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Originally Posted by Sephiroth
I agree that the monarchy holds the rigid class system in place, although Charlie might weaken it because he’s such a Burke.
Though, if you look at countries without monarchy, say Austria (which I know something about) a new hierarchy and thus class structure emerges because of the honours system. Elites always set something up for themselves.
Sin, if we lose the monarchy, we lose the tourist attraction and the substitution won’t benefit us one jot.
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Let's get the old "we lose the tourist attraction" trope out of the way first. The ex-royal palaces of Versailles and, which you should know well, The Hofburg in Vienna are ones of the most visited tourist attractions in Europe.
As for your replacement theory, the main difference is that you can legislate to moderate any artificial structures that try and form. This is something you cannot do when the monarchy is effectively outside of the constraints you might put in place for the population. For example, I believe no inheritance tax was paid on personal wealth handed down from the late Queen. You also have the anomaly that is the Crown Estates & Duchy of Cornwall - again outside of the normal governance applied to the population as a whole.
For example,
https://www.accountancydaily.co/pac-...ments-medieval
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An aide to Prince Charles has admitted that his estate, the Duchy of Cornwall, has a 'very unusual' tax status but denied that it was a 'medieval anomaly' in evidence to the Public Accounts Committee (PAC).
William Nye, Prince Charles' private secretary, described it as a 'private estate' which is 'a force for social good' and could not be compared to a conventional corporation or commercial entity. While Prince Charles voluntarily pays income tax on the Duchy's annual surplus the estate itself is exempt from capital gains and corporation taxes and is worth an estimated £762m.
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