As a matter of historical record, the monarchies that the article approves of were corrupt, predatory, and prone to warfare; and the defects of democracy complained of are misdiagnosed Really? Which historical record is that? For over 200 years we have being living with the "Whig interpetation" of history, supplemented in the last 50 years by a Marxist view. If you get your history from public school textbooks and the history channel you have been profoundly misled.
Let's attack this logically for a minute.
Principle 1
we know the left,with their willing accomplicies in the media and the education system, lie to and mislead people as a matter of course to achieve their goals. In fact this is a basic tenet of leftism as expoused by Lenin and Marx.
I don't think hardly anyone disagrees with this assertion - I could do a quick search on FR and find probably 1000s of articles that articulate this exact point, so lets call it a priori (does not need to be proved)
Principle 2
We live in a two party, winner take all, democratic (this is the method - one person, one vote, universal sufferage over 18) republic (this is the form). In order to obtain and maintain their power the Democrat party lies to and misleads the people, I'm sure very few here would disagree with this, it's well documented and again I could find 1000s of articles on FR saying the same thing. So we can call that a priori as well.
So why is the GOP different?
When you view something on CNN do you not react with suspicion, and correctly so?
Why is FOX different?
Are those who are alleged to be "conservative" saints? Do they not desire power in our system?
Are they not capable of propogandizing?
(1) European history is lush with wars by and between monarchies. Those wars are not the fictions of Whigs and Marxists.
The European political figures whose principles I most admire were fiercely critical of monarchical corruption. Edmund Burke -- the ur-Tory -- spent much of career fighting the corruption of the Hannoverians and the East India Company -- which, I note, was a monopoly. Frederick Bastiat was a staunch democrat, not a monarchist. And so on.
As for the larger point about whether democracy or monarchy is more congenial to socialism, most observers attribute the US's relative distate for socialism as due to the absence of any history of monarchy and a concomitant hereditary class system. This point is reinforced by the observation that in the modern Tory party, the "wets" who opposed Thatcher and her free market reforms tended to be from the British upper class and to have the covert sympathy of the royal family. Thatcher and many of her core supporters were unashamedly plebian with a determination to persuade the country to support their reform program.
The gloomy tone of the article treats socialism as if it is a fatal condition with no hope of reversal in a democracy. But Ireland has prospered through relatively a low tax rate and regulatory burden, and in most of Central Europe -- and in Poland, the Czech Republic, and the Baltic Republics especially -- newborn democracies are slashing taxes and regulations and rolling back socialism.
For brief account as to Poland, see the following:
http://www.wbj.pl/?command=article&id=26683&
I refuse to believe that American voters are less capable of rejecting socialism than are Irish, Polish, Czech, and Latvian voters.
(2) We are not by any means a "winner take all democracy." We are instead, a 50-50 democracy, or perhaps a 51-49 democracy. Congress, the last time I looked, is led by Republicans but still infested with ever troublesome and obstructive Democrats.
I too have at times felt alienated from the political system and have my own large stock of criticisms and complaints; but it is morally vain and self-defeating to stand apart from news and issues as hopelessly compromised by propaganda, from politics as utterly corrupt, and from the civic life of this old and sturdy Republic as pointless because we are in inescapable socialistic decline.
I prefer to be governed by elected officials instead of unelected royals and their hangers-on.