Everything hinges on the interpretation of the monos of monarchy: either the essence of politics is domination and by monos is meant the domination of a single master - in which case monarchy is the apotheosis of politics as a paradigm of domination and democracy is a spurious form of politics, a shameful transaction. Or the aim of politics is the institution of a community among human beings, the institution of a monadology, and by monos is meant unity. In this case - and Marx's whole movement in the 1843 Critique is in truth right here - the point is to play out the transformative method on the model of permutation of the subject and the predicate: "God is love," whence "Love is god." And applied to the political field: "The King is unity," whence "Unity is king" - to which should be added that the real subject demos replaces monos, since constitutional monarchy as Hegel conceives it is an inconsistency that bears fruit on the condition that it is overcome. In this case, democracy, as the perfect self-attainment of the essence of politics, is raised to the summit of the hierarchy of political regimes, with monarchy falling back to the rank of an imperfect form.
Miguel Abensour, “The Four Characteristics of True Democracy,” in Democracy Against the State: Marx and the Machiavellian Moment, trans. Max Blechman and Martin Breaugh (Malden, MA: Polity Press, 2011).
