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by dia80 1834 days ago
By "fill their pockets" I mean actively engage in political corruption. The royal families relatively static wealth makes little difference in the grand scheme. The £85m figure from the crown estate mentioned in this article is 0.1% of government spending.

I didn't mean to suggest the royal family are unimpeachable beacons of virtue but that their primary motivations are different to politicians in a way that benefits the country.
2 comments
crumbshot 1834 days ago
> By "fill their pockets" I mean actively engage in political corruption.

But they do. For example, the Queen used her power to get an exemption from transparency laws with regards to her own personal wealth: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/feb/07/revealed-que..., and her son Charles did the same to ban his tenants from purchasing freeholds: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/feb/09/prince-charl....

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dia80 1834 days ago
(replying to sibbling)

By political corruption I mean activities that are obviously detrimental at societal level. That sucks if you are Charles's Tennant and you want to by the freehold but I'm think more of funnelling contracts to your unqualified friends like the PPE scandals. Again I'm not suggesting the royals are perfect just that the alternative is worse.

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mcny 1834 days ago
One story I remember is some corruption is okay when there is enough to go around.

If I told you that the janitors responsible for changing the light bulbs didn’t wait for the lights to burn out and replaced light bulbs with a few weeks worth of life left (when replacing other light bulbs) and took them home to use them you probably wouldn’t bat an eye. It isn’t even worth spending time thinking about it in developed countries.

However, imagine you are in a developing country and corruption is rampant. I think you would justifiably be less charitable toward the janitor even though you know it is the same act but the pie is smaller so every bit counts.

The royals being corrupt in the UK (I hope it becomes just England and Wales within my lifetime, preferably with NI and Scotland withdrawing) is ok but the royals being corrupt in Swaziland is a big problem.

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