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? | Self-managed workers' and consumers' councils and their federations; annual iterative planning. | Kings of small kingdoms (túatha) under over-kings; assemblies (óenach); customary law expounded by hereditary jurists rather than legislated. | |
| How are conflicts resolved? | Planning rounds of proposals and revisions, facilitated by a board, until a feasible plan emerges. | 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? | Authors claim the planning procedure handles externalities and public goods equitably and efficiently. | Rules 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? | Time costs of repeated planning rounds; local-knowledge limits; influence concentrating in facilitators.CLM-0323CLM-0951 | Status-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.