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.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?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.ArbitrationGrievance channels at UIDAI and service agencies; constitutional challenges in the Supreme Court, which ruled in 2017 and 2018.
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.A universal, low-cost proof of identity used for welfare transfers, financial inclusion and public services.
How is AI used?None; a pre-digital planned economy.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?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-0385Exclusion 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.