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BooksAndArticles

Many Bitcoiners are thinking about families and legacy, which brings up the topic of how to raise your kids. They are the ones that carry your legacy and figuring out what to do with them can be daunting, especially in the modern world.

The author of this volume gives us an outline of what Habsburgs have been doing for centuries. They are famously a royal line that ruled the Holy Roman Empire from the 13th century until its end in the 19th and had a very long run, at one time being monarchs over a significant part of the world. The book is written by a modern Habsburg and is meant as a guide to help families that are looking to leave legacies.

# Religion

Perhaps the biggest emphasis in the book is the imparting of values to the next generation. This is understandably very important for royal families as they need heirs in the typical primogeniture system of rulers that most engage in. And a large part of the success of the Habsburgs was that they were raised to be very devout.

There are a lot of stories in the book about various Habsburgs and how they conducted themselves, but perhaps the most famous and instructive example is how they conduct their funerals. Before the coffin is carried into the family crypt, it has to go through a door which is closed. The pall bearers knock and a monk on the other side asks who wishes to enter. The first time, the pall bearers answer with all the titles of the deceased, to which the monk replies that they do not know this person. They knock again and the monk asks the same question, to which the pall bearers answer with all the accomplishments of the deceased to which the monk replies again that they do not know this person. Finally, they knock a third time to which the monk asks the same question. And the answer the third time is "such-and-such Habsburg, a poor sinner." The monk then opens the door and welcomes the newly deceased in.

While it's typical to be cynical about monarchs, especially in the modern day, this type of role modeling is useful, even inspiring. And indeed, that's the main message of the book. The role modeling is the main method by which you can teach your children and leave a legacy. Of course, they're taught the same values, but they stick a lot better when you model your values by living them.

# Monarchy

The other interesting tidbit that I got out of the book as a Bitcoiner was the idea of subsidiarity. I was not familiar with the concept before reading the book, and it's a word that describes a type of governance that monarchs exercised. The main idea is that decisions should be made as close to the people that are affected as possible. That is, a decision about what to do about a well in a town should be made by people in the town, and not by bureaucrats that are far away.

The idea is that people closer to the problem are more aware of the solutions and centralized planning from a far away ruler is generally not going to work out as well. The impression I got from reading the book is that this is a piece of wisdom that has been passed down through the generations of Habsburgs because it works. And given that they often ruled over very large areas, such wisdom should not go unheeded.

Contrast subsidiarity to current systems that are almost entirely centralized where decision makers are far from the problem. There is much inefficiency, and often absurdity that they come up with. The difference between monarchy and dictatorships is exactly this willingness on the part of monarchs to allow for local autonomy, and the unwillingness on the part of dictators to not do so.

Similar to the argument Hans Hermann Hoppe makes in Democracy, the God that Failed, monarchy is actually more compatible with local autonomy than even democracy in large polities.
# Virtue

Perhaps the biggest impression I got from the book is the importance of virtue. The Habsburgs have a history going back over a thousand years. And they didn't get there by sheer luck (though they did have a good deal of it). They got there by developing character in each generation and raising their children to prepare for the role as rulers.

It's easy to be cynical about such people, but given the sociopaths that end up in power in democracies, would monarchs be worse? Especially if they've been raised for the role their whole lives, there's a significantly higher chance of virtue and character in such people.

And that's really what the Habsburgs have done. They've set up a family system that raises devout people that care about legacy, that care about their people, that want to please God and their ancestors. It's a lot better than many of the politicians that we've been stuck with, whose desire for power create incentives for high time preference behavior.

Book Review: The Habsburg Way

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