The fairy tale rise of an Australian sales executive to the upper ranks of European royalty is set to be completed later this month when Crown Princess Mary Elizabeth of Denmark becomes the country’s Queen Consort.
The final stretch of Mary’s path from Tasmania to the Danish throne was cleared on New Year’s Eve by the surprise abdication of Queen Margrethe II, who announced that she will be stepping down on January 14.
It’s an exceedingly rare move in Denmark, where a monarch hasn’t abdicated since 1146 when King Eric III gave up the crown to join a monastery, according to the Royal House.
There’s a couple of good things about monarchs, even if they’re mostly useless since they don’t have any direct power.
They can still influence people and society through a longer period and with longer lasting efforts than any elected person can in a four year election cycle. This way they’re able to provide a state with a steady course, vision, ideals or goals. Call it what you want; They’re long term influencers.
The royal social circles are more exclusive than the business VIPs. Money doesn’t really count. This has a good effect on the VIPs, because they all want to be in that circle, but they can’t be if they’re blacklisted due to f.i. cheating on taxes, being involved with exploitation or fraud. Of course all kinds of exclusive and secret VIP trades are shady as fuck, but at least it is on the right side of the law when happening in the royal circles. Reputation is everything in the highest layer and not being invited to the castle can be pretty devastating for a business relying on these networks.
Finally, it’s a cheap PR for tourism. Feeding one family to do the job for the entire country is a lot cheaper and more valuable than hiring a marketing department and all that crap. They get paid a lot, but most of it is used for upkeep on the castles and staffing, so the money comes back to the state and would be paid by the state anyway.
So, when the queen decides to break with a tradition that has gone for almost a thousand years, she’s sending quite a signal: That the torch must be passed to the next generation.
This is much needed in society currently where boomers are clinging to their positions even if they’re well above retirement age and completely unfit to do their jobs well due to age in comparison to the younger and better educated generations.
Looking at the commonwealth, I can see why Elizabeth didn’t do this, but at the same time it’s also not ideal to crown a king at age 73. In the perspective of influencing a nation… I don’t have much hope for him to actually do anything useful in the remaining years of his reign. It’s a little late to begin anyway.