Guardian: Monarchy and Liberty

Over at the Guardian, there's a relatively sensible piece on monarchy.

Prof. John Gray writes:

It has become part of the liberal creed that monarchy and empire are anachronisms. The first embodies the hereditary principle, which no modern thinker can accept as a legitimate basis of government, while the second represents something still worse - the subjugation of peoples who should govern themselves. In future, the world will be organised into self-determining republics where all citizens enjoy equal rights. When empires are no more and kings and queens have been retired from service there will be enduring peace, and freedom will for the first time be universal.

This fable has a certain innocent charm. It turns the ironies of history into a simple morality play, and in a time that demands emotional uplift before anything else it has a powerful appeal. Yet this liberal narrative involves a massive simplification of events, and the ideal of self-determination it articulates has proved dangerous in practice.