(May 9, 2015 at 5:07 am)robvalue Wrote:(May 8, 2015 at 5:59 pm)MrNoMorePropaganda Wrote: In regard to royal family I did watch this video by CGPGREY titled "The True Cost of the Royal Family":
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=bhyYgnhhKFw
Wow! Well, if the figures quoted here are accurate, I am gobsmacked. From a purely financial point of view, that does discredit any objections to the royal family. Thanks!
I've seen that video before. What it doesn't address is why that financial arrangement should continue. It is a left over from the feudal system and land can and has been sized and redistributed by governments in the past, why not do the same with the royal family? Half of the land in Scotland is owned by 430 families for example. That's also a throw back of history and will also change when Scotland gets its independence (incidentally, the same 430 families helped fund the better together campaign against independence). If you let history take its course then sometimes land gets sold off. This arrangement stops that from happening. The royal family could have sold the land rather than agreed to a fixed annual salary for the rest of time for example.
And secondly, it's not like the families that obtained large swathes of land hundreds of years ago did it fairly through their own honest work. And why should their descendants be be born into it through no reason other than they are the lucky ones? At some point you have to re-evaluate the current way of doing things and ask whether we should continue. What is more important? Historical legacy or the will of the people?
My own ancestors lost a lot of land to the crown for example because someone threw a will in the fireplace on his deathbed to hide that he was an illegitimate child. This was land in central London. The royal family had no right to that land.
