According to Reuters,
“We believe this represents a value-for-money monarchy,” said Alan Reid, the “Keeper of the Privy Purse” who looks after the queen’s finances.
As a tourism attraction, that may be right. At least they no longer exercise absolute power. (Anyway, since they enjoy the results of so many generations of previous theft, why support them publicly at all?)
Do you believe in reparations then? Couldn’t it be they have some of their wealth from prudent investments (which is of value)?
Or do you believe (as Rothbardians and the communists) that if my ancestor stole a dollar and I turned this dollar into $100, you can then steal my $99.
Tom’s statement “since they enjoy the results of so many generations of previous theft, why support them publicly at all?” suggests that continued theft (a.k.a. public support) should be discontinued, not that the royal family should have their assets seized.
But why not seize their assets, which were indeed taken from the taxpayer? And regardless, the divine right of kings to the public’s pocketbooks is medieval nonsense and ought to be stopped.
Well, I think that Mr. Steele put the matter well. The issue is first to stop the ongoing theft. Second is to consider whether past injustices should be or can be rectified. I think a good case can be made for letting the royals just fritter their money away and gradually grow poorer. But if their estates were to be distributed to others, that need not mean that all property would be put at risk. Theirs clearly is not the result of lots of wise investing, but of lots of theft. We know quite well how they got the great bulk of it. In contrast, other property claims are not so discredited. The first commentator suggests that believing in rectification of injustice means that all property is put at risk, for if it can ever be shown to have a broken chain of title, current title is invald. Balderdash. Title is not an absolute matter, but a relative one, that is, there are a variety of claims and when they conflict legal systems sort through them to find the best. Tony HonorÃ?Â??Ã?Â?Ã?© (http://users.ox.ac.uk/~alls0079/index.htm#homeanchor ) of Oxford University has done an elegant job of showing that in his essay on “Ownership,” reprinted in the volume “Making Law Bind.” (He argues other things, as well, but the discussion of title is what is relevant to the topic at hand.)
So who gets the loot, Tom? And how is it divded? I am sure you can see what a terrible situation that would be. I can almost smell the blood in the streets…
Cutting them off and letting them fritter their wealth away is simply more prudent.
Certainly, it is an outrageous use of public funds to subsidize the royal family when I would imagine they have more than enough combined wealth to live off earnings forever.
As far as redistributing wealth away from the royal family to correct past “theft”, there is precedent for this. Noble estates have been subject to property taxes for years in the UK. Blood did not flow in the streets as a result. The royal estate could be subjected to the same tax law as a mere commoner’s or noble’s would be (I’m not an expert on British law, but I assume one of the royal privileges is general immunity from tax). The government could establish something akin to the Alaska Permanent Fund to ensure the money is distributed evenly among the public rather than used to further enlarge the government (as the introduction of property taxes no doubt did).
Well, overall I’d probably prefer to just let them fritter it away slowly (or quickly, depending on who ends up getting the loot). But if it were to be confiscated, you might start by granting crown tenants a simple freehold, which would easily transfer a lot of the wealth into widely dispersed private ownership. Or sell it off and grant every taxpayer a one-time rebate. Anyway, probably better not to stir up that kettle and let the royals just slowly sink into the middle class (with that much loot, of course, it might take a while). But surely it’s time to stop forcing working people to subsidize them.
1. The Queen has been paying income-tax for some years now, on her private income (see below.)Royal income was exempted from income-tax when it was introduced during the Napoleonic Wars.
2. The Crown lost all tax rights at the Restoration (1660.) Since then, Parliament have provided the monarch with an income.
3. Before then: During the medieval period, monarchs lived mainly off their own estates. Parliament had to be summoned to grant a one-off tax (a ‘subsidy’.) Otherwise, the monarch got customs revenue. In the 16th century/ early 17th century, the Crown tried to raise additional money by selling ‘monopolies’ — permission to tax specific commodities in exchange for a lump-sum down. Not surprisingly, Parliament objected very strongly.
4. The Crown continues to be a very large landowner — on exactly the same terms as any other landowner. The royal family’s private fortune was built up mainly in the 19th century — like many other fortunes.
I was aware that recently the Queen had agreed to pay income tax on her private income and should have mentioned that. But why exempt the royal income? And, indeed, why is there a royal income at all?
As to how the Queen acquired her holdings, is it really true that they were purchased or built up like other fortunes? Isn’t a great deal of the royal land holding the inheritance from the great acts of theft that took place many years before? I know that most of the wealth of the Houses of Liechtenstein and Grimaldi are indeed the results of good business decisions, but is that true of the landed estates of the House of Windsor?
In any case, divesting the Windsors of them would serve little purpose. I merely entertained the idea to indicate that it need not call all other property into question.
1. In 1066, William the Conqueror & his men took over the lands of Harold & the Anglo-Saxon nobility. For ordinary farmers, this was merely a change in overlords. Domesday Book records this.
2. The monarch, in medieval times, was the largest landowner in the kingdom. It is this land which has always provided the bulk, or a very large part, of royal income. In the medieval period, the largest aristocratic & ecclesiaistical landholders ‘held their lands of the king’, ie, they supplied him with fighting men when needed, or paid money in lieu. These ‘tenants-in-chief’ had subtenants, who did the same in return for the land they ‘held’.
3. In the 15th century, all this changed into a market-based landlord/tenant relationship which then developed into what we see today. Aristocratic landowners had long since become independent of the Crown. The Crown estates developed in exactly the same way: the royal family are landowners in exactly the same sense as any others. As with them, land management improved considerably in the 19th century & more so in the 20th.
4. A correction: in the 19th century, the monarch _did_ pay income tax whenever it was levied. But in 1894, the crown was exempted from death duties. In the course of the 20th century, royal income was exempted from income-tax. So the Queen is merely reverting to the norm.
A further correction: in 1760, the bulk of the Crown’s estates were assigned to Parliament — ie, the income was paid into the Exchequer — in exchange for a payment from Parliament — ‘the Civil List’. Income from the Crown estates well exceeds the Civil List.
Incidentally, I’m a very mild fan of constitutional monarchy, but I can’t stand the awful legacy of the insidious William the Conqueror. If I were metaking, England would still have a monarch (Scotland, Wales, and NI would be separate countries), but anyone descended from William would be ineligible. They should pick somebody new, maybe a business leader.