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?Council of 92 elected on 26 March 1871; no president or mayor; nine commissions under an executive commission; a Committee of Public Safety was created later by a divided vote.Kings of small kingdoms (túatha) under over-kings; assemblies (óenach); customary law expounded by hereditary jurists rather than legislated.
How are conflicts resolved?The National Guard Central Committee and the executive both claimed command. The Decree on Hostages (5 April) and summary executions by both sides escalated the conflict.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?Rent-arrears remission, ban on night work in bakeries, return of small pawned tools, secular schooling, cooperative workshops and a cooperative restaurant giving free food to the poor.Cooperative ownershipRules on shared grazing, co-operative ploughing, mills and fencing; obligatory hospitality; churches and monasteries; few public works.
How is AI used?No documented AI role.None; a medieval legal order.
What are the main risks?Besieged city facing a national army; divided authority; reprisals including hostage-taking; only two months to implement decrees.CLM-0125CLM-0126CLM-0949Status-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.