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?Residents and groups propose care or regeneration of a commons; the city negotiates a written collaboration pact setting goals, duties and resources.Grand Council of 50 chiefs chosen by clan mothers; questions pass between groups of nations, each seeking unanimity, with the Onondaga Firekeepers confirming or resolving disagreement.Kings of small kingdoms (túatha) under over-kings; assemblies (óenach); customary law expounded by hereditary jurists rather than legislated.
How are conflicts resolved?Pacts specify responsibilities and reporting; disputes are handled by negotiation with the city's coordinating office.The Confederacy describes the Grand Council as resolving disputes among the nations and planning for the welfare of all the people.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?Unpaid civic work combined with city-supplied materials, insurance and fee relief maintains and regenerates public spaces and buildings.UnknownRules on shared grazing, co-operative ploughing, mills and fencing; obligatory hospitality; churches and monasteries; few public works.
How is AI used?No AI role.No documented AI role.None; a medieval legal order.
What are the main risks?Volunteers substituting for paid public services; uneven capacity across neighbourhoods; exclusion of users who are not party to a pact.Operates alongside US and Canadian governments, which limits its practical jurisdiction; its rule of unanimity within and between blocs requires broad agreement.CLM-0117CLM-0118Status-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.