Skeptic Project

Pure provocation, whether intended or not and I have absolutely zero sympathy for C&C.

Who drives a chauffeur driven limousine right past hundreds of protesting and angry students who can no longer afford their tuition fees?!

Well, I can't claim to know the full story as I'm a neighbour of them.

I think it comes down to placating people, a lot of the older generation are very supportive of the monarchy.

They're trying to have their cake and eat it, keeping the Monarchy for some debatable benefits whilst not giving them any real power whatsoever.

I lived in London for a few months. My personal belief is their purpose is to attract tourists.

So they're like a combination of Paris Hilton and Disney Land.

Hans-Hermann Hoppe, one of the Austrian crankonomists, argues that absolute monarchs tend to run their countries better than democratic governments:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans-Hermann_Hoppe#Theory</p>

In Democracy: The God That Failed, Hoppe compares dynastical monarchies with democratic republics. In his view, a dynastical monarch (king) is like the "owner" of a country, because it is passed on from generation to generation, whereas an elected president is like a "temporary caretaker" or "renter". Both the king and the president have an incentive to exploit the current use of the country for their own benefit. However, the king also has a counterbalancing interest in maintaining the long-term capital value of the nation, just as the owner of a house has an interest in maintaining its capital value (unlike a renter). Being temporary, democratically elected officials have every incentive to plunder the wealth of productive citizens as fast as possible.