Riot Rot Republic
Our modern societal collapse may be due to the very nature of republicanism
Republics are the most common form of government today. As of writing, out of the 193 officially recognized nations in the world, 110 are parliamentary or presidential republics, with an additional 30 being republican-based constitutional monarchies, such as Canada and Japan.1 For many alive today, specifically in the West, living under any other form of government is virtually unthinkable.
Defined as a political “doctrine that emphasizes laws and the state serving the common good of a nation's people through a mixed constitution, checks and balances, and the rule of law to prevent tyranny and promote public liberty,”2 republicanism is often touted for its benefits: clear rights of the individual, law-bound representatives, separation of powers, etc. Yet many of these benefits sound increasingly hypocritical as republican governments worldwide choose corruption and rot over longevity.
For all the structure they provide, republics are rife with issues that ultimately lead to their downfall. The quest to gain and main power leads self-serving politicians to create vast webs of bureaucracy, leaving unaware citizens vulnerable to manipulation and deception, and with few vehicles for change. Meanwhile, laws are passed and blind spots created to allow malignant figures worldwide to line their pockets, further their agendas, and shunt billions towards a bleak future of tyranny.
Why Republics?
Humans are paradoxical creatures. Though we crave independence, most—if not, all—humans also desire structured lives with people whom we can depend on for companionship, guidance, and survival from birth until death. Given this, it was only natural for our ancestors to organize themselves into collectives, starting with immediate clan members and eventually growing into widespread communities spanning miles or even entire continents. As a result, various forms of government came into being. However, throughout history, there seem to be three main types that are most prominent in some form or other: anarchies, monarchies, and republics. Of the three, monarchies and anarchic states are perhaps the most natural forms of government evolving from clans.
Monarchies—headed by a sovereign ruler—boast a variety of advantages, extending beyond their historical precedence for creating and maintaining long-standing nations. Ideally speaking, monarchs and the wider royal lineage represent a unified coalition of non-partisan rulers who have a long-term view of policies and legislation extending beyond a comparatively short elected term. As a symbol of continuity and political, economic, and governmental stability, monarchs can potentially garner fierce love and devotion from loyalists, who in turn form a deeper appreciation for their nation and its well-being.
Meanwhile, anarchies—boasting an absence of a ruler—pride themselves on individualism and personal freedom. Perfect for more egalitarian clans and their allies, anarchies have the potential to create stability through the strength of their communities and the social bonds of the individuals within. With no formal leader, anarchies must promote a culture of self-reliance, unity, voluntary cooperation, and mutual respect. For an anarchy to last beyond a few months or years, the people within must take pride in their community and do well to educate newcomers and the young on the importance of the social structure that has been created.3
Yet, despite this, monarchies and anarchies have many problems born out of their very natures. Absolute monarchies, for example, rely on hereditary rule—a system where leadership qualities are not guaranteed. Magnificent kings can potentially be replaced by tyrannical sons at any given moment, and citizens may be left unable to legally voice their disapproval if their nation’s constitution does not provide them with the appropriate vehicles. Further, without a meritocratic market economy, the upward mobility of non-aristocratic citizens within monarchies can be stifled once nobility becomes concentrated at higher points of society.
Conversely, anarchies are liable to fall due to their lack of rulers. Without concretely organized systems for law, medicine, infrastructure, or economy, order can become increasingly difficult to maintain as an anarchy’s population grows. Mass chaos and violence could erupt with no repercussions, as there are no mechanisms to create and enforce laws. The only other option is for citizens to take matters into their own hands, potentially leading to a brutal, abusive culture, thus destroying any unity an anarchy once had. In addition, a lack of coordination for economic prosperity would throttle the nation’s financial and technological growth. And without a volunteer militia-army/navy, an anarchic society would be vulnerable to attacks, raids, and even conquest by outside forces.4
Without appropriate checks & balances of authority and organized systems to promote social cohesion and citizen well-being, monarchies and anarchies risk falling into states of suffocation, tyranny, and chaos. This is, of course, because men are not angels5. We are imperfect, as are our creations.
As an attempt to address the issues created by monarchies, anarchies, and all forms of governance in between, various government sub-types have been experimented with throughout history. Monarchies alone boast a wide range of styles, from semi-elected emperors in Eastern Rome6 to the merit-based earning & retention of nobility status in Napoleonic France.7 Yet there have been countless men and women who have found these refined government systems lacking and still liable to fall prey to the weaknesses identified above.
That’s where republics come in. Attempting to strike a balance between the authority of monarchies and the individual freedom of anarchies, republics were fashioned to return power to the citizens without devolving into chaos. Republicanism was promoted widely throughout the Enlightenment era as a worthy evolution of society, since, in the words of Thomas Jefferson:
“The republican is the only form of government which is not eternally at open or secret war with the rights of mankind.“
— Thomas Jefferson
Yet, over two hundred years later, such a statement feels idealistic. In our modern world, the republican experiment has been twisted into an elaborate dance towards totalitarianism, guided by global puppeteers known and unknown. The result seems to be an inevitable global collapse into tyranny, mob rule, or both.
In the end, republics are their own undoing, destroying innocent lives through manipulation and greed.
The Problem With Republics
Republics have a complex power system almost by default. With a power system of fractured leadership and authority, the quest for power within republics quickly devolves into a bureaucratic board game, with countless rules and exceptions. The result is a medley of inefficiencies, bottlenecks, meaningless competition, and confusion, leading to a republic’s ultimate demise.
Bribing the Blocs
To gain power for either themselves or their respective parties, republican leaders8 must earn the support of voters, not by force but by popularity. Election campaigns become grand shows of words, promises, and photo-ops. This, if nothing else, allows voters to become familiar with specific names & faces to remember on election day, even if they know nothing about said candidates’ policies, values, or qualifications. In fact—from a politician’s stance—it is beneficial for voters to remain ignorant in a republic, since it virtually exempts them from accountability and potential impeachment, thus providing job stability over several years or even decades. In republics, power is gained and maintained by those who know how to use media and public displays to gain popularity and sway voters’ approval in their direction.
To do this, voters are not viewed as individuals, but rather as collective blocs with specific demographics, traits, and interests (i.e., small business owners, farmers, educators, liberals, minority races, men, elderly, welfare recipients, etc.). Politicians then select the blocs valuable to them—financially, numerically, or otherwise—and use campaigns to pander to and persuade these blocs to vote for them. This is true even for candidates who belong to parties historically to a particular bloc’s well-being (e.g., American blacks traditionally vote Democrat, a party historically known for supporting slavery).
Traditionally, blocs not are persuaded to vote for candidates with data or facts, but with promises. These promises may or may not be based on reality. Further, whether a candidate’s promises are kept once elected depends on a variety of factors: the work of previous administrations, the law-making process, national and global events, funding, etc. However, there is one factor that is often overlooked regarding promise fulfillment: how important a voting bloc is to maintaining power. The less important a politician or party sees a bloc, the fewer promises are likely to be fulfilled.
For blocs that are seen as more valuable, their party loyalty is rewarded—sometimes speedily—with biased regulations, tax codes, laws, stipends, subsidies, grants, government contracts, and other such rewards9. But because republics have at least two parties, each with their own numerous blocs to reward, laws and regulations can easily become muddled, filled with seemingly contradictory and/or overly complex rules, creating an elaborate system of codes even insiders can’t comprehend without the use of legal teams.
Rigging Elections
However, overlapping rewards and codes are merely one layer to the Kafkaesque confusion of the republican system. Though candidates offer promises to blocs if they vote for them, it means nothing if there are seemingly countless other candidates with similar platforms for voters to choose from on election day.
In a functional republic where the interests of citizens are prioritized, a streamlined system would exist to enable voters to actively participate in their government by not only allowing them to understand which candidate is which, but to also whittle the choice of potential representatives via debates and pre-elections in order for the populous to come to a final decision on election day.
While this may sound like a general summary of what currently happens in republics, it isn’t. First off, citizens are not the primary concern. If they are initially, then sooner or later, interests shift to focus on ruling parties maintaining their power and keeping threats out.
Like laws and regulations, republican voting systems are notoriously hazy. Built on illusive rules, domestic & foreign bribes, gatekeeping, and—again—citizen ignorance, republican politicians use various tactics to ensure votes in their favor, such as gerrymandering, electoral colleges, campaign funding floors, and adjusting rules for individual voters (e.g., allowing mail-in ballots, eliminating ID checks, lowering or raising age limits, etc.).
Further, when nations allow for the existence of lobbyists and special interest groups without clear regulations, open & legal bribery can occur on all levels of government. Candidates can be backed heavily by a few private corporations and individuals in return for the fulfillment of lucrative promises and rewards, as mentioned earlier. By heavily financing and promoting hand-selected candidates to a politically ignorant populous, private donors have the potential to sway votes in favor of a candidate that they know will grant them leniency and biased legislation, even at the cost of damaging the wider nation.
But say an average citizen were to grow tired of the corruption and wanted to make a change by running for president or prime minister. Other job positions would require him to have specific qualifications, education, and training in order to be considered—but not national leadership. Instead, our citizen would be faced with a daunting, arcane system of party boards, fundraising rules, age limits, biased debates, interviews, and meetings made to confuse the everyday man. Together, this system eliminates potential, altruistic threats, and allows political insiders to hand-select the few, camera-ready candidates the wider populous will be forced to choose from on election day.
In this way, citizens seeking change either through their individual voting power or by running for office are quickly discouraged. The republican political system and methods of candidate choice only serve to strip power from the populous and give reigning power to privately-backed pawns, Machiavellian snakes, and anyone who’d dare venture into the cold world of politics.
The Result?
Instability and chaos creep in. Though a republic may be initially founded upon the ideals of unity, prosperity, and freedom, its government actors eventually weave webs to protect only themselves, decreasing national stability and creating senseless politicization and evergrowing chaos.
Given republics elect leaders based on their popularity and ability to successfully woo voting blocs, the nation is destined to eventually lose its sense of unity once its people begin identifying with parties, blocs, and ideologies. Elected heads and voters work in their own interests—sometimes to a baffling extent—rather than seeking the best solutions for the entire nation. And given that party dominance can shift from administration to administration, republics are faced with perpetual political instability—a problem other governmental systems, such as monarchies, tend to lack.10
Further, once the sense of unity in a republic gives way to pride and agendas, the entirety of government operations is doomed to stagnate. Parties may jostle for power within agencies, leading to cannibalistic competition (e.g., FBI and CIA spats) and reducing efficiencies. When paired with the knot of voting bloc rewards, outdated laws, irrational boundaries, and a lack of accountability measures for government workers, federal and local agencies become bureaucratic machines that waste taxpayer funds year over year and get little done.
As a result, numerous blind spots are created—whether purposely or intentionally—confusing both people within and outside of the governing system. Once republics reach this point, they are destined to fail unless the ruling parties are ousted or overhauled. But change for the better of a nation requires selflessness, dedication, humility, a long-term vision, and patience—all things far too many standing leaders in the modern world lack. Instead, it is easier for them to take bribes, sow dissent, and enact toxic agendas left and right until their nation is nothing but a shadow of the dream it was founded on.
Looking Forward
Faced with these issues, what should today’s republics do?
Perhaps in reading this piece, some valued readers may believe the best course of action is to completely replace the republican system with either monarchy or anarchy, given their natural occurrence. Yet, while these systems boast admirable qualities, it’s unwise to view any with rose-tinted glasses. All governments are corruptible, as even the ancients knew. As Greek Historian Polybius once noted:
Monarchy first changes into its corrupted shadow-self, tyranny. Next, the abolition of all forms of kingship produces aristocracy. Aristocracy by its very nature degenerates into oligarchy; and when the masses become angry enough to take vengeance on this government for its unjust rule, then becomes democracy. Eventually, the licentiousness and lawlessness of this form of government produces mob rule to complete the series.
— Polybius (Histories, Book 6)
Again, no human system is perfect. While that can be viewed as a cause for despair, this also means there is always room for improvement. The republican system has beautiful intentions at its core, seeking to empower the masses with each passing generation. However, it is liable to corruption by those who turn once-noble intentions into weapons of national self-destruction.
Given that a vast majority of nations today are republics, this fate will spell disaster for billions of lives as each nation crumbles under the egos and greed of their politicians. While I firmly believe in the Psalmic advice that it is better to trust in the Lord than to trust in princes, it is also our duty as human beings to tend to the Earth and its people. Simple reform is not enough. Neither is a return to an older system. Nations around the world must seek the next evolution of governance. Just as capitalism evolved from mercantilism, so too must republicanism transform into something greater. Without evolution, modern society as we know it will completely collapse into mob rule and totalitarianism. We already heading there, in some places faster than others. What will be left of our world when over 140 nations fall into states of communist surveillance, dictatorship, or mobocracy?
Republican governments worldwide must face this reality head-on, if not for the sake of the people, then for the sake of the politicians within them. Where will they go when the world is in flames and their enemies are hunting them left and right? The evolution of our current governance systems is our only option as a species.
The question is not which governments are currently salvageable or near collapse, but how our countries will rebuild themselves either now or after the collapse occurs. For each nation must fall to the sands of time, but these very lands can rise once more in a great reawakening through the strength of their people.
Those that resist evolution will erased by tyranny. But the countries that embrace evolution by fashioning new systems of governance—combining the dynamism of anarchism, the stability of monarchism, and the mass will of republicanism—will rise from the ashes and bring forth a new era of endurance, trust, and prosperity.
We must support the end of our global bureaucracy—an end to the tangled webs of republicanism—and instead, favor efficiency and non-invasive systems made to respect and objectively enhance the lives of all classes worldwide. This, I believe, is the future of the social contract. Our world is rotting. How we go forward is up to us.
Special Thanks:
For this essay, I’d like to thank
for recommending Democracy: The God that Failed; for recommending Moral Man and Immoral Society; and for input on monarchies. Without your input, I’d still be procrastinating.
Sellers, M. (2001). Republicanism: Philosophical aspects. In Elsevier eBooks (pp. 13204–13210). https://doi.org/10.1016/b0-08-043076-7/01058-5
It should be noted that anarchies can only grow up until a certain point without a government forming. This is where monarchies have the upper hand, having the ability to span continents and maintain a level of order, whereas such a thing is unimaginable for an anarchy.
If an anarchy wanted to prevent this, however, I believe the people would inevitably decide on a style of leadership (e.g., federation, monarchy, decentralized states, democracy, etc.)
“If men were angels, no government would be necessary.” — James Madison
Sarris, P. (2023). Justinian: Emperor, Soldier, Saint. Hachette UK.
Roberts, A. (2014). Napoleon: A Life.
Referring to all political figures in a republic, not the American GOP.
CGP Grey. (2016, October 24). The rules for rulers [Video]. YouTube.
Downsides of a republic. (2024, April 19). Grenada Monarchist League. https://grenadamonarchist.org/downsides-of-a-republic/
https://open.substack.com/pub/stevenberger/p/politics-in-a-nutshell?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=1nm0v2