Paine kind of hit the nail on the head with this one:
> "The law is king!"
The 2024 Nobel prize in economics[1] was awarded to a team of three who investigated what causes a nation to prosper and identified "rule of law" as an essential ingredient[2].
Good comment. There is a trade-off between principle and loyalty, and "rule of law" puts the dial hard over to "principle". The mechanism behind its success is that it puts a society solidly into the "cooperate" Nash equilibrium. (Loyalty, by contrast, puts a society solidly into the "defect" equilibrium). I suspect that Christianity, taken broadly, also pushes the dial hard over to "principle". First, it "undermines" temporal loyalty by stressing loyalty to God. Second it installs a panopticon within the believers mind that guards access to eternal bliss. Third it provides a non-commercial venue for civic life (the church on Sunday) where "stink eye" becomes a meaningful enforcement mechanism of norms. I fear that the late 20th century focus entirely on the (real and very serious) error-modes of these mechanisms to the exclusion of understanding of their value. This throws the baby out with the bathwater. The secular reaction is to pass an ever-increasing and ever more comprehensive set of laws in a vain attempt to replace the loss of norms. When that finally fails (as it inevitably must) you decay into the "defect" Nash equilibrium, put the dial back over to loyalty over principle, abandon the fundamental innovation of the Enlightenment, and your civilization falls.
This is only first order accurate and the failure comes from higher order effects.
In your model you need the religious leaders to be aware of the ruse but still be benevolent actors. This is problematic because it makes selecting leaders from within the religion difficult (especially at lower ranks). By waiting to tell them the game many followers are likely to revolt as they've been told their entire lives and core beliefs are a lie. That risks collapsing the system. By pulling leaders from outside the faith you garner distrust from followers (maybe this could work if those members can be said to directly come from heaven rather, but that's difficult to pull off). By selecting from the followers and not revealing the ruse your system has no self realigning mechanism. In all instances you suffer from the effects of a game of telephone ("Chinese whispers"), but probably the most in the last case.
In all situations you are still vulnerable to the rise of fanatics. True believers of any philosophy can be dangerous, and the more power they possess (such as leadership) the more danger they possess. With competing religions you justify division between true believers. Even if the leaders of competing are not, the true believers will create that division and organize. A small population is all that is needed in order to upset the system.
I think you're right that there is utility to many aspects of religion (not just Christianity) but holy wars are still bloody wars. It's important to realize that these features can be met through other beliefs. Some of the greatest features are community, as organized religion forces common ground and people that have differing opinions in disjoint domains (e.g. shared religion, different politics) are forced to interact, which leads to lower tribalism (though not sub-tribes).
Maybe religion is a local optima, but it would be naïve to discount its flaws. By its nature it is dividing, even if at the same time it is unifying. Local and global structures need not be identical.
Only Christianity? none of the other religions? It's funny pushing religion on a Thomas Payne post since he rejected religion as corrupt and irrational.
Now remember that there's an entire current in Silicon Valley that advocates against rule of law, at least when applied to them. Oh, and a felon taking some liberties with law sitting at the White House.
Yeah, I think reminding people that you don't get prosperity without rule of law is a good idea.
They aren’t bending the law, they’re outright breaking it. The question is whether we’ll demand enforcement or not. So far there has not been sufficient outrage to demand true enforcement.
It’s impossible to successfully restrain another more powerful than you, by definition, as an individual.
And to do so as a group introduces the whole mess of politiking and intra-group dynamics that generates any significant power concentration in the first place.
there are physical laws that cannot be broken, every action has an equal and opposite reaction. therefore attempting to restrain a higher power only ends in self restraint.
have you considered that the best approach is to go on strike, depriving the higher power of something of yours, whether that be labour, or progeny.
No, billionaires should not be the countervailing power, that just turns into oligarchy. The innovation of America is that We the people, our laws and institutions are. The problem is ideological billionaires have been buying up all the propaganda outlets hobling "we the people"'s power.
And ironically, the founding fathers did exactly that. The colonies were only started having land stolen and having their property and work taxed shortly after the formation of the federal government.
> “What would America’s Founding Fathers think if they were alive today?”
> For Cross, it is pointless to speculate about the present-day views of men who could not have imagined cotton candy, let alone the machine that makes it.
Some things, like “taxation without representation” seem to be timeless. You can call it irony or perhaps in some cases, a spade is still just a spade.
It's a funny example since it looks like cotton candy might have been around in their time [0]. Machines spun cotton candy came about much later but I'm not overly suspicious of the claims in [0] as meringue[1] certainly existed in their lifetimes and the process isn't dissimilar. I'm certain these men could understand "like meringue, but with sugar!" And "a machine that spins fast!" These would not be great leaps for people at this time. It seems to make them out to be idiots rather than not being prophetic (presumably the intended meaning)
Pretty sure they could have imagined cotton candy, anyway. There's nothing special about modern people that makes them more capable of comprehending new technology, it's just a matter of exposure.
I wouldn't mind seeing the British monarchy get abolished as well. It's far outlived any purpose it may have had. Even without them actually participating in government they are basically just celebrities living off the social welfare of the people.
The older I get the more I appreciate the value of a shared mythology. In some cases that is religion. Or a creed, as it was for a long time in America. But I think it is very valuable to have it for a healthy functioning society. It feels like we have lost it in America, which does not make me optimistic for the future.
I wonder if the monarchy serves that role for the UK. Might be better to keep it.
I don't like hereditary privilege at all, but the enormous constitutional headache removing the monarchy would cause might well outweight the practical benefits of doing away with it.
Personally, I like having a figurehead head of state that is subject to a directly elected Parliament.
The King may have cerimonital power but he can never exercise it. As was proved in the Glorious Revolution we can remove our head of state anytime we like.
I would much rather see the House of Lords reformed than the monarchy ended.
It's the other way around: they're wealthy holders of land, like the rest of the dukes and such, who control large chunks of the land in the UK and own large businesses. The UK benefits from the royal family allowing the use of their land, including historic buildings, at a relatively low cost.
Another example: the Duke of Westminster is worth $12B and owns a large chunk of London outright, including a ton of large, notable buildings. (Also, I think, the Twinings tea company.)
There's the Crown Estate, which is controlled by the crown, but the family also owns the Duchy of Cornwall (45K acres) and the Duchy of Lancaster (45K acres), as well as numerous private holdings that are less visible. And this is predominantly highly developed city space.
> I wouldn't mind seeing the British monarchy get abolished as well.
Strongly suggest the USA leaves tinkering with other countries' political systems alone for at least a generation. No standing.
The British are actually quite conflicted about the monarchy.
It tends to be bound up in what a lot of people used to observe was the distinction between Royalism and Queenism (or Elizabethism specifically).
We don't much like the institution in the same way (only narrow approval overall), but we pretty much loved the Queen as close to unconditionally as we love anyone (she's like one or two rungs down from Judi Dench and the late Terry Wogan), and would not have wanted to see it go in her lifetime because it would just have been weird.
Now, not so much. Charles has yet to earn that kind of affection. Though surprisingly he is getting there, and Camilla's popularity (always a very serious problem for the monarchy) is genuinely surprising because she turns out to be a) really a friendly, kind person and b) genuinely liked by her step-family.
I view the money we pay the Danish royal family as the cost of not having a bloody revolution some 150-200 years ago.
When you consider how many people and how much wealth was destroyed during/following revolutions like the French or Russian, and the compound interest of that wealth over 150 years, the pennies we pay to the royals todays is probably cheap.
Just saying, if you went back in time and opted for a revolution instead of a constitutional monarchy, you'd probably be poorer today -- compound growth over 150 years is no joke.
Brit here. I used to think of them as celebrities who entertain the tourists but there's a Chesterton's fence thing where you shouldn't abolish them without understanding their deterrent effect to dictators taking over. See the other European countries who abolished their monarchies and got Stalin, Putin, Hitler, Mussolini, Napoleon and so on.
I think their "branding" is misguided because I would feel literally on top of the world if the people who hated me accused me of being queen. Absolutely nothing in the world would be more effective and getting me to continue down that path. I would probably start wearing a crown and trade my office for a throne room.
The problem with demonizing people is that demons are badass and powerful.
It is tempting, given the success that kingly political approaches have seen of late, to adopt those strategies: to fight "your tyrant" with "my tyrant", and to fight your untruth with my untruth, eschewing skepticism. What if the Constitution, as interpreted by the current SCOTUS, really is a suicide pact?
We can only hope that Paine's approach will win out instead.
That'd be a vaguely interesting point, if I—searching my heart—I could find any evidence of this going both way.
Congress has never folded power to a president like this before. The Supreme Court has never faced such backlash from district courts (https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/11/us/politics/judicial-cris...). Scientists & researchers have never been up in arms about us health policy or what is being done. Colleges and universities have never been policed by a president, confronted with loyalty pacts.
To cite one example: aggressive gerrymandering has required a response in the form of California Prop 50. I'm hoping that we can all find our way to competitive districts together, rather than permanently sorting into districts that are the province of one party or another, eliminating free elections in practice.
But thanks to SCOTUS interpreting any amount of political gerrymandering as permissible, we may have in fact fallen into an irreparable hole in the US Constitution.
Even if some of us are disinclined towards tyranny, we may be faced with a choice: accept that we are shunted towards it by forces beyond our control, or roll over and accept tyrannical rule by others. I continue to hope that it will not come to that and that we can fight our way out of this situation using Paine's methods.
Readit News
> "The law is king!"
The 2024 Nobel prize in economics[1] was awarded to a team of three who investigated what causes a nation to prosper and identified "rule of law" as an essential ingredient[2].
[1]: https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/economic-sciences/2024/pre...
[2]: https://news.mit.edu/2024/mit-economists-daron-acemoglu-simo...
In your model you need the religious leaders to be aware of the ruse but still be benevolent actors. This is problematic because it makes selecting leaders from within the religion difficult (especially at lower ranks). By waiting to tell them the game many followers are likely to revolt as they've been told their entire lives and core beliefs are a lie. That risks collapsing the system. By pulling leaders from outside the faith you garner distrust from followers (maybe this could work if those members can be said to directly come from heaven rather, but that's difficult to pull off). By selecting from the followers and not revealing the ruse your system has no self realigning mechanism. In all instances you suffer from the effects of a game of telephone ("Chinese whispers"), but probably the most in the last case.
In all situations you are still vulnerable to the rise of fanatics. True believers of any philosophy can be dangerous, and the more power they possess (such as leadership) the more danger they possess. With competing religions you justify division between true believers. Even if the leaders of competing are not, the true believers will create that division and organize. A small population is all that is needed in order to upset the system.
I think you're right that there is utility to many aspects of religion (not just Christianity) but holy wars are still bloody wars. It's important to realize that these features can be met through other beliefs. Some of the greatest features are community, as organized religion forces common ground and people that have differing opinions in disjoint domains (e.g. shared religion, different politics) are forced to interact, which leads to lower tribalism (though not sub-tribes).
Maybe religion is a local optima, but it would be naïve to discount its flaws. By its nature it is dividing, even if at the same time it is unifying. Local and global structures need not be identical.
Charlie Munger recalled it in 2003 as “Where there is no bread, there is no law; where there is no law, there is no bread.”
It's going to be some easy picking if more figure that out ...
Yeah, I think reminding people that you don't get prosperity without rule of law is a good idea.
Dead Comment
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The fact that this point is largely lost on the audience of this site just shows how bad things have gotten.
People who want to amass power for its own sake need self-reinforcing systems that restrain them.
It’s impossible to successfully restrain another more powerful than you, by definition, as an individual.
And to do so as a group introduces the whole mess of politiking and intra-group dynamics that generates any significant power concentration in the first place.
“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!”
> For Cross, it is pointless to speculate about the present-day views of men who could not have imagined cotton candy, let alone the machine that makes it.
Some things, like “taxation without representation” seem to be timeless. You can call it irony or perhaps in some cases, a spade is still just a spade.
[0] https://web.archive.org/web/20150701005917/http://www.cotton...
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meringue
I wonder if the monarchy serves that role for the UK. Might be better to keep it.
Personally, I like having a figurehead head of state that is subject to a directly elected Parliament.
The King may have cerimonital power but he can never exercise it. As was proved in the Glorious Revolution we can remove our head of state anytime we like.
I would much rather see the House of Lords reformed than the monarchy ended.
Another example: the Duke of Westminster is worth $12B and owns a large chunk of London outright, including a ton of large, notable buildings. (Also, I think, the Twinings tea company.)
There's the Crown Estate, which is controlled by the crown, but the family also owns the Duchy of Cornwall (45K acres) and the Duchy of Lancaster (45K acres), as well as numerous private holdings that are less visible. And this is predominantly highly developed city space.
Strongly suggest the USA leaves tinkering with other countries' political systems alone for at least a generation. No standing.
The British are actually quite conflicted about the monarchy.
It tends to be bound up in what a lot of people used to observe was the distinction between Royalism and Queenism (or Elizabethism specifically).
We don't much like the institution in the same way (only narrow approval overall), but we pretty much loved the Queen as close to unconditionally as we love anyone (she's like one or two rungs down from Judi Dench and the late Terry Wogan), and would not have wanted to see it go in her lifetime because it would just have been weird.
Now, not so much. Charles has yet to earn that kind of affection. Though surprisingly he is getting there, and Camilla's popularity (always a very serious problem for the monarchy) is genuinely surprising because she turns out to be a) really a friendly, kind person and b) genuinely liked by her step-family.
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When you consider how many people and how much wealth was destroyed during/following revolutions like the French or Russian, and the compound interest of that wealth over 150 years, the pennies we pay to the royals todays is probably cheap.
Just saying, if you went back in time and opted for a revolution instead of a constitutional monarchy, you'd probably be poorer today -- compound growth over 150 years is no joke.
The problem with demonizing people is that demons are badass and powerful.
Can we not even talk about the most basic history now? Regular old history from text books is now to controversial? No longer true?
What's next? Can't talk about electromagnetism, because some people think magnets are magic?
We can only hope that Paine's approach will win out instead.
Congress has never folded power to a president like this before. The Supreme Court has never faced such backlash from district courts (https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/11/us/politics/judicial-cris...). Scientists & researchers have never been up in arms about us health policy or what is being done. Colleges and universities have never been policed by a president, confronted with loyalty pacts.
But thanks to SCOTUS interpreting any amount of political gerrymandering as permissible, we may have in fact fallen into an irreparable hole in the US Constitution.
Even if some of us are disinclined towards tyranny, we may be faced with a choice: accept that we are shunted towards it by forces beyond our control, or roll over and accept tyrannical rule by others. I continue to hope that it will not come to that and that we can fight our way out of this situation using Paine's methods.
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The spacious firmament on high,
With all the blue etherial sky,
And spangled heavens, a shining frame,
Their great original proclaim.
The unwearied sun, from day to day,
Does his Creator’s power display,
And publishes to every land
The work of an Almighty hand.
Soon as the evening shades prevail,
The moon takes up the wondrous tale,
And nightly to the list’ning earth
Repeats the story of her birth;
Whilst all the stars that round her burn,
And all the planets, in their turn,
Confirm the tidings as they roll,
And spread the truth from pole to pole.
What though in solemn silence all
Move round this dark terrestrial ball
What though no real voice, nor sound,
Amidst their radiant orbs be found,
In reason’s ear they all rejoice,
And utter forth a glorious voice,
Forever singing as they shine,
THE HAND THAT MADE US IS DIVINE.