Polity Atlas

How each model solves the same problems

Instead of “democracy versus anarchism”, compare the concrete ways collective problems get solved.

Question+ Model
How are decisions made?Randomly selected citizens studied, held hearings and voted on a recommendation; the public then voted in a referendum with supermajority thresholds.Sortition / citizens' assemblyKings of small kingdoms (túatha) under over-kings; assemblies (óenach); customary law expounded by hereditary jurists rather than legislated.
How are conflicts resolved?Neutral chair, plenary votes among members, and a referendum as final arbiter.Brehon judges; sureties (naidm, ráth, aitire); distraint of livestock; ritual fasting against higher-ranking defendants; body-fines and honour-price compensation.Arbitration
How are public goods funded?Publicly funded independent assembly and secretariat, disbanded after its report.Rules on shared grazing, co-operative ploughing, mills and fencing; obligatory hospitality; churches and monasteries; few public works.
How is AI used?No AI role.None; a medieval legal order.
What are the main risks?Voters not sharing the assembly's learning; high referendum thresholds; no map of how the system would work in practice.CLM-0067Status-graded and unequal protection, unfree labour, endemic raiding and dynastic war, and vulnerability to a centralising conqueror.CLM-0385

This illustrates differences in design; it is not a universal claim about outcomes. Each cell links to mechanisms and the claims behind them.