A unelected king has an interest in the success and prosperity of his kingdom.
No, an unelected king has an interest in the amount of success and prosperity that can be extracted from his country and transferred to himself and (possibly) his heirs. The rulers of North Korea live like, well, kings, and their country has a lower GDP per capita than Bangladesh and Sudan.
But they aren’t Kings. In particular there is nothing in the North Korean “constitution” that says the son of the previous ruler will inherit. This means they must spend all their effort scheming to have the family stay in power. Also because of this they behave in a more short sighted manner than they would otherwise.
This is indeed true—military dictatorships, including the Roman Empire, tend to be notoriously insecure and horrible at dealing with succession—but even European monarchs have had plenty of disputed successions and civil wars.
but even European monarchs have had plenty of disputed successions and civil wars.
That’s because you’re taking the highlights from over a millennium of history over multiple countries. Herearea few examples from MoreRight of systematically going through all Kings in a dynasty and evaluating them.
In particular there is nothing in the North Korean “constitution” that says the son of the previous ruler will inherit.
OTOH, same applied to Venetian doges and yet as far I can tell medieval/early modern Venice wasn’t a hellhole by medieval/early modern standards, so that’s not all that’s going on.
No, an unelected king has an interest in the amount of success and prosperity that can be extracted from his country and transferred to himself and (possibly) his heirs. The rulers of North Korea live like, well, kings, and their country has a lower GDP per capita than Bangladesh and Sudan.
But they aren’t Kings. In particular there is nothing in the North Korean “constitution” that says the son of the previous ruler will inherit. This means they must spend all their effort scheming to have the family stay in power. Also because of this they behave in a more short sighted manner than they would otherwise.
If you think Kings never do this, you know little about history.
This is indeed true—military dictatorships, including the Roman Empire, tend to be notoriously insecure and horrible at dealing with succession—but even European monarchs have had plenty of disputed successions and civil wars.
That’s because you’re taking the highlights from over a millennium of history over multiple countries. Here are a few examples from MoreRight of systematically going through all Kings in a dynasty and evaluating them.
OTOH, same applied to Venetian doges and yet as far I can tell medieval/early modern Venice wasn’t a hellhole by medieval/early modern standards, so that’s not all that’s going on.