for so many thousands of years — but that the monarch must instead serve the people, and must be a force that helps the people strive for socialism; such an idea has existed since the time of the First French Empire, though obviously Napoleon and his successors did not necessarily fulfill that concept as intended.

How, then, can the monarch serve the people, and how can the monarch serve as a means to the end of socialism? There are, of course, as many answers to those questions as there are potential definitions of what a monarch can be, or indeed even what socialism can be.

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In a fully realized communist society, for example — after the revolution and after the abolition of state, class, and currency has been accomplished — a monarch could serve as an example of the “ideal communist citizen”, a positive icon for the people to look up to a shining illustration of how they should act and treat one another, or perhaps serve as some sort of “elder” or “wise person” for the commune, offering non-binding advice regarding major decisions; such a monarch is one that “uniquely leads” the people, rather than “rules” or “commands”.

In a democratic socialist society, where-in a political body resembling the liberal democratic parliaments and congresses of today exists, the monarch could serve as a regulatory official, possessing the power to dissolve parliament if it ceases to function or begins to run counter to the interests of the people, the workers, or the proletariat, or even perhaps to appoint certain public positions; such a monarch is one that possesses “unique authority”, but still does not “rule” in the traditional sense that historical monarchs have done. As a state syndicalist — as opposed to the anarcho-syndicalists of CNT-FAI fame — I personally roughly follow that last example, though transplanting it into a Congress of Unions system, with some debate over the exact scope of the monarch’s “unique sovereignty”. Of course, there are even some monarcho-socialists who prefer absolutist monarchies for their socialist societies.

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Finally, there is one last quibble that many socialists will have with monarchism: Succession. No matter how much or what kind of power a monarch has, many socialists will state that it is unfair that a person should have that power, based merely on the fact that a parent was the previous monarch. Indeed, simple hereditary primogeniture succession has proven itself disastrous for thousands of years now. The first-born child (often, the first-born male) inheriting the throne regardless of their competence often ends up disastrous; some absolutist monarcho-socialists, of course, may disagree with this assessment, even so.

However, if we were to make too extreme of a move into an elective monarchy, we run the risk of the position of the monarch seeming more like just the position of a president or a chancellor or a chairperson— perhaps a president for life, but still a president. After all, how can the office of the monarch be a “unique” position if any citizen in the nation can possess that position? What would make it any different from an elected chancellor-for-life?

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I have seen the following solution raise ire among both socialists and monarchists both, and thus I do not expect every reader to exactly be infatuated with it, but it is what I believe to be the best compromise between the need to be able to choose the next monarch for competence and the need for the position of the monarch to be “unique” enough that it doesn’t simply devolve into a republican office: A semi-elective monarchy.

Firstly, a “royal family” must be chosen — typically in a democratic fashion, though not necessarily — whose present living members best fit the purpose that society has established for the monarch, whether it be a parliamentary regulator, or a model citizen, or whatever else have you. Secondly, all children in that family will be raised from birth in order to be a proper candidate for the office of monarch, though they may obviously “disinherit” themselves at any time if they do not wish to have to bear the burden of being a member of “royalty”. Thirdly, upon the death, resignation, or removal of a monarch, an election will be held — directly democratic, parliamentary, or maybe even an electoral college system or any other myriad forms of the democratic process— to determine which viable candidate from the “royal family” will take the newly vacated office of monarch.

As with all democratic processes — especially considering the history of the elective monarchies of the Holy Roman Empire and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth — there is always a risk of corruption, nepotism, or other faults with the vote. However, the ability to manually elect the most competent candidate to the office of the monarch — a candidate groomed from birth in order to foster that said competency — far outweighs the potential for corruption, which can always be regulated with voting standard laws and such. Such a system, I believe, eliminates both the problems with hereditary primogeniture succession — where-in an incompetent first child may take the throne — and the problems with fully elective succession — where-in a person who may not necessarily have the education and training to be an optimal monarch is elected to the throne.

I do not expect this short piece to convince every monarchist or every socialist of the merits of the “opposing” system. I fully recognize that there is plenty of historical animosity still very present between monarchists and socialists.

Monarchists still have the horrors of the Bolshevik Revolution and the murder of the Romanov family fresh in their minds — and even the horrors of the French Revolution, to some degree — and it will be very difficult to shake the preconception of all socialists as nothing but violent, destructive brutes from their minds.

Socialists still have the horrors of millennia of monarchist oppression in their minds — of the feudal system and of abusive land owners and everything in between — and it will be very difficult to shake the preconception of all monarchs as nothing but tyrannical, rapacious brutes from their minds.

If monarchism and socialism can be fully reconciled within my lifetime — beyond simply seeing socialist or left-leaning parties taking power in the parliaments of traditional monarchist nations — I will consider that a happy miracle. However, I do not possess any illusions that such a movement will be easy, or that it even necessarily will happen any time soon. However, whether the merging of those ideals does or does not in actuality happen, I will continue to personally believe that monarchism and socialism are more than compatible with each other.