[Rhod the Red]

"those radical Communists in Bree and the Shire tended to pay their taxes to Elessar" Where's your quote? I have never seen anything in Tolkein's writings regarding taxes, he left the matter out as far as I can tell. I'm reading The Lord of the Rings a 4th time, up to TROTK. In the Middle-Ages taxes were mostly only levied(legitmately in the view of all then) durin wartime. Even in the Seige of Gondor there's no mention of taxes, nor salaires.

The only connection in the Fourth Age The Shire has to the Reunited Kingdom is the law Aragorn declared that men may not enter The Shire. Nothign about taxes mentioned.

Plus I don't know what you mean by 'radical communists'. Never heard of that phrase before!

"I think portraying the western polities as
"absolutist" monarchies goes too far. there
were at a minimum councils which the
kings found it necessary to consult and seek
their advice, with apparently an influence at least
that of the nobility in post-1066 England"

The monarchy of the RU is absolutist as far as we can tell. Does the re-established Council of Gondor have powers more than simply an advisory body? No, it doesn't even have the powers of today's House of Lords! Granted, Aragorn and Denethor are not recorded by Tolkein as being violently tyrannical, but they were tyrannical in power.

"And if the peoples in Northwestern middle-earth were "free" how could
they be ruled by absolutist leaders?" The phrase 'free peoples' means not governed by Barad Dur, as far as I can seen. They were certainly free of repressive absolutism. But no one calls Scotland, the Isle of Man, Wales and Northern Ireland 'free' do they?