March 20, 2003
MONARCHY MAKES A COMEBACK:
The Prince That Roared (Wall Street Journal Europe, 3/20/2003)Can a people vote away their democratic rights?...But while the legitimacy of Napoleon's overwhelming results in 1802 and 1804 [plebiscites making him "First Consul-for-Life"] may justifiably be doubted, Prince Hans-Adam II of Liechtenstein seemed to win plenary powers fair and square on Sunday.... [Was] it, as the Vienna-based Council of Europe warned rather darkly this week, "a serious step backwards"?...
While Sunday's referendum gave the prince an absolute veto over legislation, the right to dismiss the parliament, and immunity from Liechtenstein's courts, voters did not give up the democratic ghost altogether. A petition of 1,500 signatures (admittedly, nearly 5% of the population and over 7% of the voters) is sufficient to force a further referendum on the prince's role.
It's ... not clear that statelets like Liechteinstein have all that much to gain from ... parliamentary rule. In the 1990s, constitutional reform in Andorra imbued the local assembly with all the powers of a full-fledged government, which promptly went about putting up taxes and expanding the state. Given the alternatives, beneficent constitutional monarchy doesn't seem entirely bad.
Charles I of England once said that liberty consists of having government under those laws by which one's lives and one's goods may be most one's own. By those standards, Liechtenstein is doing pretty well, especially compared to some of the more traditionally democratic, but more socialist, countries around it. If its citizens think Prince Hans-Adam II is best-equipped to continue that trend of thriving, who are we to argue?
If the Liechtenstein model proves successful, I hear France will propose that the new EU Constitution declare Napoleon IX emperor. Posted by Paul Jaminet at March 20, 2003 9:32 AM
I've been thinking about posting about this
article in the Economist discussing the difference between liberty and democracy and how neither is sufficient (or maybe even necessary)for the other. This is basedon Fareed Zakaria's book The Future of Freedom: Illiberal Democracy at Home and Abroad
, which I have not yet read but which apparently argues that democracy and liberty are, if not mutually exclusive, then at least in conflict. (Something that is, by the way, obviously true.)
As long as it's not Napoleon XIV.
"They're coming to take me away! Ha! Ha!"
Good to see others coming around to our crypto-monarchist views.
Posted by: oj at March 20, 2003 12:44 PMI heard today that our intelligence has picked up covert offers by the French to build the budding tyrant of Liechtenstein a weapons-grade nuclear reactor.
Posted by: Matt at March 20, 2003 4:15 PM