| HN Mirror

> There’s no serfdom anywhere in the world currently.

Tell that to guest workers in Saudi Arabia. Or to people in North Korea.

> There are plenty of monarchies in the world.

There are very few _real_ monarchies where the monarch has absolute power, with hereditary power transfer: Saudi Arabia, Oman, North Korea.

quink 468 days ago

"guest workers" as a term completely excludes serfs. Serfs are attached to the land, guest workers on the other hand come from a completely different place. North Korea is not a monarchy, and what's happening there is forced labour, or slavery.

The original point I was refuting was that "serfdom is a relatively common feature under monarchy". People are so completely unable to provide evidence for that claim of it being common these days (500 years in the past being quite irrelevant here given numerous monarchies exist these days) that the closest you can get is by pointing to one single case, on the other side of the world from the monarchies we're talking about, that isn't serfdom and isn't a monarchy. Hardly a "relatively common feature".

Serfs were forced to work for little to no wages, and often can't leave the country because their employers confiscate their passports. That's about as close to modern serfdom as you can get.

> The original point I was refuting was that "serfdom is a relatively common feature under monarchy".

It is. Some kind of serfdom was common throughout Europe until around 19-th century. Russia abolished it in 1861, in Austria in 1848, hardly "500 years". As usual, Wikipedia has a nice overview: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serfdom

quink 468 days ago

OK, let's consult the article, starting right at the beginning:

> Serfdom was

Huh.

Perhaps absolute would be a better wording. After all there are also very few absolute democracies, absolute free markets, etc, etc.

Of note about Saudi Arabian guest workers is that if I understand correctly the mistreatment isn't officially condoned it just isn't prevented in practice either. At which point I wonder about other localized abusive working and living conditions in many supposedly more developed and civilized countries.

> with hereditary power transfer

Getting slightly tangential, but is that even necessarily a feature of a monarchy? It seems to me that the defining characteristic is a single authority figure. Hereditary power transfer is just a natural consequence of basic self interest under those circumstances.

> Perhaps absolute would be a better wording.

It's a term: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absolute_monarchy

> Of note about Saudi Arabian guest workers is that if I understand correctly the mistreatment isn't officially condoned

Of course it is. The laws (as they are) are set to allow that.

> Getting slightly tangential, but is that even necessarily a feature of a monarchy?

Yes. It's _the_ main characteristic of monarchy. Without it, you have run-of-the-mill autocracy (e.g. Putin in Russia or Saddam Hussein in Iraq). Hereditary power transfer means that the monarchy is an institution, with its own support structures (feudals, court, etc.).

The saying: "The king is dead, long live the king!" is not hypocrisy. It's a sign that the monarchy is an institution and can survive an individual monarch's death.

For example, if Putin dies tomorrow, who is going to gain the power? We don't know. There's going to be a power struggle with unpredictable results. There is no line of succession for the true power.

Sure but, in theory at least, who says you need the official mechanism to be hereditary? An institution could define that however it wanted, and if it works then it works.

Admittedly it's possible that might run afoul of a dictionary definition or three. I'm not sure. I suppose it's all largely pointless speculation anyway since someone with a long enough term is going to be incentivized to modify the system to officially become hereditary if it isn't already.

> Of course it is. The laws (as they are) are set to allow that.

Officially though?

Contrast with your other example, North Korea, where many of the abuses are indeed officially recognized.

There's plenty that the laws (or at least enforcement) in the western world fail to stop. In many cases you can argue that it's intentional (and I might even agree with you). But that doesn't make it official in that it isn't what's written down or what the electorate explicitly agreed to.

> Sure but, in theory at least, who says you need the official mechanism to be hereditary? An institution could define that however it wanted, and if it works then it works.

The thing is, regular autocracy has to destroy the institutions of power transfer. If there's a presumptive successor, then the autocrat can never feel secure in their power. So hereditary transfer is the only model that is at least tolerable for autocrats.

But building the institutions of power transfer requires people who are invested in them. So you need feudal lords who derive their power and wealth from their relation with the monarch. These feudal lords _themselves_ are interested in power transfer to make sure their heirs can be secure.

That's why, historically, elected kings turned into hereditary kings with only one exception, Vatican (for obvious reasons).

> Officially though?

Yes, they have laws that make it hard to pursue labor violations in court and the penalties are basically nothing ( https://www.migrant-rights.org/2024/02/saudi-arabia-reduces-... ).

olddustytrail 468 days ago

> For example, if Putin dies tomorrow, who is going to gain the power? We don't know.

Mikhail Mishustin. The Prime Minister of Russia takes over in the event of the President being indisposed and acts as temporary President until the President recovers or a new one is elected.

That's why I specified "real power". Mishustin doesn't have it.

olddustytrail 468 days ago

Does he not? I'm not any kind of expert on Russian politics but would you have said the same of Putin when he was PM?

crowselect 468 days ago

Relatively common in history.

It's almost as though the global political landscape has varied significantly over these thousands of years and various societal features (including monarchy, serfdom, slavery, etc) aren't inherently linked to one another.

My original point was that a monarchy permits both the best and worst possible outcomes because a single individual has maximal power to enact a unified vision. The observation could obviously apply in degrees to any dictatorship though, regardless of the official classification.

crowselect 468 days ago

Yeah, that’s the ol’ philosopher-king argument. I get it, but I don’t really buy into it. I.e. if the next monarch is a despot, their rule is a part of the previous monarch’s actions… so even a truly good king will inevitably harm the people under them.

You don't actually seem like you're disagreeing with me though? I spoke only to the form of government as it pertains to end results, not to how we should attribute "points" to a given ruler or politician. Credit assignment is similarly difficult when it comes to voters and elected leaders.

The end result is higher variance over a long period of time as a dictatorship switches between good and bad leadership. Meanwhile democracies consistently fail to execute on large scale visions. There's a reason corporate structure generally resembles a dictatorship, and that same reason is what eventually leads many of them to fail.