The genetic dawn of new monarchies.

It's obvious that with the right monarch, a monarchy can outperform democracies easily, since the monarch is not concerned with reelection. The king is pretty much associated with the country, so he'll do his best to lead the country to prosperity -- he does not have any other goal in life, anyway.

The reason why this is not the case in reality is right there in the 3rd word of the statement: "with the right monarch...". (Un)fortunately, the systems with family-inherited absolute power don't work too well because the children aren't the exact copies of their parents, so if the dynasty founder was all suited to be a king, his offspring may be less so. And their offspring, lacking not only the natural predisposition but the right upbringing under the influence of a good monarch, may be even worse rulers. They could be great musicians or bakers or scientists, but the country needs a ruler to rule and a great poet will let his country down. The tendency to breed within a narrow "royal" gene pool isn't helping either.

That's why democracies win so far: each individual ruler may be mediocre, but, succeeding each other frequently, they cancel each other's mistakes and the country makes a good progress overall. However, there are things that may be pleasing to the potential voters in the short turn, but damaging for the country and biting those same voters in the ass a few years later. Which doesn't matter for the elected leader who done those, because he's not a leader anymore, another guy has to solve the problem now. A good king won't have to do things for the voters' immediate gratification, but could really aim for long-term goals.

So, how do we ensure the good king's son is also a good king? Well, genetic engineering is the answer: don't let the Brownian motion decide whether the price will be a good ruler or a good golf player. Pick up the right one out of the million royal seamen, the country's future depends on it! Sure, the father may want a great basketball player son, you know, to get free tickets for the best seats and all that, but that's his duty as a king. Besides, I'm sure the Basketball Association would recognize this great sacrifice and spare a few tickets for the king.