Polity Atlas

How each model solves the same problems

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

Question✕✕✕
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.Unknown
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.ArbitrationUnknown
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.Unknown
How is AI used?No documented AI role.None; a medieval legal order.Unknown
What are the main risks?Time costs of repeated planning rounds; local-knowledge limits; influence concentrating in facilitators.CLM-0323CLM-0951Status-graded and unequal protection, unfree labour, endemic raiding and dynastic war, and vulnerability to a centralising conqueror.CLM-0385Unknown

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