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? | Sovereign cantons (Landsgemeinde assemblies in rural cantons, councils in cities) linked by treaties; a diet of envoys bound by instructions; majority voting only for common lands.Popular assembly | Kings of small kingdoms (túatha) under over-kings; assemblies (óenach); customary law expounded by hereditary jurists rather than legislated. | |
| How are conflicts resolved? | Arbitration by neutral cantons under alliance treaties; mediation by the diet; confessional peace treaties after civil wars.Arbitration | 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? | Communal alpine pastures and forests; cantonal defence; mercenary contracts financing governments; joint administration of condominiums. | Rules on shared grazing, co-operative ploughing, mills and fencing; obligatory hospitality; churches and monasteries; few public works. | |
| How is AI used? | None; a pre-modern confederation. | None; a medieval legal order. | |
| What are the main risks? | No common executive, religious civil war, oligarchic city rule, exploitation of subject lands, dependence on foreign pensions. | 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.