Criticism of monarchy

Antiquity published a critique of monarchy in the 4th-century BC as part of the Politics. was an early critic of monarchy during the Enlightenment. viewed monarchy as an absurdity that had established itself through force of custom. Aristotle taught that monarchy was only suitable for populations incapable of governing themselves, and believed that power ought to be shared within populations generally made up of equals. He also felt that it was easier to corrupt one individual than a multitude. Aristotle further criticized monarchies for tending to become hereditary, which to him carried the undue risk of conferring power on someone incapable and bringing ruin to the nation. Medieval During the Middle Ages, the Dominican Bartholomew of Lucca, "presented republican government as the only suitable alternative for a virtuous people and identified monarchy with tyranny or despotism." Another medieval republican thinker was Marsilius of Padua who, influenced by Aristotle, advocated rule by the majority, and argued that "a ruler who is elected is greatly to be preferred to rulers who are hereditary." During the Italian Renaissance, Niccolò Machiavelli, while largely viewed as an advisor of absolute rulers due to his widely read work The Prince, personally preferred republics and considered them to be superior to monarchies in several ways, including their ability to expand, and their ability to enjoy freedom from oppression. During the reign of Henry VIII, Thomas Starkey's Dialogue between Cardinal Pole and Thomas Lupset, advocated that England embrace a republican form of government, asking "What is more repugnant to nature than a whole nation to be governed by the will of a Prince?" He argued that a community had the authority to both raise and depose its rulers through elections, writing that "this is in man's power, to elect and choose him that is both wise and just and make him a prince and him that is a tyrant so to depose." Starkey intended to present his work to the king, but never did so, and it was not published until the nineteenth century. The establishment of a republican government under the Commonwealth of England inspired a number of English works attacking the institution of monarchy. James Harrington espoused his republican ideals through The Commonwealth of Oceana in 1656. Harrington argued that the sovereignty must naturally follow economic influence, and that monarchy was the result of one man dominating ownership of land. He advocated the redistribution of property and an establishment of an assembly of landowners to be periodically replaced by elections. He warned that a failure to redistribute property would lead to a restoration of an oligarchic monarchy. John Milton also published a republican essay during this time, characterizing monarchy as "a government burdensome, expensive, useless and dangerous." Algernon Sidney argued that monarchy was "founded upon human depravity." He attacked the French monarchy as corrupt and unpopular and held up republican Switzerland as one of the most peaceful and successful nations in Europe. The Dutch-Jewish philosopher Baruch Spinoza held a preference for democratic over monarchical institutions. He believed all monarchies amounted to legal fictions because no single human being was capable in reality of holding and exercising all of the power implied by sovereignty. Modern During the French Revolution there were public supporters of republicanism as early as 1790, but public opinion and the vast majority of the French deputies were still at that point in favor of monarchy. There was fear of uncertainty regarding abolishing the monarchy, and it was widely believed that getting rid of the king would produce political disorders such as anarchy or invasion. The subsequent temporary assumption of the executive by the Assembly in the wake of the Flight to Varennes did much to dissipate such fears. Condorcet began to publicly espouse republican views, and yet the majority of France and the deputies were still monarchist, until the perception that Louis XVI was aiding the enemies of France during the War of the First Coalition led to the abolition of the monarchy in September 1792, and the establishment of the First French Republic. In 1804, as the government of France was moving towards declaring the nation an empire, Lazare Carnot made a case before the Tribunat in favor of retaining the republican system of government. He argued that their had been a decline in virtue and heroism in the Roman Empire as compared to the Roman Republic, and expressed skepticism that a monarchy would gain for France any advantages in the fields of domestic or foreign policy. In the early nineteenth century, the English utilitarian philosopher Jeremy Bentham argued that "the only good act which a monarch was capable of accomplishing was to abolish his own office." Bentham viewed monarchy as an absurd institution which had established itself through force of custom, noting that "almost all men are born under it, all men are used to it, few men are used to anything else; till of late years nobody ever dispraised it." The leading nineteenth century Italian statesman Giuseppe Mazzini who was also a prominent republican. Against Italian monarchists, he argued that a republic was more in line with Italian tradition. In the early twentieth century, the British Liberal academic and statesman James Bryce contested the notion that monarchy tended to produce stable and capable rulers, arguing from historical example that most hereditary European monarchs for the previous five centuries had been mediocre. Contemporary The lower efficiency of hereditary monarchies on the coordination problem of government compared to democracy due to the advent of mass communication has been claimed as contributing to the decline of monarchies. In the twenty-first century, numerous cases of popular opposition towards monarchy were present. In Nepal, the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist Centre) has been historically and openly in opposition to the Royal House of Gorkha, referring to them as 'feudal forces', and engaging in open guerrilla warfare against the Nepalese government, culminating in the Nepalese Civil War. Eventually, a ceasefire would be reached with peace talks being made between the Maoist rebels and Nepal's interim legislature, leading to the Comprehensive Peace Accord. Additionally, other cases of popular opposition to monarchy would occur in Malaysia, Cambodia, and the United Kingdom. ==Criticism of current monarchies==