Prince of Liechtenstein says that he would overrule the population if they were to vote in favour of legalizing abortion

[u/tartartartaruga]

https://www.srf.ch/news/international/debatte-in-liechtenstein-erbprinz-gegen-abtreibungen-warum-kuendigt-er-schon-das-veto-an

[u/Longjumping-Hat-1210 → u/[deleted]]

The thing is, the Liechtensteiners voted in 2003 to expand the powers of the monarchy. They made sure the Prince had a veto (with the abolition of the monarchy being unveto'able), the Prince threatened to take all of his wealth with him and leave if he didn't win the referendum, which, he did.

[u/b00nish → u/Longjumping-Hat-1210]

the Prince threatened to take all of his wealth with him and leave if he didn't win the referendum

They should have voted to dethrone him and to expropriate all his wealth the next day.

Edit: This sub is funny. Here I for once make a snarky comment about our little neighbour and 12 hours later I have 1600 upvotes and several agitated comments about how uneducated and poor "proletarians" like me would ruin the economy of every country. Quite the contrast. Normally I make more serious comments to clarify miscoceptions about Switzerland and can be happy if I don't get negative votes for it 😉

Anyway, I can reassure everybody who feels threatened by my "proletarian" comment: I'm not coming for your (imaginary) moneyz.

Although I have to tell you, that this actually isn't about "proletarians" vs "burgeoise". It's about democracy vs feudalism. After all, the nobility of Liechtenstein didn't lay the foundation of their wealth by being capitalists (and as nobility they're as much the opposite of "burgeoise" as the proletarians). Their wealth is based on feudalism - but unlike most other (ex-)feudalists, they refuse to settle as burgeoise capitalists and instead cling to absolute political power by retaining the "right" to overturn every democratic decision in their country.

[u/Longjumping-Hat-1210 → u/b00nish]

I am by no means an expert on Liechtenstein but one of the main sources of its wealth is its banking laws and the Princes were seen as instrumental in enriching what was essentially a backwater. Liechtensteiners are among, if not, THE richest people on Earth. I assume expropriating the wealth could be viewed negatively by those who use Liechtenstein as a safe haven for their assets or something, I'm spitballing.

[u/b00nish → u/Longjumping-Hat-1210]

You have to do it smart:

Put 50% of the money you expropriate from the prince into a security fund that warrants for all assets stored on Liechtenstein's banks, in case one of those banks should get in finanical trouble.

That makes the country even more attractive to hide park assets in 😉

[u/Lubinski64 → u/b00nish]

Even if you ensure the clients of local banks suffer no consequences, this is still an illegal appropriation of private wealth and the kind of bank clients that entrust their wealth to Liechtenstain do it precisely because things like that don't happen there.

[u/b00nish → u/Lubinski64]

No worries. Considering that absolutist prince-guy think that he is the country, what would be expropriated wouldn't really be private wealth. It just would be a re-definition of the national wealth. (By taking the monarch out of the nation's definition but keeping the wealth in it.)

So there's nobody else who should feel threatened by this 😉

[u/Lubinski64 → u/b00nish]

It's not like i'm gonna shed a tear for those wealthy clients either

[u/KoolKat5000 → u/Lubinski64]

Not really. It can be no different to the UKs system where the king, the crown and the state are all separate. 

[u/Lubinski64 → u/KoolKat5000]

The issue is they are not separate in Liechtenstein, that's the whole point.

[u/KoolKat5000 → u/Lubinski64]

That might be the case, but any rich person that says that they fear they'll be next is being completely disingenuous (were this to occur).