Criticism of monarchy

Aristotle published a critique of monarchy in the 4th-century BC as part of the Politics.

Baruch Spinoza was an early critic of monarchy during the Enlightenment

Jeremy Bentham viewed monarchy as an absurdity that had established itself through force of custom.

Aristotle taught that monarchy was only suitable for populations that lacked the ability to govern themselves, and believed that power ought to be shared within populations generally made up of equals. [1] He also felt that it was easier to corrupt one individual than a multitude. [2] 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. [3]

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."[4] 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." [5]

During the Italian Renaissance, Niccolò Machiavelli espoused views on monarchy largely in agreement with those of Aristotle.[6] Machiavelli considered republics to be more flexible and adaptable than monarchies to varying circumstances and necessities, providing as an example the different characters of the men who rose to power in the Roman Republic during different stages of the Punic Wars. [7]

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. [8]

John Milton also published a republican essay during this time characterizing monarchy as "a government burdensome, expensive, useless and dangerous." [9]

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. [10]

The Dutch-Jewish philosopher Baruch Spinoza held a preference for democratic over monarchical institutions.[11] 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.[11]

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. [12] 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. [13] The subsequent temporary assumption of the executive by the Assembly in the wake of the Flight to Varennes did much to dissipate such fears. [14][15] Condorcet began to publicly espouse republican views, and yet the majority of France and the deputies were still monarchist, [14] 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 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.".[16] 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." [17]

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. [18]

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. [19]

The selection of sovereigns generally does not involve democratic principles, such as in elective monarchy in states they head. For hereditary monarchies, royal power transmission is carried from generation to generation, with the title and associated power passing down to an heir. Several royal families are criticized in the world and their legitimacy challenged for example:

• Abolition of monarchy
• Democratization
• Republicanism

• Blythe, J.M. (2019). "Ptolemy of Lucca". Encyclopedia of Medieval Philosophy. Dordrecht: Springer.
• Bryce, James (1921). Modern Democracies. Vol. 2. New York: The MacMillan Company.
• Costelloe, B.F.C.; Muirhead, J.H. (1897). Aristotle and the Earlier Peripatetics. Vol. 2.
• Dunning, William Archibald (1921a). A History of Political Theories: Ancient and Medieval.
• Dunning, William Archibald (1921b). A History of Political Theories: From Luther to Montesquieu.
• Durant, Will (1957). The Reformation.
• Durant, Will (1963). The Age of Louis XIV.
• Fisher, H.A.L. (1911). The Republican Tradition in Europe.
• Hazen, Charles (1919). Modern European History.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Charter of Fundamental Rights.

• Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union (and in PDF format).
• Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union as adapted at Lisbon
• Charter of Human Rights
• European Parliament’s explanation of the Charter of Fundamental Rights
• Petition to the European Parliament (for abolition of monarchy).
• Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Overview)
• UDHR (Official translations)