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this post was submitted on 12 Oct 2023
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Who is the head of state of Sweden? How are they selected? What is their term of service in the role?
On paper it is the hereditary monarch, but they have no real power, so de facto it is the prime minister. Their role is to lead and to appoint ministers in the government, which is considered Sweden's leading body.
The prime minister is selected by the parliament, the representation of the Swedish public, which is also responsible for deciding on laws and holding them and the government in check overall.
The prime minister has no term limit but they tend to lose support from the parliament (which gets elected every four years) sooner or later. For instance, the last prime minister, Magdalena Andersson, stayed less than a year.
Edit: fixed typo
So why maintain the hereditary monarchy, even in a limited capacity? What role does it serve?
Good question. Since 1974, the monarch's role has been reduced to a purely ceremonial one because of common sense, but then and still today a lot of people think they're valuable for our shared identity as a people. However, an ever-growing amount of Swedes such as me whole-heartedly disagree and advocate republicanism.
One fine day, when the monarchy has been relegated to the annals of history, where will Swedes turn to find their national identity, assuming a national identity is worthwhile?
Another good question. We do have a shared language and culture, but overall, our identity as a nation is slowly eroding -- because everyone speaks English anyway, English is used whenever there is anything international involved. Because our standards of living are so high and because we are just cogs in a giant economic machine, we no longer have to resort to traditions or religion for comfort and stability. Also, the realisation that we are ultimately all humans and that countries are quite arbitrary is quite inevitable.
I can say that I, because a perfect society is quite literally impossible and because ultimatly the only thing that humans want is the fulfillment of their desires, believe that the rationality that will eventually be forced upon us by thinking machines will ultimately lead to a historical end station of artificially created pleasure. My main logic is that everything we do is driven by some desire, which means that a perfect state in whch all desires are fulfilled also has no actions, which are required by societies, and that ever-accellerating technological development will show a way around this by artificially modifying the brain to be in this state.
However, in the turbulence of modern society, I fail to see what the way there is going to look like -- what is going to happen to nations, language, culture and the like when rationality renders them obsolete -- there are just too many factors at play. I don't think it is going to be pretty.