What if Lemmings had Kings? Practical Uses of Monarchy

What if Lemmings had a King? Practical Uses of Monarchy

Most people seem to think that kings and queens are little more than useless parasites. Yet, I think they could be useful in some circumstances. 

The story that lemmings commit mass suicide by jumping from a cliff is a legend created by a 1958 Walt Disney movie. It is not true, but if it were it would be the result of a "Nash Eequilibrium," a condition in which no individuals can deviate from their current behavior without suffering a penalty. If all the lemmings run in the same direction, none of them can change their individual course. And the result is that all lemmings die. Incidentally, the Nash Equilibrium can be seen as part of the concept of "Seneca Cliff" -- the cliff occurs because everyone keeps running toward it.

The problem also exists in human societies. Once society has decided to take a certain course, and when the decision is cemented and reinforced by propaganda, most people find themselves stuck in a classic Nash equilibrium. They may well understand that the current choices are leading everybody to the cliff, but no single player can change his/her strategy without suffering stiff penalties. We are seeing that happening over and over in history, and it may be happening right now with the whole human civilization. Are there ways to avoid falling into the cliff? Maybe yes. 

Let me give you an example. Take a look at these data: 

Total losses during WWII (From Britannica)

Germany: 4.2 million 

Italy: 400,000

Germany suffered a factor of ten more losses than Italy (and some sources say many more than that). Why? I can argue that the reason was mainly one: Italy had a King, Germany didn't. That made it possible for Italy to surrender early enough to avoid the worst. 

The story of how Italy surrendered to the Allies is not well known outside Italy, so let me give you some details. In 1943, it must have been clear to everyone that the war was lost for Italy. Yet, the Fascist propaganda continued to bombard Italians with optimistic slogans about the unavoidable final victory. With Mussolini being "always right" by definition, nobody in Italy could change his/her position on the war without personally paying a stiff price: being accused of treason. 

There was only one person in Italy who could break the rules of the game: King Victor Emmanuel III. For him, intervening to stop the war was dangerous, but not doing that was even more dangerous: the defeat of Italy would likely cause the end of his dynasty. In July 1943, the Allies invaded Sicily and the military situation was rapidly deteriorating. The King acted together with some influential members of the fascist regime. Mussolini was voted out of power by his own Fascist Grand Council, and the day after he was arrested on direct orders from the King. On September 8th, the Italian government officially surrendered to the Allies. 

Unfortunately, the King badly botched the operation. He should have acted much earlier and much more decisively. Instead, while he was running away from Rome, the Italian army was left without orders. Not knowing whom to fight, the army disbanded, and the Germans rapidly took over most of the country. The Fascists reorganized themselves in Northern Italy and fought on, while some of the members of the Grand Council who had voted against Mussolini were shot. And the King didn't save his dynasty, either. A more decisive action could have resulted in Italy being rapidly occupied by the Allies, perhaps trapping a large German force there. Maybe, the war might have ended earlier than when it did. And, maybe, Italy would still have a King (not necessarily a good thing, but, who knows?). 

Yet, despite the many mistakes that King Victor Emmanuel made, it is likely that, without his intervention, Italians would have suffered much more than they did. With half of Italy fighting with the Allies, a certain degree of moderation in carrying out military operations was necessary on the part of the Allies. That avoided, for instance, the kind of scorched earth raids that the Allies carried against German cities. Nor was Italy ever targeted with extermination plans such as the "Morgenthau Plan" that would have killed tens of millions of Germans if it had been put into practice. 

Would all that have happened without the intervention of the King? Maybe, but it would have been much more difficult. In Germany, one year later, a group of army officers tried to follow the example of Italy and depose Hitler by assassinating him. But the plan failed, the conspirators had no support, and almost all of them were executed. A good example of the harsh law of the Nash Equilibrium.

So, would kings be useful to lead us out of the several impasses in which we find ourselves stuck? Maybe they could. For instance, I am sure that there are many people on both sides of the war in Ukraine who want to stop the madness, but they are trapped in another Nash minimum. Only a king could say, "Stop!" as King Victor Emmanuel did in 1943 in Italy. Unfortunately, no Kings are directly involved in this war, so we can't expect that to happen. 

But returning to the kings of old might not be such a bad idea. Are any ladies around willing to don a scuba suit and offer a sword to passersby from the depth of a lake?

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Two years after that King Victor Emmanuel had Italy surrender to the Allies, the Emperor of Japan did the same. It was much too late to avoid horrendous losses, with a total of about two million casualties and most of the Japanese towns torched to cinders. But it can be argued that it would have been worse if the Japanese had fought to the end, as the Germans did.