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Old 07-28-2018, 02:59 PM   #441
Dalillama
 
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Default Re: Exotic Governmental/Legal Systems

Only children of the noble brides can inherit the throne. However, the commoner brides buy their families patents of nobility in the next generation; their parents and siblings remain commoners, but their children, nieces, and nephews are aristocrats, and their descendants thereafter. Thus, a few generations down the line, they can hope to provide aristocratic brides and hence potential heirs.
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Old 07-29-2018, 09:41 PM   #442
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Default Re: Exotic Governmental/Legal Systems

Quote:
. Who gets to inherit?
Have the peers of the realm sit as a moot and select the heir from among the available offspring.
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Old 07-30-2018, 07:03 AM   #443
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Originally Posted by Dalillama View Post
Only children of the noble brides can inherit the throne. However, the commoner brides buy their families patents of nobility in the next generation; their parents and siblings remain commoners, but their children, nieces, and nephews are aristocrats, and their descendants thereafter. Thus, a few generations down the line, they can hope to provide aristocratic brides and hence potential heirs.
I have to give this one credit for doing something that aristocratic systems often neglect to do, providing a formal mechanism for new people to enter the ruling elite.

For a class system to be really stable you need mechanisms for the really talented or successful to rise in class by some method less destructive than leading a revolution, but a lot of them seem to neglect to provide one, or even actively oppose it at least at the higher levels. This one may not be perfect, but at least it's *something*.
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Old 07-30-2018, 04:44 PM   #444
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I have to give this one credit for doing something that aristocratic systems often neglect to do, providing a formal mechanism for new people to enter the ruling elite.

For a class system to be really stable you need mechanisms for the really talented or successful to rise in class by some method less destructive than leading a revolution, but a lot of them seem to neglect to provide one, or even actively oppose it at least at the higher levels. This one may not be perfect, but at least it's *something*.
The main problem is most noble classes think just buying patents is a bit crass. There has to be a bit of romance in it. Even if it is the romance of having your twentieth ancestor being a scoundrel rather then just your dad (Wouldn't it be great to be named Jardine or Forbes; oh wait, Jardine was a drug lord). One thing the Poles did is allow Jews to become Szlachta but they had to renounce trade and soldier for a living.

But yes having a way to earn promotion is a common weakness. It is not a "mistake", it is a combination of simply natural nepotism, and snobbery and a more distasteful practice of ideologizing same. The nobles know perfectly well they are excluding talented commoners; the fact is, this is because they see talented commoners as a threat not a resource to be harness. But if there was a hypothetically more enlightened nobility it would be different. Just the Austenist practice of old money marrying new relieved a lot of it. However there was no purchasing of patents per se, just the tacit assumption that having a noble in-law automatically upped the lineage.
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Old 07-30-2018, 05:32 PM   #445
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I have to give this one credit for doing something that aristocratic systems often neglect to do, providing a formal mechanism for new people to enter the ruling elite.
Government systems usually have a fair amount of 'preserve the power of those currently in power' in their design. Allowing that power to be diluted by scruffy newcomers is likely defeating the purpose.

Of course, most government systems also have multiple actors whose interests are not completely aligned, who might be inclined to support a reform that stabilizes the entire system at the expense of some other group (e.g. it might be useful to the Counts to forbid creation of new Counts, but it might be useful to the King to create new Counts to reward loyal or useful people. On the other hand, it may be useful to the Counts to have a way of removing an inept King, but the King is probably opposed).
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Old 07-30-2018, 05:49 PM   #446
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Government systems usually have a fair amount of 'preserve the power of those currently in power' in their design. Allowing that power to be diluted by scruffy newcomers is likely defeating the purpose.

Of course, most government systems also have multiple actors whose interests are not completely aligned, who might be inclined to support a reform that stabilizes the entire system at the expense of some other group (e.g. it might be useful to the Counts to forbid creation of new Counts, but it might be useful to the King to create new Counts to reward loyal or useful people. On the other hand, it may be useful to the Counts to have a way of removing an inept King, but the King is probably opposed).
It depends a lot on things that cannot be changed. One of the reasons the Constitution worked was that the New Englanders were deliberately miserly about giving tickets to nobility and poor folk. They did not have a nobility to deal with (except for merchant princes and clerics which the later of which reduced in power and the first of which appeared so slowly that they could be adapted to). Their was no land enemy powerful enough to force them to evolve a military class. And there was plenty of wealth. The constitution had a very fertile social ecology.

Before the moderator objects, the point is that it is related to the subject. All constitutions have to be related to the economy, the social ecology, and the political position of a given state.
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Old 07-31-2018, 08:13 AM   #447
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Government systems usually have a fair amount of 'preserve the power of those currently in power' in their design. Allowing that power to be diluted by scruffy newcomers is likely defeating the purpose.
The smart aristocracy realises that it needs to bring in new blood over time (both to maintain itself and to prevent revolution), and invents a method of making that new blood into "people like us" – i.e. people who are similarly invested in preserving the status quo. Might be land grants, might be something else.
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Old 07-31-2018, 08:52 AM   #448
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The smart aristocracy realises that it needs to bring in new blood over time (both to maintain itself and to prevent revolution), and invents a method of making that new blood into "people like us" – i.e. people who are similarly invested in preserving the status quo. Might be land grants, might be something else.
The smart aristocracy also has to find a way to make aristocracy a cachet.

Possibly marrying new money to old was one of the best. As was promoting squirearchy. As was giving merit enoblements . The British squirearchy did have a way to "purchace" nobility as one could become equiv to the nobility by buying land. Often the money was from naval captures making it almost the same material as the original aristocracy.
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Old 07-31-2018, 10:48 AM   #449
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Rule by proxy:

There is no government. Theoretically. It is a pure democracy. But anyone who wishes can proxy his vote as he will. The effect is a weighted legislature with the most popular having the most clout. Executive and judicial magistrates are either chosen out of their number or by reproxying to new parties. Thus the size of the government varies constantly.
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Old 07-31-2018, 11:11 AM   #450
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Rule by proxy:

There is no government. Theoretically. It is a pure democracy. But anyone who wishes can proxy his vote as he will. The effect is a weighted legislature with the most popular having the most clout. Executive and judicial magistrates are either chosen out of their number or by reproxying to new parties. Thus the size of the government varies constantly.

Can you literally buy votes? "I will pay you 500 dollars a year to choose me as your representative?"


That's a system I can totally see though.
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