Honestly, seems fairly low considering how much tourist economic value the royalty generates for Britain, which is something like £23 billion pounds a year in (total) spending alone. If the monarchy and associated “living history” traditions ceased to exist, I’d imagine that the UK would get a significantly less amount of tourism.
I don't. Versaille gets plenty of visitors even though the French monarchy is no longer legal. Nobody steps off a plane expecting to see the Royal Family.
France hasn't spent the last 60 years building their tourist and media complex around living royals. Sure, France does fine with museums alone. Would England? Maybe. Maybe not.
The article you posted claims the ENTIRE tourist spend per year in the UK is around £23 billion GBP:
"Official statistics for the final quarter of 2019 have yet to been published, although in 2018 a total of 37.9 million people visited the UK from overseas and cumulatively spent £22.8 billion"
What percentage of that spending are the royal family actually responsible for? It's hard to disambiguate, but it's surely only a portion of it.
How much less spending would there be if there was no more royal family? Again, hard to estimate. But several European countries have more tourism without royal families. So possibly less than one would expect.
>What percentage of that spending are the royal family actually responsible for? It's hard to disambiguate, but it's surely only a portion of it.
I doubt the royals drive that much tourism. Tourists still flock to Paris and Istanbul despite no royals living there and also to Amsterdam where the royals don't have a powerful brand image.
My point is you don't need living or active royals for tourism.
That’s not a good comparison. I’ve been to both. buckingham palace is a working palace with very limited access. Versailles is an open museum. On my last visit to Buckingham palace, I got timed tickets and went on a limited tour with about 20 people. As we walked out the front, there were thousands standing outside looking at it.
Probably not all that much much. It's a big building, for sure, with some rooms and furnishings of historical interest.
But it's not nearly as lavish as Versailles is, and its place in history is much less important. It wasn't completed until after the monarchy had become subordinate to the Parliament. Its residents have always been figureheads.
Versailles, by contrast, is the ultimate in conspicuous consumption. The building is insanely gaudy, inside and out. The grounds are jaw-dropping. It can take you a day just to walk them. Compared to it, Buckingham Palace is a cottage.
It's also redolent in French history. It was the court at the absolute height of French monarchical power, and played crucial roles in the fall of that power. Marie Antoinette's Petit Trianon, where she dressed up as a peasant girl and played at being a milkmaid, is a potent symbol of how out of touch the monarchy had become.
People would surely come to see Buckingham Palace, home to Queens Victoria and Elizabeth, and be informed about some of the important events that happened there. More would come if it were more open. But it would never be the draw that Versailles is, and people would not come out raving about what extravagant lives its residents led.
France with their roughly equal population & GDP as the UK also gets about 5x the number of tourists per year, so that helps boost their numbers a fair bit.
The royals aren't something you can actually see, unless you're incredibly lucky. They just sit in their glorious homes away from prying eyes of tourists.
I never visited England for the royals. I went to see London, York, Cambridge. Couldn't care less if any royals are currently there or not because I can't see them anyway.
I think the royalty is much more tied to the identity of the UK, especially when perceived from abroad and in popular culture. The global response to Lady Diana’s death, Downton Abbey, James Bond, just as a few examples. Most of the other European countries do not have a royal-associated brand.
I may be misremembering, but the only thing in the bond franchise I can think of that is at all related to the royals is the title of one of the films (On Her Majesty's Secret Service). I guess he's a government employee, but other than that I can't think of anything else in the films that is connected to the royal family.
I assume that at their level, the actual number is less important than their level of agency. When they want to get something done, who is more likely to be able to make it happen?
I did the math: if the monarchy were dissolved and its holdings evenly distributed amongst the UK's 66M people, each person would get about $25. Same with Trident, which costs about £1.5B/year.
The invasion of Ukraine has basically reversed my position on the weapons of mass destruction as an unfortunately necessary insurance policy. In any case, that counts towards the 2% defence spending NATO membership target.
And before that others. I think we really should be for proliferation. It would make for safer and more equal world. Many of the conflicts in past 80 years could have been avoided if everyone had nuclear weapons.
I think there is a distinction between his private fortune and the holdings of the royal family.
> King Charles has no shortage of palaces, castles and residences to enjoy, but most of them are not technically his. Buckingham Palace and Kensington Palace are, for example, owned by the sovereign in right of the crown
I utterly despise this mindset that you can just take rich people's money. I get getting rid of the monarchy but all that UK land the government pays them for and any other riches they have are theirs.
You are no better than a common thief if you take what does not belong to you regardless of who the owner is or who you are. And that includes any government. People get to own stuff. If someone's riches cannot be proven as unlawfully obtained by the laws of the time when they were obtained, then taking that money against their will is pure and simple theft.
The silliness behind these types of thinking is that they make it sound like there is a shortage of money. Money can be printed if that's all you want. If riches are being obtained wrongly the pass laws to fix that, don't tell me how nice it would be to steal from the rich, If I wanted to steal assume I would steal from you first. It insults me how people assume others will join on their merry band if robbin-hood-esque thieves.
I get getting rid of the monarchy but all that UK land the government pays them for and any other riches they have are theirs.
No, it's not.
The Crown Estate belongs to the reigning monarch 'in right of The Crown', that is, it is owned by the monarch for the duration of their reign, by virtue of their accession to the throne. But it is not the private property of the monarch - it cannot be sold by the monarch, nor do revenues from it belong to the monarch.
The important bit is "it is owned by the monarch for the duration of their reign". If the UK decides to become a republic the reign of the king will end, and with that the royal family's estates revert to ownership by the people.
> with that the royal family's estates revert to ownership by the people.
Umm...no. Why would you assume that. It is not the people's land. If the monarchy is dissolved then what happens to that land is a matter of negotiation and possible court battles. The monarchy allowed the people to self-govern in exchange for being allowed to continue to be monarchs. One common theme I have seen in this thread is that people think they live under "rule of the people" but we live under "rule of law" a contract cannot be made void simply by passing a law to void it, because then the contract had no real meaning to begin with if one side can just get up and say they don't want to fulfill their obligations.
Only if the monarchy abdicates their roles can the agreement over their estate be cleanly voided.
Out of all the past events you can justify as being "legal at the time", the monarchy would be close to the last one. They wrote the laws by force and created all the illegitimate institutions all the way down to "forcing serfs off their subsistence farms because the factories needed workers" and slave trading.
Even if you allow them their private holdings, the monarchy still have special carve outs in laws, still get to interfere in the democratic process (King's Consent and other methods), and are still subsidised by today's democratic government. The private wealth is relevant to all those things.
It doesn't matter if they created the law by force. They were the legitimate rulers of the country at the time and they had authority to make laws to enrich themselves
That is so not true. Monarchy and dictatorships only need acceptance by other countries of the time to be legitimate. I mean even amongst their own people you make it sound like the british royals did not have the consent if the people to rule. They absolutley did and the people not only accepted as legitimate but also divinely ordained.
Every country in the last thousand or three years has had rules by which the military, people and ruling class elite all at least outwardly agreed upon as the basis if their governmental system. Anyone that rose to power through that system or was able to by any means change the rules is legitimate.
"Only the type of rulers I like in other countries and in different times in the past are legitimate" is a silly notion.
> "Only the type of rulers I like in other countries and in different times in the past are legitimate" is a silly notion.
"Some guys in fancy hats convinced some other guys in fancy hats that it was okay, so now all people for the rest of time are bound by that" is a much, much sillier notion.
If simply making a law is all that is required for legitimacy, then simply passing a law that says the monarch's property is forfeit is all that is required for it to be legitimate.
No, making the law does not make you legitimate, having authority accepted by your military and tolerated by your people is enough.
Look at Taiwan for example? Almost every country does not acknowledge them as a country separate from China yet they are because their people and military accept their authority over their island and they have control over the island.
Look at north korea, the Kim family's rule is very much legitimate even though we can't say most of the people enjoy their rule, however they tolerate it and the military accepts them as rightful rulers. You can't justifiably prosecute them under NK law for stealing from their starving people for example because everything they do is by their legitimate and basically absolute authority.
If a ruler is not legitimate it is either the military or the people that have to engage in active revolt at a meaningful scale to bring about doubt regarding the ruler's legitimacy.
In the US civil war for example, it is hard to say Abraham Lincoln was the legitimate ruler of the south. At least not until he won the war.
Rules that can't be enforced have no meaning. Rules are enforced by force which ultimately means military but at the same time rules also have no meaning if a very largr portion if the people being ruled reject the rules. Therefore under the rule of law, legitimacy of a ruler is established simply by their ability to make and enforce rules. Not their popularity or niceness.
Anyone who followed the law cannot be punished and anyone who broke the law is subject to punishment. You can change laws and punish people who break them but the rule of law loses all meaning if anyone can be punished for an action that was lawful at the time.
If laws are based solely on force, then that's the end of it and whoever has the most force at a given time makes the laws.
You can't just say "that person happened to have the most force at that exact moment, so whatever they did is fine and they can't be touched even by someone who now has more force".
By your logic, the Nazis should not have punished for the Holocaust because they made some laws that allowed them to do it first. They murdered 10+ million people, but executing a couple dozen people who orchestrated it is beyond the pale because they passed some laws to say it was okay first.
Actually the British took away consent for royals to rule vis the Magna Carta and so on. So maybe not a great example.
Today the king has only the right to be told, and the right to be heard. Parliament does the rest (i.e. laws and rules).
Further, it's fair to say that legitimacy has a lot of interpretations. If it's 'they are legitimate because they have power' then the definition is circular.
That you make no distinction between those who are rich from business and those who did it via literal conquest and armies shows how futile and childish your point is.
That distinction is irrelevant because we are talking about the rule of law and administration if justice.
If you invade a country and steal it's riches then it is that country's burden to exact justice against you by means of war or diplomacy. That is not the topic here.
Much if britain got rich off of slavery and conquest yet it is the royal's riches that is being discussed here and the reason is not because it was unlawfully gained. It was abdolutley lawfully gained under the laws of that time.
How you obtained wealth irrelevant so long as it was lawful. You can argue that invading countries was illegal at the time and the royal's broke the law and if that is correct I am with you on that. If is not then you are an even worse if a theif than they ever were because you are not only masquerading as an agent of justice when you are stealing just like they did but you are acting in hypocrisy as if you were better than them.
And even if you were how silly if you to take wealth gained by conquest and give it to your people when it should go to all the countries from which it was stolen.
Okay so, let's say I overthrew the government, establish a dictatorship and then change the laws so I am the legal owner of the countries resources. This is now my property in perpetuity, since it was legal at the time when I, a dictator, decided on what the laws are?
> there is a shortage of money. Money can be printed if that's all you want
I mean .. yes? Odd to see an argument that taxation is bad but reducing inherited wealth through inflation is completely fine.
Although ultimately what people care about is real, material conditions. People would not be quite so hungry for the wealth of the monarch if they could afford food, a lesson from the French Revolution.
The french revolution was thieves murdering so they can steal. It does not justify what they did. They could have gotten rid of the crown and implemented a more fair system without bloodshed.
It doesn't matter what people want or care about or if they are literally starving. That does not justify theft. I am not against taxation, I am all for raising taxes and making the rich pay their fair share. What I abhorr and what revolts me is this idea that you can just take their money because you need it more. It is theirs. Period. End of story. Unless they broke the law to gain it.
If the law was unfair that allowed them to gain wealth? change it. But you can't retroacrively take someone else's property or wealth because now it is considered unfairly gained. At the most fundamental and basic level that would be unfair and unjust. A person can only be punished if they broke the rules at the time of the act.
The french revolution was uncivilized barbaric murderous rampage. If you agree with thay then you have already earned your povery and starvation. In no understanding of justice is stealing justified because someone has too much wealth.
The French Revolution was an uncivilized murderous rampage against uncivilized barbaric murdering thieves. The rulers got what they deserved; it's only unfortunate that many innocent people were caught up in it too.
You should elaborate on how they deserved to have not just the rich people but their whole families decapitated in public.
I comment about public execution of child rapists and i get downvoted here but sure monarchs deserved it.
In order to justifyably kill someone they must have taken a direct role in taking someone's life and that act must have been unlawful and their convinction must be after due process and after allowing them to defend themselves and confront their accuser.
Chopping off the heads of rich people because they got rich off of your starvarion like that is not to different than mass shooters and serial killers who kill because they too felt wronged and they too felt the rule of law and the process of justice was beneath them and they too granted themselves authority to be judges and executioners.
I sort of see your point, but this is a monarch, not some self starter entrepreneur. They made their wealth by literally "taking other people's money" through force or threat of force. Why simp for these people?
I don't care about them. I care about justice. Their use of force at the time was lawful and if it wasn't I don't care. They enslaved and murdered too and they can't be punished for it retroactively. Justice and equality under law for everyone, the rich and powerful as well as the poor and weak. Rule of law and civil order.
Advocating for anything less makes you the criminal and law breaker. Whatever injustice you face you have deserved it already because you accepted injustice against others.
"criminal" and "law breaker" are just terms used by the ruling class to describe behavior they believe they have the power to ban. You seem to be acting as if "law" is some independent natural phenomena as opposed to something created by and for the rulers
Those terms are terms used to describe the relationship between rulers and the ruled in a civilization governed by the rule of law. rulers can't rule without the people agreeing to the rules and the military enforcing their rule. What you do when you disagree with the ruling class is revolt and then come up with new rules so you can punish people who break the rules you came up with.
The law if any ruler can be unjust and if you tolerate that law then those acting in accordance to it are immune from future punishment. If the ruler is unjust then you must rebel if you want to change thier laws.
Democracy is not the only form of government and the consent if the people is not required to form a government. But if the people want that, they must establish such a government by whatever means just like americans did 1979 after winning a bloody war to establish such a form of government. It was blood not votes that allowed american democracy to exist and it was also blood that allowed King George to rule over america to begin with and it wad blood that allowed comminists in China, Russia, Cuba and NK to establish their govenment,etc...
Blood usually but always is the source that allows establishment of a military which must first accept that form of government and then the people need only tolerate the rule of law enforced ultimately through the military.
Any source of law that is capable of enforcing that law is legitimate.
But you can disagree with authoritatians for example and fight to replace them with a democracy (Iraq is calling, they want Saddam back! Lol jk) but even though you can do so it is unjust and under rule of law criminal to punish someone who followed the law of the land or to creatr laws that punish people for acts done before the law was passed.
Personal possessions, tools to work, a place to live, a pension - yes certainly.
However as you get beyond that, the 'natural justice' breaks down and it becomes more about the system a society uses to decide how its resources are allocated. Under the capitalist system, wealth concentrations are allowed - though this is not a defining feature of the system (with the concept of shareholding, ownership can be split up into many small pieces). However wealth agglomerates very readily in this system, and I'd argue that nowadays wealth concentrations are becoming a serious problem.
Under the social ownership model, society (through the state) uses a top down command and control system for allocating resources. We (even the US!) live in a mixed system, where capital or social ownership is used as has found to be most appropriate for each sector. It's roughly 50:50.
Notions like 'theft' become meaningless once you are into societal level resource allocation.
If by law the property is owned by society you are right. But in a free society you get to own stuff. Not society or the government, you.
And it is not about resource allocation. If you have wealth the someone generated or traded that wealth for/to you. You exchanged that wealth fairly for something. Taking that from you against your will and outside of explicit taxation authority of the government by the government is theft.
You can tax rich people all you want you just can't take their money because you can. Society did not take the risk or make the investment they made and cannot be allowed to consider their wealth its property.
> the 'natural justice' breaks down and it becomes more about the system a society uses to decide how its resources are allocated.
In a free and just society, society has no say in this matter once weath has been obtained and taxed lawfully.
The government is free to own companies and make investments to compete with rich people if it wants to do so.
Only a society of criminals and thieves takes from others because ir can. And that is exactly what any country that has tried to take money from people just because it can ended up becoming. Corrupt and completely unjust.
> But in a free society you get to own stuff. Not society or the government, you.
Only if the society or government decides to enforce a particular notion of property rights.
> If you have wealth the someone generated or traded that wealth for/to you. You exchanged that wealth fairly for something.
"Hemedti owns, along with other family members, a gold mining company that operates in lands he seized in Darfur 2017. In 2018, Bashir gave Hemedti permission to mine and sell gold, and operations extended to other gold rich areas in outside Darfur in the south of the country. The gold was exported, according to a 2019 Reuters investigation, circumventing capital controls, and even sold to the Sudanese central bank for a preferential rate. The yield was allegedly used to enrich Hemedti and his family,"
> You can tax rich people all you want you just can’t take their money because you can.
Revolutions against monarchies have disproven this repeatedly.
You can just take the wealth of monarchs and their associated hereditary elites “because you can”.
Arguably, getting to a negotiated surrender tends to produce better long-term results, but that’s not a “can’t”, in fact, the alternative is a necessary foundation for a negotiated outcome.
Then it wasn't lawfully gained at the time? Can you prove in court the laws at the time forbed that gain? If so take it from them with interest and punitive damages.
There are plenty of situations such as wealth gained from slavery where it wasn't illegal at the time but remains morally tainted.
(What proportion of the King's wealth derives from the time before Magna Carta and the concept of legal restraint on the Crown? Until then it was effectively impossible for anything the monarch did, including the most blatant theft and murder, to be deemed illegal)
In re "stealing other peoples rightful inheritance", as a side comment, the Crown (but not the King) is the beneficiary of inheritances for which an owner cannot be found.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tourism_in_the_United_Kingdo...