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?CCP Politburo and Standing Committee under Chairman Mao; party committees shadowing every state body; the National People's Congress ratified decisions. Mao repeatedly bypassed formal bodies.Kings of small kingdoms (túatha) under over-kings; assemblies (óenach); customary law expounded by hereditary jurists rather than legislated.Each listed body sets its own well-being objectives and steps; the Welsh Ministers publish national indicators and a future trends report after each election.
How are conflicts resolved?Party discipline, public security organs, labour camps and mass 'struggle' meetings; no independent courts. Disputes within the leadership ended in purges.Brehon judges; sureties (naidm, ráth, aitire); distraint of livestock; ritual fasting against higher-ranking defendants; body-fines and honour-price compensation.ArbitrationThe Commissioner may review a body and recommend; the body must take reasonable steps to follow or publish reasons (s 22). The Auditor General examines application of the principle.
How are public goods funded?Central planning and collective farms; urban work units supplied housing, rations and services; rural basic health care and schooling expanded.Rules on shared grazing, co-operative ploughing, mills and fencing; obligatory hospitality; churches and monasteries; few public works.Covers the Welsh Ministers, local authorities, health boards, national park authorities and other listed bodies; public services boards plan locally.
How is AI used?None; a pre-digital planned economy.None; a medieval legal order.No documented AI role.
What are the main risks?Unchecked personal power, falsified statistics, campaign quotas, no exit from collectives, and suppression of dissent turning policy errors into mass death.Status-graded and unequal protection, unfree labour, endemic raiding and dynastic war, and vulnerability to a centralising conqueror.CLM-0385Soft 'follow or explain' enforcement; procedural compliance; difficulty measuring long-term and preventative benefits.

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