A reader has asked me this question:
There's a new country in the making. It will either be a robust democracy, or a benevolent and enlightened but absolute monarchy. You know in advance that the monarchy will produce better final results for the people, in terms of things like freedoms (of speech, of movement, etc.) and civil liberties, prosperity, equality, health, education and knowledge, and so on. Otherwise, the main difference is that, in the monarchy, the people will not be involved in the decisions of state (though the Monarch, being wise and good, may well listen to the people before taking decisions) and of course the people will not choose their leader. But remember – the outcome will be better for the people, or for most of the people, under the monarchy. You get to choose which form of state the new country will have. Which do you choose?
My answer is in four stages.
1. To decide here, I'd have to weigh the values, freedom, civil liberties, prosperity, equality, health, education, knowledge and everything else encompassed by 'and so on' - thus, for example, the flourishing of the arts, tolerance, civility and, when you come right down to it, superiority over the democratic alternative in every sphere of human endeavour - against the value of autonomy: autonomy in the sense of political self-determination. It's not an easy choice. For, on the one hand, so much in the way of good consequences is stacked on the side of the benevolent monarchy; but, on the other hand, to lack autonomy is to lack something essential to being a mature and free human being. So I agonize...
2. Still, if it's presented like that I'll go for the monarchy, and endure the boos and hisses of the democracy lobby, by pointing, with wide eyes and open mouth, to the huge basket of guaranteed benefits, and urging that in a modern democracy the autonomy of each is qualified anyway by the autonomy of everyone else, who can act and vote in such a way that your influence over what happens is rendered ineffective.
3. In fact, however, I will refuse the choice so presented because the hypothesis it contains is so improbable. You could not possibly know in advance that the results of the benevolent monarchy would be better than the results of a robust democracy; and nearly everything we do know, with hindsight, from experience, suggests that they would be worse. For one thing, a robust democracy encourages and strengthens some of the very things which the original hypothesis says will come out better under that well-meaning monarchy. For another, single-person rule is too dependent on the character of the person to be reliable. 'What if?' questions are perfectly legitimate, of course, in trying to clarify the relation between concepts, assumptions, values. But sometimes you have to reject the question all the same, as the basis of any realistic practical choice.
4. So I'll stick with a robust democracy, reckoning we can project in advance that it's likely to produce better results. (Thanks: ME.)