Royal ruckus

It should have been a simple Mother's Day tweet. A charming photo of Kate MiddletonThe wife of the UK's Prince William, now more often known as the Princess of Wales. She is Britain's future queen. and her three children all with wide smiles.

Then users noticed something was off. Their hair did not behave the way hair should. Bits of clothing seemed to blur into each other. And why did all the kids have their fingers crossed?

For 24 hours, no comment from the palace. SpeculationGuessing. ran wild. Then yesterday morning it put out a statement from Kate stating that she had edited the photo herself.¹

But many said it was not believable.

For weeks, wild rumours have been circulating about Kate. Now the royals have just poured fuel on the fire.

It is not even the first time the Royal Family has been taught this lesson. In 1820, George IVThe King of Great Britain and Ireland from 1820 to 1830. became king and immediately set about trying to divorce his wildly popular wife Caroline.

So when George put her on trial, the public was outraged. They trusted their beloved queen far more than the king. The trial had to be halted.²

Some thinkers believe trust is what keeps society going. AnthropologistSomeone who studies human beings and societies. The word "anthropology" comes from the Greek "anthropos", meaning "human". It developed as a subject in Europe in the 19th century, although some regard the Arab historian Ibn Khaldun as the first anthropologist. David Graeber argued that for most of human history we did not buy the vast majority of our goods.³

Instead, if you needed a pair of shoes, you would just go and ask for some from your shoe-maker neighbour. Then when you had the opportunity you would pay him back with your own produce - say, once your tomatoes were in season, you would go and give him a bag.

But that relies on a bond of trust between you.

Scottish philosopher David HumeThe Scottish philosopher argued that all human knowledge is acquired through experience and therefore embracing the unknown is a fundamental part of being human. laid out one big problem with trust: the free-rider problemIn economics, a type of market failure when people who benefit from resources do not pay for them, or under-pay. .⁴

He observed that it might benefit us individually to do less work on a joint project. That means we cannot trust others to pull their weight.

Hume's friend Adam SmithAn 18th-Century Scottish economist often known as the "father of economics". thought he had an answer to this. He argued that people did not really need to trust each other. They just had to trust that the system would reward them for their hard work.⁵

Have the royals lost all trust?

Yes: DoctoringAltering the appearance of a document or picture to make it misleading. photos is something dictatorsRulers with total power over a country. do - people like Joseph StalinDictator of the Soviet Union. Stalin has been accused of numerous human rights abuses, including sentencing around a million political opponents to death and prison. and Kim Jong UnThe leader of the secretive state North Korea since 2011. He is a dictator. . It is a form of lying to the public. Now all output from the palace will face fiercer scrutiny.

No: This is really nothing more than a bunch of bored people having fun with a silly situation. Few will have noticed and even fewer really care that the royals lightly touched up a photo.

Or... This story will disappear quickly, but it suggests the royals' PRPublic Relations - the practice of managing how others see a brand or person. operation is not up to scratch. That could become a much more serious problem for the monarchy when the Prince and Princess of Wales inherit the throne.