Get The Sickness!

The Last Kings

The holiday story reminds me of the story of the three wise men coming to see the new born King. There's something unseemly about kings to the average person. Why should someone hold power over others only because of their bloodline? You only have to look as far as Cuba to see the fallacy of this approach as 76 year old Raul Castro who is taking power from his brother Fidel who has ruled Castro for over 40 years.

Americans find the idea of a King ruling over details of their daily life somewhat unappealing although people around the world have varying regards for their monarchs who sometimes are perceived as the lesser evil with the alternative being predatory politicians or police forces. The monarchs in the Middle East are probably responsible for much of the instability in the world and are responsible at least indirectly for the World Trade Center attacks and other terrorist activities around the world. From the perspective of the every day Saudi citizen, the US is largely responsible for supporting the Saudi monarchy, enabling Saudi royals to get a disproportionate amount of their national wealth and to perpetuate a tradition of royal privilege.

One approach to consider (although not likely to occur) is for all the monarchs to set into action a process of transferring power and assets to their people over a period of time. Not too many royals are Nobel Peace Prize winners or even well known outside of their countries within a generation or two. By setting up a mechanism for transferring 10% of the sovereign assets to stakeholders like schools, hospitals, fire stations, etc. each year in the form of stock shares, people around the world will realize greater self determination and stability. As more institutions derive their funding from dividends in enterprises that are design to serve the stake holders and not to be the piggy banks of monarchs, despots and tyrants, the world will become a safer place. No king is necessarily asked to abdicate, only distribute 10% of their remaining assets each year. The next generation of royals won't like the fact that they no longer have special privilege due to their bloodline, but then how much blood has been spilled over the centuries to maintain the power and influence of kings. (See my post from November 27, 2005 for previous comments on establishing stock ownership by community institutions of oil assets in Iraq.)

What we need today are the return of the Wise Men. If the best and the brightest from Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Jordan, etc. were to get together to plan the peaceful transition of wealth from the monarchs, we might find a new sense of collaboration in the region. Few people remember the names of the previous Mideastern kings. If the current monarchs were to endow world class universities and institutions in their names, they might be remembered in history for not only being the last kings, but also the greatest.

posted by Michael Sick @ 11:29 AM