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Tuesday, May 06, 2025
Why we don't have absolute kings anymore
If you look at a large selection of countries over centuries of history, the trend is very clear: 300 years ago, most people were ruled by some sort of king with absolute power, while today most people are ruled by some sort of committee or parliament, which is more or less democratically elected. The kings that remain are mere figureheads mostly without political power. And even autocratic states like China prefer one-party rule to one-person rule. Why?
Now the more idealistic people interpret this evolution as being motivated by "people power". However, that might be overstating the actual power that can be wielded by making a cross on a piece of paper every few years. Even people who voted for the party in power often feel disconnected from later decisions of that party. In some countries there are only very few parties, sometimes even just one or two, that have any realistic chance of coming to power. In other countries with more parties, some people vote deliberately for the least mainstream option, as a form of protest, in some instances not even really caring whether that option is of the extreme right or the extreme left.
The real advantage might actually lie elsewhere: Having political decisions being made by a committee, rather than being based on the decisions of an individual person. The simple fact of a law being discussed by a group of people, even if that group is as little democratic as the communist party of China, already weeds out some of the more extreme aspects of individual whims. It also leads to greater stability, simply by the process being slower, and changes taking longer.
A lot of ink has been spilled on the fact that Trump is trying to rule America by decree. I don't want to discuss all the legal and constitutional aspects of that, because those are often a lot more complicated than people think, and clearly open to bias (which is why the political composition of the Supreme Court is so often discussed). Clearly the US constitution has some wriggle room, and different presidents used that room to different degrees. But the reason why previous presidents used it much less than Trump might have less to do with the constitution, and more to do with efficiency and practicality.
Tariffs are a prime example of why ruling by executive orders can be a bad idea: One of the main purposes of tariffs is to persuade capitalists to invest in manufacturing. But investments take years, and to make an investment decision, capitalists need some certainty that those tariffs would still be around by the time the factory is built. The Trump tariffs this year changed so frequently, that nobody in his right mind would make an investment decision based on them. If you put a tariff on Mexican car parts, only to revoke that tariff in exchange for Mexico doing more against drug smuggling and migration, then the tariff clearly isn't about the car industry at all. Not even the Chinese believe that America wants to have 145% tariffs against China for several years, so the business discussions are all about "how do we store goods until the tariffs go away", rather than about investing in US manufacturing.
Executive orders that come seemingly out of nowhere tend to produce a lot of chaos, which is why so many of them ended up getting "paused" for 90 days. The more traditional way of getting a law through congress takes a lot longer, but that also allows for checks of whether a decision is actually possible, or allows for time for government institutions to adjust to the new law. The closing of the de minimis loophole on small parcels failed on the first attempt simply because US customs couldn't handle it and needed more time before it could be implemented on the second attempt. It is also a lot more difficult to sue against a newly made law that went through all the necessary parliamentary steps than it is to sue against an executive order. The 141 executive orders Trump signed in his first 100 days may look as if he did get of stuff done quickly, but the reality of things is that his administration will spend a lot of energy for the next 4 years fighting the various challenges to these executive orders in court.
Do you remember how much Republicans railed against the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare? Guess what, this 2010 law is still mostly in effect in 2025. If Obama had done this by executive order, Trump would have revoked it in 2017, Biden would have reintroduced it in 2021, and Trump would have revoked it again in 2025. That is no way to rule a country. Executive orders come with an implied expiry date of the presidential term, even if obviously not all of them are revoked by the next guy. Laws enacted by congress tend to last significantly longer, even if the majorities in congress change.
Perversely, Trumps many executive orders make it more likely that the next US president will be a Democrat. To achieve a lasting change for America, ruling by decree is simply too chaotic and inefficient. Implementing political decisions by taking a shortcut just makes those decisions easier to reverse. Not using the parliamentary majority is a mistake that will cost Trump whatever legacy he is trying to leave.
- posted by Tobold @ 10:01 AM Permanent Link
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Yeah you're spot on. The issue is that passing laws requires more effort and the political will to do so. And Politicians are often cowards when it comes to doing anything that might hurt their reelection chances.
Democrats suffer from the same problem when they get into power. Look at their failure to codify Roe V Wade despite it being a goal of conservatives to overturn that ruling for like more than 50 years now. Or their failure to create a path to citizenship for Dreamers when they had full control of government despite campaigning on doing so.
Democrats suffer from the same problem when they get into power. Look at their failure to codify Roe V Wade despite it being a goal of conservatives to overturn that ruling for like more than 50 years now. Or their failure to create a path to citizenship for Dreamers when they had full control of government despite campaigning on doing so.
I am no historian, so I hope I am not saying too much stupid things.
There was never any true absolute king, for the simple reason that no-one can impose his will against everyone else : he need support from the army and police, from the people who own properties and from his administration. So it was always true that "most people are ruled by some sort of committee or parliament"
And I also believe you underestimate the strength of the fiction of democracy : even voting every few years is enough to keep most powers in check. Same for rules of law or check and balance. All of those are fiction but powerful enough to keep a lot of country on the democratic side, and even autocratic government are keeping a vague illusion of it.
This is why Trump is so dangerous : he seems impervious to these fictions, and do not consider himself restrained by them. His strategy is clear : slowly increasing the pressure on those fictions, until not enough people believe in their existence and he can be the autocrat he want to be.
I hope you are right and that the Democrat will take back power at some points, and be able to turn back its decrees. That the fiction of democracy and separation of powers will stay long enough in the Administration, the Army, and the citizens that in next election he can be thrown away. I think he will fail in his strategy, that the US democracy is strong enough, but I know for sure his departure will not be peaceful.
There was never any true absolute king, for the simple reason that no-one can impose his will against everyone else : he need support from the army and police, from the people who own properties and from his administration. So it was always true that "most people are ruled by some sort of committee or parliament"
And I also believe you underestimate the strength of the fiction of democracy : even voting every few years is enough to keep most powers in check. Same for rules of law or check and balance. All of those are fiction but powerful enough to keep a lot of country on the democratic side, and even autocratic government are keeping a vague illusion of it.
This is why Trump is so dangerous : he seems impervious to these fictions, and do not consider himself restrained by them. His strategy is clear : slowly increasing the pressure on those fictions, until not enough people believe in their existence and he can be the autocrat he want to be.
I hope you are right and that the Democrat will take back power at some points, and be able to turn back its decrees. That the fiction of democracy and separation of powers will stay long enough in the Administration, the Army, and the citizens that in next election he can be thrown away. I think he will fail in his strategy, that the US democracy is strong enough, but I know for sure his departure will not be peaceful.
I don't think quality (or longevity) of laws has any effect on which systems survive. In my opinion, the reason why personalist authoritarian regimes are eventually replaced by various form of collective governance is that governing elite wants to survive.
Suppose your country has an absolute monarch or some sort of personalist dictator. The best way to get access to power and resources, aside of becoming a king yourself, would be to get in king's good graces. The problem is that people are mortal, and when (not if, but when!) the king dies or gets disposed of, your access to resources ends. Since the new king will also have absolute power, and their own "friends" to feed, you will also risk losing what you've already accumulated. Since they will fear that you could counter-attack and would want to prevent you doing any harm, you will also risk losing your freedom and your life.
But king's friends want to live after the king dies. They want not only to keep what they've gained, they'd want to pass it to their kids. They would want to secure what they won and cement the inequality they worked hard to achieve. Basically what they want is some form of law. As I see it, one of the ways to achieve that is to create a collective that manages transfer of power and prevents outsiders from coming in and fully wiping old elites.
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Suppose your country has an absolute monarch or some sort of personalist dictator. The best way to get access to power and resources, aside of becoming a king yourself, would be to get in king's good graces. The problem is that people are mortal, and when (not if, but when!) the king dies or gets disposed of, your access to resources ends. Since the new king will also have absolute power, and their own "friends" to feed, you will also risk losing what you've already accumulated. Since they will fear that you could counter-attack and would want to prevent you doing any harm, you will also risk losing your freedom and your life.
But king's friends want to live after the king dies. They want not only to keep what they've gained, they'd want to pass it to their kids. They would want to secure what they won and cement the inequality they worked hard to achieve. Basically what they want is some form of law. As I see it, one of the ways to achieve that is to create a collective that manages transfer of power and prevents outsiders from coming in and fully wiping old elites.
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