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? | Each of eight canal communities elects a board and a trustee (síndic) who must farm his own land; the trustees sit as the Tribunal and elect a president for two years. | A stratified random sample of 523 voters deliberated in moderated groups and plenaries and answered questionnaires before and after; no decisions were taken.Sortition / citizens' assembly | Kings of small kingdoms (túatha) under over-kings; assemblies (óenach); customary law expounded by hereditary jurists rather than legislated. | |
| How are conflicts resolved? | Weekly public oral hearings in Valencian; no written record; the trustee of the canal concerned does not vote; penalties follow each community's ordinances.Arbitration | Balanced briefing materials, trained neutral moderators and competing experts structured disagreement. | 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? | Distribution of Turia water in 138 proportional shares, canal cleaning and guards financed by member levies; cheap and trusted dispute resolution. | Privately funded; produced published results, media coverage and a peer-reviewed study. | Rules on shared grazing, co-operative ploughing, mills and fencing; obligatory hospitality; churches and monasteries; few public works. | |
| How is AI used? | None. Hearings are oral and decided by elected farmer-trustees; no algorithmic tools are used. | No AI role. | None; a medieval legal order. | |
| What are the main risks? | Loss of farmland to urban growth, an ageing farming population and dependence on river flows controlled by state water authorities.CLM-0501 | Self-selection into attendance; artificial setting; analysis by the method's designers; no institutional uptake. | 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.