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? | Town assembly (veche) summoned by bell, plus district assemblies; elected posadniks and tysiatskii; an elected archbishop; princes bound by sworn contracts.Popular assemblySortition / citizens' assembly | Kings of small kingdoms (túatha) under over-kings; assemblies (óenach); customary law expounded by hereditary jurists rather than legislated. | A statutory authority (UIDAI) under the central government sets rules; ministries decide where Aadhaar is required; Parliament legislated in 2016 and 2019.Digital identity | |
| How are conflicts resolved? | Joint courts of prince and posadnik, commercial courts under the tysiatskii, archiepiscopal mediation; frequent factional street fighting. | Brehon judges; sureties (naidm, ráth, aitire); distraint of livestock; ritual fasting against higher-ranking defendants; body-fines and honour-price compensation.Arbitration | Grievance channels at UIDAI and service agencies; constitutional challenges in the Supreme Court, which ruled in 2017 and 2018. | |
| How are public goods funded? | Paving, churches and defences funded by districts, the church and boyar patrons; merchant guilds regulated measures; no permanent bureaucracy. | Rules on shared grazing, co-operative ploughing, mills and fencing; obligatory hospitality; churches and monasteries; few public works. | A universal, low-cost proof of identity used for welfare transfers, financial inclusion and public services. | |
| How is AI used? | None; a medieval polity. | None; a medieval legal order. | No AI in decision-making as such; automated biometric matching and deduplication decide authentication, and face authentication was added in 2018. | |
| What are the main risks? | Boyar oligarchy, factional violence in an assembly without fixed rules, dependence on grain imports, and absorption by Moscow.CLM-0363 | Status-graded and unequal protection, unfree labour, endemic raiding and dynastic war, and vulnerability to a centralising conqueror.CLM-0385 | Exclusion through authentication failures, data leaks, surveillance and profiling, weak independent oversight and function creep.CLM-0544 |
This illustrates differences in design; it is not a universal claim about outcomes. Each cell links to mechanisms and the claims behind them.