Tuesday 14 March 2017

"A Social Monarchy, with a King for the People"

"A Social Monarchy, with a King for the People"

Fragments of the message of Don Carlos Hugo de Borbón
 at Montejurra, 1959




Background:

At first, it seems that there was a claimant who happened to take a radical path as a means of restoring order and at the same time creating a radical change, and his name was Don Carlos Hugo de Borbón.

Known for his claim as King of Spain, Carlos Hugo represented the Carlist line, known for its conservative, or even reactionary line of thought that caters to "God, Country, and King" with all its feudal trappings redescribed as "traditions".

However, Carlos Hugo took a different path far from his predecessors, as he turned the movement into something radical in the eyes of the masses, that even resulted to a break between left and right Carlists with Carlos Hugo taken the former as its lead.

One of the significant ideas that made "Carlosocialism" known is its idea of autogestion or "worker's seld management." As Spanish conservatism was and is, known for leaning to the landed classes, Carlos Hugo, who happened to be representing the movement that caters to the laboring masses desired an economic society that follows under syndicalist lines, with communes and worker's-owned cooperatives taking place of the economy and perhaps even social life, all united and guided by a King who guides as well as represents his people.

Sounds idealistic though, knowing that during his lifetime and his desire to claim the throne against then-rival Don Juan Carlos of the Alfonsine line, as well as the dictator Francisco Franco, his view swung to the "left" that also brought Some followers with him; trying to replace anything that was reactionary with something that was revolutionary and at the same time clinging to its hertage as the a movement fighting for "God, Country, and King", but supported with secondary goals like "Freedom, Democracy, and Socialism."
And because of that appeal, the movement did suffered especially after attacks by right wingers, particularly those of the massacre that happened at Montejurra in Euskalherria, that also marked the final break between left and right wing factions of the Carlist movement, of both revolutionary and reactionary factions trying to insist its legitimacy as the sole representative of the movement and the Spanish crown itself.

In this writeup, this person features a note, which was originally translated from Spanish, that was coming from the late Carlist pretender himself, who, as he tries to distinguish between himself and the other claimant, as well as Franco's dictatorship, offers a program that seemed to be interesting, one of which was his idea of a "Social Monarchy" that combines two different thoughts like those of Socialism and those of the Monarchy.

Sounds like a crowned republic isn't it?

Anyway, here it goes:


"(...) Justice was and is, always the first mission of the King. Not only to secure the individual or the country within the international order, but, above all, to establish social peace.

However, it is not a matter of establishing a paternalistic state, for the paternalistic state is the last stage of liberalism. In it, the ruler gives welfare mainly to avoid discontent and to stop every revolution. The Social Monarchy, on the contrary, guarantees that the national wealth is oriented according to what justice corresponds to each one, and not according to the monopolies of the pressure groups.

To create this (Social) Monarchy requires proper social and representative structuring. Within this structure, one of the most urgent is the union. Unions constitute one of the pillars of social sovereignty. In order to truly exercise this sovereignty, they must, above all, be authentic. Because its mission is to represent the individual framed in its profession.

Another of the pillars of the Social Monarchy are the local corporations. To mediate them in the name of better administration is to nullify them as social power. Efficiency and agility in administration is not enough. Acting like this would indicate not having passed the cycle of the liberal state.

Without a system of Municipal and Regional Liberties, Social Monarchy is just a name. The Social Monarchy will only be authentic when it is a syndicalist kind of monarchy. And Spain will only be a democracy when it is a Federative Monarchy.

Over and over, the old monarchies, broken by the liberal trials that replaced them, reappear once again in the West with the need for a solid political institution, which guarantees Europe cohesion and strength, without which freedom can not reign.

In the name of democracy and freedom, parliamentary regimes, in addition to sterilizing their people, delivered more than a hundred million men to oppression. These are the ones that demand that we rescue them, reforming ourselves radically, to be true democracy and true freedom.

But both free peoples and slaves, who crave this radical reform and feel themselves cornered, reject the overcoming of liberalism by totalitarian paths ; And they look forward to the people who set out for the political configuration of tomorrow.

They are not slightly reformed monarchical restorations what today's societies need. What is imposed in the present is all the impetus of a creation with traditional roots; It demands the same reality.

The reality of today is the people themselves, with their needs and problems; A people who want a responsible power, protector of justice and capable of arousing interest and enthusiasm.

In front of him, throughout the world, there is an absorbing, impersonal and irresponsible state, which constitutes itself in order.

We (as Charles VII said) know that it is not the People for the King, but the King for the People. In history, only the princes who knew how to assemble the forces to initiate the movement and to rescue the freedom for the towns, have been able to reconquer with their service the royalty (...) An establishment that lacked these popular roots would be exhausted soon after being born. Because "the monarchy by itself is worthless if it has no roots in the people.""