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Notes -
I didn't quite reach Marcus Aurelius yet, but I've read a few books on Roman history this year and it's more or less a story of how Roman citizens just can't catch a break. I'm somewhat less impressed with Hoppean "kings have low time preference" argument now
The weakness of that argument is that a king with iron-clad legitimacy has low time preference, which is rare. Modern dynasties like the Stuarts and Bourbons kicked the can down the road for literal decades on obvious financial problems, even worse than our entitlements crisis, leading to civil war, because their power actually rested on the support of internal power brokers. Pissing those guys off (eg by amending the tax system) would topple the regime. This was also true for Roman emperors, who gave naked unsustainable bribes to the military for this reason.
If anything, I would say the average democracy affords its chief executive more freedom of action. Elections grant a special popular mandate to each new leader, thus the "First 100 Days" trope for American presidents. Though this advantage may be atrophying in western democracies where fewer people accept elections as granting legitimacy.
The Rotating Triple Crown is mainly an attempt to design a rule of succession that solves the problem of the stupid eldest son. One reason why a king might lack iron-clad legitmacy is that he took the crown as part of an ad hoc modification to the succession rules when the legitimate eldest son is seen as unacceptably stupid. The other side of this coin is when such an attempt at ad hoc modification fails, and the legitimate eldest son ends up lacking legitimacy because no-one wants to be ruled by an idiot. To the extent that the Rotating Triple Crown does actually solve the problem of the stupid eldest son (with its very limited use of election) it also eliminates two possible causes of a failure of legitimacy.
There is a third indirect boost to legitimacy
The blue kingmakers are choosing a White king. Presumably they are also looking ahead to when a member of their own, blue, line ascends to the throne. Therefore, they have an incentive to select as White king, some-one with a responsible attitude to the long term future of the kingdom; some-one who will fix problems, rather than leave them to fester and become a challenge for the next blue king.
The Rotating Triple Crown is attractive world-building for an alternative history science fiction novel set in a world with twentieth century technology, but still having executive monarchies. The world-building gifts the author an explanation for how executive monarchy has managed to survive. It also lets the author write competence porn. The kings are shrewd and effective, because the kingmakers chose shrewd effective kings, not because the author wrote them that way.
The non-regnant elector sons would inevitably represent warring factions within the palace, property-holders, and nobility. They would choose a candidate who's least threatening to the interest of their faction, and extract concessions from that candidate in exchange for the crown. Meanwhile, factions left out in the cold would then #resist the #notmymonarch heir with their influence for the rest of that king's reign.
Some Roman Emperors who were raised by the consensus of different factions within the Roman state, like Claudius, got around this obstructionism by replacing the entire administrative bureaucracy with e.g. freedmen who were personally loyal to them. But this is hard, and it alienates a lot of important people, so it's probably no accident Claudius was poisoned and his favored successor killed to make way for Nero.
This is the fundamental source of instability in a monarchy, not the stupidity of the chosen heir or whether his genetic pedigree is solid. "The benefit of monarchy is one guy can do whatever he wants" is a huge misapprehension of history; to the extent that the king has power, a sword always hangs by a thread over the throne.
I think that the rotation of roles does help a little. The blue electors may well treat with the white princes, saying "I'll give you the crown if you give me X". On the other hand, the big prize is that one of the blue elector's children will go on to become king. Can they do a trade for the big prize? Can blue electors say to white princes "I'll make you king, if you make my son king in turn" ? No! When the white king dies (or perhaps demits the throne due to an age limit) it is the blue line that supplies the princes, but it is the red line that supplies the electors/kingmakers. Picking a blue electors' son as heir is beyond the power of the white king and beyond the power of the white line.
Perhaps blue electors can treat with members of the red line. "Promise to make my son king, and I'll give you the white king that you desire." But the members of the red line will have to have a deal set up whereby the white king pays them back. Complicated deals in smoke filled back rooms are certainly a thing, but now timing gets in the way. The blue electors are talking to members of the red line, but the election of the blue king is perhaps thirty years down the line; it is the children of the members of the red line who need to be trusted to keep the bargain.
Perhaps the Rotating Triple Crown fails because it depends too much on people believing in it. If the blue line believe that the kingdom will last, they may chose a good white king in the hope that their son inherits a thriving kingdom. But if belief falters, then the blue electors will sell the crown for a prompt reward, preferring to cash out and loot a system that they think is failing.
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Real Platonic philosopher-kingship has never been tried!
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