No Kings? Why Democracies Keep Inventing New Caesars

Ultima Ratio Regum Rursus

### Introduction: The Republic's Eternal Longing for the Crown "No Kings!" has become one of the defining political slogans of the present decade. It appears on banners, social media, protest marches and demonstrations as an apparently self-evident declaration that democracy and monarchy belong to incompatible worlds. The slogan assumes that the greatest political achievement of modern civilisation has been the elimination of hereditary authority and its replacement with elected representatives whose legitimacy derives exclusively from popular consent. It is the language of republicanism distilled into two simple words. Yet the very popularity of the slogan conceals a historical paradox. If societies genuinely no longer need kings, why do modern political systems continuously recreate figures who perform remarkably similar functions? Why do presidents, supreme leaders, constitutional courts, central banks, international financial institutions and supranational organisations increasingly occupy positions that ordinary citizens neither directly control nor fully understand? The disappearance of crowns has not eliminated hierarchy. Instead, authority has merely changed its clothing. Perhaps history has misunderstood the execution of kings. Charles I of England lost his head in 1649 and Louis XVI followed him to the guillotine nearly a century and a half later. These executions have traditionally been interpreted as decisive victories of popular sovereignty over divine monarchy. Yet another interpretation is possible. Their heads were not removed because they were too royal but because they had ceased to be royal enough. Both monarchs had lost the capacity to embody unquestionable political authority. Their deaths revealed less the triumph of republicanism than the collapse of the symbolic centre around which political order had previously revolved. Once that centre disappeared, modern societies were forced to construct new ones. The paradox of modern democracy is therefore not that it abolished kings, but that it never succeeded in abolishing the political function of kingship itself. Millions of people living together in increasingly complex societies appear repeatedly to recreate forms of supreme authority whenever the existing political order enters crisis. The office changes while the function survives. History repeatedly demonstrates that political communities may reject monarchs yet continue searching for sovereign figures capable of restoring unity, legitimacy and order. This paradox becomes even more striking when viewed through the combined perspectives of Umberto Eco's reflections on the "New Middle Ages," Maria Todorova's analysis of Balkanism, Alexander Kiossev's theory of Self-Colonizing Cultures and the concepts of Bulgarism and Bulgarization. Eco argued in Dalla periferia dell'impero: Cronache da un nuovo medioevo that the contemporary world increasingly resembles the fragmented political landscape that followed the collapse of Rome, where formal states survive but real power disperses across competing institutions, corporations and transnational structures. From the periphery of this emerging empire, societies imitate the cultural language of the imperial centre while gradually surrendering their own intellectual autonomy. Kiossev demonstrated how nations voluntarily internalise foreign standards of civilisation, while Todorova exposed the cultural hierarchies that define parts of Europe as permanently incomplete. Bulgarism extends these insights by arguing that cultural self-colonisation ultimately develops into financial self-subordination, while Bulgarization describes the historical transformation of political independence into sovereign indebtedness through external credit and institutional dependence. Together these theories suggest that modern sovereignty is no longer undermined primarily by military conquest but by voluntary participation in systems of cultural imitation and financial obligation. Under such conditions the slogan "No Kings!" acquires an unexpected ambiguity. The rejection of hereditary monarchs may coincide with the emergence of new sovereign authorities that are even more distant, permanent and difficult to challenge than the kings they replaced. The real question is therefore not whether modern societies have abolished kings, but whether they have merely exchanged visible monarchs for invisible Caesars whose authority now rests upon finance, bureaucracy, technology and global systems of governance. ## Part I: The King Is Dead, Long Live the Empire The history of political modernity is usually narrated as a continuous emancipation from monarchy. According to this familiar story, absolute kings gradually yielded to constitutional monarchies, constitutional monarchies gave way to republics, and republics finally established democratic governments founded upon the sovereignty of the people. The slogan "No Kings!" appears to summarise this entire historical journey in two triumphant words. Yet the historical record presents a far more complicated picture. Monarchies disappeared much more slowly than the ideology of republicanism suggests, while many republics quickly developed institutions and leaders possessing authority remarkably similar to that previously exercised by kings. The Roman Republic itself repeatedly produced extraordinary magistrates until Julius Caesar demonstrated that republican institutions could generate imperial authority without abandoning republican language. Napoleon crowned himself Emperor while preserving many principles of the French Revolution. Twentieth-century dictators frequently rejected royal titles while constructing political cults more absolute than those of many medieval monarchs. Even constitutional democracies gradually accumulated executive powers that earlier generations would have recognised as profoundly monarchical. Emergency powers, executive decrees, military command, intelligence services, nuclear authority and the ability to suspend ordinary political procedures increasingly concentrated enormous responsibility within a single office. Citizens no longer kneel before kings, yet entire political systems continue revolving around individuals expected to embody national unity during moments of crisis. Democracy therefore did not abolish sovereignty; it merely altered the procedures through which sovereign authority becomes visible. Umberto Eco recognised this transformation long before globalisation became the dominant vocabulary of political analysis. In Dalla periferia dell'impero: Cronache da un nuovo medioevo, published in 1977, Eco argued that contemporary society increasingly resembled the centuries following the collapse of the Roman Empire. His "New Middle Ages" did not signify a return to castles, knights or feudal agriculture. Instead, it described a political condition in which formal state structures coexist with fragmented networks of competing jurisdictions, overlapping authorities and transnational centres of power. Medieval Europe was characterised by kings, emperors, bishops, guilds, merchants, cities and feudal lords exercising partially overlapping authority. The modern global order increasingly displays comparable complexity. National governments coexist with multinational corporations, international financial institutions, military alliances, supranational courts, global media networks and digital platforms whose influence frequently exceeds that of individual states. Political authority no longer resides exclusively within territorial governments but circulates through institutions that operate above, below and across national borders. Eco further suggested that Italy occupied the cultural periphery of an emerging American empire, receiving not armies but signs, images, consumer practices, administrative models and political myths exported from the new imperial centre. Cultural dependence replaced direct political domination. The empire increasingly governed through communication rather than conquest. If ancient Rome ruled provinces through governors and legions, the contemporary empire shaped peripheral societies through media, finance, technology and symbolic prestige. Eco's remarkable insight was that empire had not disappeared after 1945; it had merely changed its operating system. From today's perspective Eco's argument appears even more striking. If Washington functions as the symbolic centre of a global order resembling a late imperial system, then the President of the United States increasingly occupies a position structurally comparable to that of a modern Caesar. This comparison does not imply constitutional monarchy, nor does it suggest that the American presidency literally reproduces imperial Rome. Rather, it highlights the persistence of a political function that transcends constitutional forms. Caesar represented the concentration of military authority, symbolic legitimacy and imperial continuity within a single office whose decisions affected territories extending far beyond Rome itself. The modern American presidency performs a comparable role within the contemporary international system. Elections determine the individual occupying the office, but they do not fundamentally alter the global expectations attached to it. Presidents inherit responsibilities extending across military alliances, international finance, technological competition, intelligence networks and worldwide political stability. They become, in effect, custodians of an imperial architecture larger than themselves. The slogan "No Kings!" therefore obscures a deeper continuity within political history. Modern societies have indeed rejected hereditary monarchy, yet they repeatedly reconstruct offices performing analogous functions whenever political systems require centres of decision, legitimacy and command. Carl Schmitt famously observed that sovereign is he who decides on the exception. Whether one agrees with Schmitt or not, history repeatedly demonstrates that every complex political order eventually encounters situations demanding a final decision beyond ordinary procedures. At that moment the republic unconsciously begins searching once again for its king. The crown may have vanished, but the political necessity that once produced kings appears remarkably resistant to historical abolition. ## Part II: We Do Not Elect Kings—They Appear Perhaps the greatest misunderstanding of modern political thought is the assumption that kings derive their authority from election or popular approval. They do not. This is precisely what distinguishes kingship from every other political office. A king is not simply another politician with greater ceremonial privileges. The essence of kingship lies in the belief that authority exists independently of public opinion. Medieval coronations merely recognised a legitimacy believed already to exist through blood, divine providence or historical necessity. The king was not chosen because people desired him but because society believed someone had to occupy the place where ultimate responsibility resided. The sovereign appeared not through voting but through necessity. Modern democracies proudly reject this principle, insisting that all authority originates from the people. Yet history repeatedly demonstrates that whenever democratic institutions fail to produce stability, citizens themselves begin searching for figures who stand above ordinary politics. The language changes, but the psychological structure remains remarkably constant. During emergencies, wars, financial collapses, revolutions or constitutional crises, electorates increasingly demand decisive leadership rather than endless deliberation. The extraordinary replaces the ordinary. The exception begins to govern the rule. Modern politics therefore reveals a curious contradiction. It continuously proclaims equality while repeatedly generating leaders expected to transcend equality itself. Presidents become commanders-in-chief, emergency governments receive extraordinary powers, central bankers acquire immense authority without electoral accountability and international institutions increasingly dictate domestic policy. None wears a crown, yet each occupies a position structurally resembling the old sovereign whose existence supposedly ended centuries ago. This paradox becomes even clearer when examined through the Hegelian tradition developed by Alexandre Kojève and later popularised by Francis Fukuyama. In Hegel's famous Master-Slave dialectic, the master achieves recognition because he risks his life for prestige, while the slave preserves life by accepting dependence. Kojève radicalised this interpretation by arguing that the slave ultimately constructs his entire identity through serving the master. Recognition does not disappear with submission; it merely changes direction. The servant learns to understand reality through the master's gaze. Fukuyama later transformed this insight into his theory that liberal democracy represented the universal solution to humanity's struggle for recognition. Yet the history of peripheral societies suggests a different possibility. Rather than achieving recognition through autonomous development, many nations seek recognition by demonstrating their conformity to external standards established elsewhere. They become exemplary pupils rather than independent creators. Their identity depends increasingly upon approval received from an external centre. Here the concepts of Self-Colonizing Cultures, Bulgarism and Bulgarization acquire broader significance. Alexander Kiossev argued that self-colonising societies voluntarily adopt foreign civilisational models because they regard themselves as historically incomplete. Maria Todorova demonstrated how Balkan societies became trapped within cultural hierarchies produced by Western Europe itself. Bulgarism extends this diagnosis by proposing that cultural dependence eventually produces financial dependence. Bulgarization describes the final stage of this process, where political independence survives formally while economic sovereignty gradually disappears beneath layers of debt, contractual obligations and institutional dependence. The modern citizen therefore resembles Kojève's slave in an unexpected way. He no longer obeys an individual monarch but seeks recognition from anonymous structures whose legitimacy appears self-evident precisely because it is external. The master has become invisible. This observation transforms the meaning of contemporary political slogans such as "No Kings!" Their rejection of monarchy may unintentionally conceal the emergence of far more powerful forms of sovereignty. A hereditary monarch could be identified, criticised, overthrown or even executed. The new sovereigns possess no single body. They consist instead of interconnected financial markets, supranational bureaucracies, technological platforms, credit rating agencies, central banks, military alliances and global media systems whose combined authority often exceeds that of individual governments. Citizens do not elect these sovereigns in any meaningful sense, yet their decisions profoundly shape taxation, monetary policy, security, legislation and economic development. The Florentine Republic provides a revealing historical analogy. After overthrowing aristocratic domination, the wealthy guilds discovered that they could not trust one another sufficiently to maintain order. They therefore invited an external noble, the Podestà, to govern temporarily, command military forces and administer justice. Once stability returned, he was dismissed, only to be replaced later by another outsider whenever internal conflict reappeared. Republican equality repeatedly generated a demand for external authority. Modern states often behave in remarkably similar fashion. Distrusting domestic institutions, they voluntarily transfer monetary policy, fiscal discipline, judicial arbitration or security guarantees to external authorities perceived as more impartial, competent or civilised. The result is a form of second-order self-government in which dependence is no longer imposed by conquest but actively desired by those who experience sovereignty itself as dangerous. The ruled do not merely consent to their rulers; they participate in constructing them. This is the deepest implication of second-order cybernetics applied to politics. The observer becomes part of the system observed. Every attempt to escape domination risks reproducing domination in a new form. Under these conditions, every patriotic, nationalist, religious, liberal or revolutionary grassroots movement must confront the same uncomfortable question: is it genuinely resisting external authority, or merely preparing the conditions under which another, more sophisticated king will eventually appear? ## Part III: The King Returns: Ultima Ratio Regum in the Age of Bulgarism The greatest illusion of modern politics is not that kings disappeared, but that the political function once performed by kings somehow vanished with them. History suggests precisely the opposite. Every successful revolution that destroys an old sovereign eventually begins constructing a new one. The French Revolution proclaimed liberty, equality and fraternity, yet within little more than a decade France crowned Napoleon Emperor. The English Civil War executed Charles I in the name of Parliament, only to produce Oliver Cromwell as Lord Protector exercising powers that many contemporaries regarded as scarcely distinguishable from monarchy. The Roman Republic eliminated kings only to generate Caesars. Even twentieth-century republics repeatedly concentrated extraordinary authority in presidents, party leaders and revolutionary figures who occupied positions functionally equivalent to sovereigns. The historical cycle therefore appears remarkably stable. Political communities reject hereditary monarchy, experience a vacuum of legitimacy, decentralise authority among competing elites, discover that fragmented authority produces paralysis and conflict, and finally reconstruct a new centre of command. The crown changes shape while sovereignty survives. This suggests that monarchy should perhaps be understood less as a constitutional form than as a recurring political solution to the problem of governing millions of strangers living together under conditions of increasing social complexity. Democracy may distribute legitimacy, but it rarely eliminates the need for ultimate decision. Every political system eventually confronts circumstances in which someone must decide while everyone else hesitates. At that precise moment the republic quietly begins reinventing the king it proudly declared obsolete. Seen from this perspective, Bulgarism and Bulgarization cease to describe uniquely Bulgarian phenomena and become analytical concepts applicable to much of the contemporary world. If Bulgarism denotes the voluntary internalisation of external standards of legitimacy, and Bulgarization describes the gradual surrender of sovereign autonomy through cultural imitation and financial dependence, then virtually every peripheral society participating in today's global order risks entering the same historical process. The desire for international recognition encourages governments to imitate administrative models, legal systems, monetary policies and economic doctrines developed elsewhere. Political success increasingly becomes measured according to external rankings, international evaluations and financial credibility rather than domestic priorities. The consequence is that national sovereignty remains constitutionally intact while its practical content steadily contracts. Governments retain flags, parliaments and elections, yet monetary policy, debt management, fiscal discipline, technological infrastructure and even aspects of legislation become conditioned by institutions lying beyond democratic control. The emperor has returned, but he no longer resides in a palace. He governs through contracts, algorithms, financial ratings, supranational regulations and networks of institutional authority whose legitimacy appears technical rather than political. Here Eco's New Middle Ages intersects directly with Bulgarism. Medieval Europe was characterised by overlapping sovereignties in which kings, emperors, bishops, guilds and bankers all exercised competing authority. Today's world increasingly resembles that dispersed landscape. The citizen belongs simultaneously to the nation-state, international organisations, financial markets, digital platforms and legal systems extending beyond national borders. The old sovereign has dissolved into a network, yet the network performs precisely the integrative function once associated with monarchy. In this sense the American presidency, as Eco suggested, resembles a new Caesar not because it restores imperial Rome but because it occupies the symbolic centre of an international political order whose peripheries increasingly define themselves in relation to it. The imperial centre need not conquer every territory militarily. Cultural attraction, technological dependence and financial integration accomplish much of the work once performed by legions. This leads to the most unsettling implication of the entire argument. If second-order cybernetics teaches that observers participate in constructing the systems they inhabit, then no grassroots movement can automatically assume that it exists outside the logic of Bulgarism. Nationalist movements may denounce foreign domination while simultaneously demanding international recognition according to foreign standards. Liberal movements may embrace imported institutional models in the name of progress. Religious movements frequently organise themselves through global communication technologies developed by the very systems they oppose. Tribal, ethnic, patriotic and revolutionary movements alike often seek legitimacy through concepts whose intellectual origins already belong to the global order they intend to resist. Resistance itself therefore risks becoming another mechanism through which the existing system reproduces itself. The ruled are no longer simply persuaded; they increasingly desire the structures that govern them because those structures promise order, recognition and stability. Hegel's slave acquires identity through the master. Kojève's recognition becomes external validation. Fukuyama's universal liberal order becomes the horizon within which recognition itself is pursued. Kiossev's self-colonising cultures willingly imitate the centre, Todorova's Balkanism explains why certain societies feel permanently peripheral, while Bulgarism identifies the psychological acceptance of this condition and Bulgarization describes its economic completion. The result is a closed political loop. We proclaim "No Kings!" while continuously constructing new kings. We reject hereditary sovereignty only to accept financial sovereignty. We celebrate political independence while voluntarily limiting economic autonomy. We condemn visible monarchs while trusting invisible authorities whose power often exceeds that of any medieval ruler. Perhaps, then, the ancient inscription placed upon the cannons of French kings still contains an uncomfortable truth for democratic civilisation: Ultima Ratio Regum—the Last Argument of Kings. Today the cannon has become debt, data, law, technology and global finance, yet the principle remains unchanged. Every political order eventually possesses a final authority that cannot itself be voted away. The names change, the institutions evolve and the crowns disappear, but sovereignty, like the king, always returns. ## Conclusion: We Don't Want Kings. We Need Kings. The slogan "No Kings!" expresses one of the deepest aspirations of modern political culture. It proclaims that no individual should stand above the law, that sovereignty belongs to the people and that hereditary privilege has no place in democratic society. As a constitutional principle this aspiration remains one of the great achievements of modernity. Yet history repeatedly demonstrates that eliminating kings does not eliminate kingship. The political function embodied by the sovereign repeatedly returns because the structural problems that originally produced monarchy have never disappeared. Large societies remain complex systems requiring coordination, legitimacy, hierarchy and ultimate decision. Elections distribute political authority, but they do not abolish the need for a final authority whenever ordinary procedures fail. Every republic eventually confronts emergencies in which someone—or something—must decide beyond the normal operation of democratic mechanisms. The historical tragedy is therefore not that humanity repeatedly creates kings, but that it repeatedly fails to recognise them when they return under different names. Presidents, central banks, constitutional courts, military alliances, international financial institutions, digital platforms and supranational bureaucracies increasingly occupy positions that previous centuries would have understood as sovereign. Citizens may vote for governments, but they seldom vote for the deeper structures that define the limits within which governments are allowed to govern. The visible crown has disappeared, while invisible sovereignty has become stronger than ever. Umberto Eco's diagnosis of the New Middle Ages appears increasingly prophetic. Rather than moving towards a perfectly transparent democratic future, contemporary civilisation increasingly resembles the fragmented political landscape that emerged after the fall of Rome. Power disperses across overlapping institutions while the symbolic centre of authority migrates from territorial governments towards global systems of finance, communication and administration. Eco observed this transformation from what he called the periphery of the empire. Maria Todorova later demonstrated how the Balkans became Europe's internal periphery through the discourse of Balkanism, while Alexander Kiossev explained how peripheral cultures voluntarily internalise external standards of civilisation through self-colonisation. Bulgarism extends this intellectual genealogy by identifying the psychological acceptance of permanent national incompleteness, while Bulgarization describes the historical process through which that cultural condition becomes financial dependence and institutional subordination. The transition from empire to debt therefore represents not the disappearance of political domination but its refinement. Modern sovereignty increasingly operates through voluntary participation rather than military occupation. The ruled become willing participants in the reproduction of the very structures that govern them. This is the political meaning of second-order cybernetics. The observer no longer stands outside the system but becomes one of its essential components. Under these conditions every movement, regardless of its ideology, becomes vulnerable to the same paradox. Nationalist movements may reproduce external standards while defending national identity. Liberal movements may universalise imported institutional models. Religious movements frequently employ global technologies to resist global culture. Patriotic, ethnic, tribal and revolutionary movements alike remain susceptible to the logic of self-colonisation because the categories through which they understand sovereignty, legitimacy and modernity have themselves been shaped by the global order they oppose. There is therefore no grassroots movement entirely immune from the suspicion of Bulgarism. Every political project must ask whether it is genuinely escaping the imperial centre or merely reproducing its logic under different symbols. Perhaps, then, the slogan itself requires inversion. The true historical problem has never been whether societies desire kings. They repeatedly proclaim that they do not. The deeper question is whether complex political communities can function indefinitely without recreating the sovereign function that monarchy once embodied. Florence expelled its nobles only to invite foreign Podestàs whenever order collapsed. Rome abolished kings only to produce Caesars. Revolutionary France executed its monarch only to crown Napoleon. Modern republics reject hereditary authority while steadily transferring decisive powers to institutions lying beyond electoral control. The lesson is not that monarchy should return as a constitutional system, but that sovereignty never disappears. It merely changes its institutional form. Perhaps Charles I and Louis XVI were not executed because they were kings, but because they had ceased to perform the function that history demanded of kings. Their deaths created a vacuum that subsequent political systems have never ceased attempting to fill. This may be the final paradox of modern democracy. We insist that we do not want kings, yet history repeatedly demonstrates that whenever uncertainty becomes unbearable, societies begin searching once more for figures, institutions or systems capable of assuming ultimate responsibility. The crown becomes invisible, the throne becomes institutional and the monarch becomes structural. The ancient inscription engraved upon the artillery of French monarchs therefore acquires a new meaning in the twenty-first century. Ultima Ratio Regum was never simply the king's cannon. It was the recognition that every political order ultimately rests upon a final source of authority beyond ordinary debate. Today that authority may be exercised through finance, technology, law or military power rather than hereditary monarchy, yet the principle remains unchanged. We proclaim "No Kings!" while continuously inventing new Caesars. 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