The problems of the monarchy

Eiichi Higuchi

Class 36 No. 21319551

Study Skills

May 20, 2013

The problems of the monarchy

　　Nowadays, the monarchy is one of the concern topics. Ms.Kakonaishino has aged at 20 years old and the media give us information about her. At the same time, Japanese become interested in “Tenno” ,which is the monarch of Japan. Japan is one of the countries which take the monarchy. A monarchy is a form of government in which sovereignty is actually or nominally embodied in 1 or 2 individuals. Currently there are 44 nations in the world with a monarch as head of state. For instance, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Netherlands, Saudi Arabia and Japan take the monarchy. However, The monarchy has a lot of problems. Now, 3 important problems will be talked. One is the fiscal problem. The another one is the family of the monarch are also “people”.  The last one is that the political power is integrated.

  First of all, the monarchy has the fiscal problems. We have to spend a lot of money for maintaining the monarchy. For example, this year Japan has spent  about 18,000,000,000 yen for the monarch. In the case of UK, the cost of the monarchy to the taxpayer rose by nearly six per cent last year - more than double the rate of inflation as the royal family bucked the trend for austerity and dramatically increased spending on the upkeep of its palaces. The Queen’s official expenditure from the Sovereign Grant, the amount released from the public purse each year to finance the monarch, increased to £35.7m - a rise of £1.9m on the previous year. The steep rise included a 45 per cent increase in the amount spent on the upkeep of royal residences, including Buckingham Palace and the Kensington Palace apartments of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge. Royal aides insisted the £36m cost of the monarchy for the last financial year was equivalent to 56p per person in the country and represented value for money. If you had a lot money for citizens, what could you do? You could have a lot of choices to help the citizens by reducing tax, buying the national debt, reducing the social security related cost and so on and using taxes should be careful.

  Next, the family of the monarch are also “people”. All men are created equal by Abraham Lincoln. All persons are proved their “Fundamental human rights”. Fundamental human rights contains the freedom of expression, liberty of conscience ,civil rights, society right, right of claim and the right to vote. Then, Can the monarch express free? Can the Japan monarch  become a christian? The answers are No, so they do not have the Fundamental human rights”. It is unfair.

 Lastly, the political power is integrated. Monarchy does not automatically translate into totalitarian dictatorship, but a strong king may often attain a position of absolute power through weakening parliament or other representative bodies. In cases such as Philip II of Spain, assassination of opponents was accepted as routine because his advisers told him he was "the prince." During the Reformation, rulers also used their positions for religious persecution in England, France, Spain and other European countries

 In conclusion, the monarchy has a lot of problems such as the fiscal problem ,the family of the monarch are also “people” and the political power is integrated.

Reference                                                    

・Six reasons to oppose the monarchy”

Owen Abroad  http://www.owen.org/

・“The difficulty of monarchy”  Syoukai Christ Church.

http://d.hatena.ne.jp/koumichristchurch/20091218/p1

・“The Problem with Monarchy”

Intellectual Detox

http://intellectual-detox.com/2011/03/30/the-problem-with-monarchy