Low-Tech Democracy.
 

I have started thinking about how a strong, pre-industrial democracy larger than a city-state might exist, both as a thought experiment and as idle brainstorming for a future game, and I would like to hear others' opinions on the matter.

Lest there be confusion, I should first elaborate on what I mean. By "strong democracy", I mean a centralized government on a more-or-less Western, indirectly and popularly democratic model in which suffrage is widespread, although I am also interested in hearing how other cultural models might create similar results. By "pre-industrial", I mean a state without access to technology postdating the Industrial Revolution (in GURPS terms, TLs 0-4, but focusing primarily on TLs 0-3, as TL 4 saw the emergence of several democracies of one stripe or another). By "larger than a city-state", I mean much larger, up to and including a region as large as a historical empire.

To further stimulate conversation, I have considered some "ingredients" that might be necessary for such a state's existence, although these are obviously not exclusive (or even necessarily correct). Pick and parse at your leisure.

1. Political theory. A democratic state cannot exist if the idea of democracy has not been articulated in political thought.

2. Political will. Democracy relies upon the participation of at least some portion of a state's population. If people cannot, or will not, take part in government, democracy cannot exist.

3. Political stability. Legitimacy must be established to create a democracy, rule of law must be established to allow it to function, and a means of defense must be established to safeguard a democracy from its enemies.

4. Communication and transportation. Information must be disseminated, and officials dispatched, much more swiftly in a democracy than in a less representative state if it wishes to be anything more than a very loose democratic confederation. This is possibly the most limiting factor for low-tech democracies.

With that said, here are my questions. Without resorting to fantastic elements, how might a low-tech, expansive democratic (direct or indirect) state function? How might such a state emerge in the first place? What challenges would such a state be confronted with? Thanks in advance for your replies.

Re: Low-Tech Democracy.
 

So it's a bit like the Latin/Italic parts of the Roman Republic after the Social War?

Re: Low-Tech Democracy.
 

I am more interested in a state that holds elections over a widespread expanse. Provincials seemed to agitate for Roman citizenship in order to gain legal rights, not suffrage.

Re: Low-Tech Democracy.
 

You'd normally have to travel to Rome if you wanted to vote in a Roman election, as I understand it.
But the various allied cities had their own governments, councils, and so on.

What is it you consider 'democracy'?

Were transport speed and communication times in the Thirteen Colonies or the early USA better than in the Roman Republic?

Re: Low-Tech Democracy.
 

1:
No fancy theory is needed. The tribesmen get together and vote on stuff. Fairly common practice in some societies.

2: True for any government, no?

3: Democracies have often proved unstable. So have other forms of government.


4: Any state would need good transportation and communication to govern a large area. It is arguably more important in a centralized ''democracy.'' Probably not workable over a certain size, in that election and poll results will likely become very cumbersome to collect, count, and disseminate. And gov't may move very slowly indeed if a great many things depend on such counts.

Re: Low-Tech Democracy.
 

Voting on stuff is pretty common, yes. Even voting on who should get to sit in a council that then wields power, or voting on who should be come king and wield power alone.

The radical stuff is when it's no longer just normal people who get to vote, but also slaves, chicks, disabled people, poor people, children, atheists, foreigners, those who are cursed, elves, gnomes, orcs, dragons, AIs, uplifted dogs, and other strange kinds of people.

Everybody getting to vote. That's the bit that's hard to swallow. Not the voting thing itself.

Re: Low-Tech Democracy.
 

I suspect that over any significant area you'd need to use the historical method of representative democracy - people in a given area elect someone who then goes to the capital to represent their views in the assembly.

This will not directly match the Roman system (where the Senate were enrolled mostly on a property qualification and the only votes were the elections of public officials and what were essentially referenda), or the Greek model (where the assembly was actually composed of the assembled voters), but is the current form used by most modern democracies.

It's hard to imagine how any form of direct or frequently consulting democracy could function over a large area otherwise.

Re: Low-Tech Democracy.
 

I cannot think of any state in history in which everyone, including children and slaves, could vote.

And I'm almost 100% certain the OP does not mean that.

Re: Low-Tech Democracy.
 

No place allows all adults to vote. I don't think inmates or the institutionalized mentally ill can even now.

Re: Low-Tech Democracy.
 

The OP wrote-



What exactly is ''indirectly and popularly"?

Sounds like he means that the citizens elect representatives to some sort of parliament or assembly.

He says it is centralized.

Does he mean something like France under the National Convention and Jacobin domination?
While it lasted, anyway....

Printing presses may come into this.


EDIT

Or does the OP mean something more like the Soviet Union? Democratic centralism...
:(0)

That is definitely Western in ideological roots (Marxism from Western Europe). It's centralized. And it uses polls, representative bodies, holds elections...
Yet something tells me it's not really what he was looking for...
;)

Re: Low-Tech Democracy.
 

There are places in Europe where the inmates are allowed a postal vote. Damn fine idea in my opinion.

I'd say that for any really wide spread of the vote you need to have a wide spread of literacy and basic education. A peasant out in his field won't have much interest in anything outside his immediate interests unless he can read about the greater world beyond his village.

And to get that you probably need printing and paper. Both of which were late medieval to early renaissance (GURPS TL 3 to 4) innovations in the real world (at least in Europe) but are so simple in principle that they could have come along much earlier. Availability of pre-printed forms for voting makes the secret ballot work and government bureaucracy more functional.

Re: Low-Tech Democracy.
 

With the printing press, demagogues can use pamphlets, newsletters, and so on to bamboozle and mislead the urban mob and the greedy burghers in ways that benefit the demagogues.

Literacy isn't really necessary, though. Parties could be identified by cartoons of farm animals or household objects on ballots. I think that has actually been done in India.


Peon A "I voted for the Rooster Party! They are going to put a chicken in every pot!"

Peon B ''I voted Goat Party. They are way better. I herd goats and they are going to give me free goat-care."

A "Rooster Party says that's a lie. It isn't really free. That new poultry tax is going to pay for it, that's what I heard at the village well last week."

B "No, dummy, it's you feather-fluffing freaks who are the problem! You have infringed on our sacred grazing rights!"

<fight breaks out, Goat supporter knocks Rooster supporter over noggin with goat-stick, state later outlaws goose crooks in a confused bid to stop stick related violent crime. A rider to the bill, attached by inmates in the capital city dungeon one hundred miles distant voting in a referendum, releases all murders and rapists who promise to be good boys. No one notices amid the national furor over goose crook violence. Many are killed in the riots…>

Yay, democracy!

Re: Low-Tech Democracy.
 

The meaning of 'Centralized' is making me scratch my head. In government classes I've had Centralized be the opposite of Federal: the central government holds complete power over sub-governing bodies. For some reason, Federalism tends to be in place over larger countries, even in this age of modern communication.

Or do you simply mean that there is a formal government with actual power, as a opposed to a cultural alliance of small governments or some other form of confederacy.

Re: Low-Tech Democracy.
 

So? What's wrong with voting for whoever you think will best defend the interests of your village?

It's a barrier to a really efficient direct democracy, where you expect the voters to make choices on complicated issues for the good for the nation. For a representative democracy where government paralysis isn't necessarily considered a bad thing, it might be a virtue. As long as there is enough time between each election and the representative body meeting for all the elected representatives to travel to the same place, there don't seem to be any particular limitations on that.

Re: Low-Tech Democracy.
 

''Really efficient direct democracy " sounds like a unicorn government to me.
:)

But that aside, I agree. The local men get together at the meeting-house and choose the sheriff, mayor, etc.

I don't know how many slaves, serfs, bondservants or other such people his society has got living in it.

Is there a property or social status equipment for voting? Poll tax?

A tribal/national affiliation or family bloodline requirement? Like being a natural born citizen? Joining the nation/tribe after a period of residence and taking an oath of allegiance?

Nor do I know much about the status of females.

I'm skeptical that the sort of large in both area and population, centralized, democratic state I think he's describing is likely to develop and survive without improved communications and infrastructure of TL 5. I'm not saying it's impossible, just that it seems unlikely to me.
If he means that all the adult men and women , barring felons, idiots, and aliens, can vote-- well, that's not really TL dependent.
But regularly counting such a huge number of votes, collating all the information, sending all the information to the central capital of a large and populous country looks like a massive headache. It might prove unworkable.
I'm thinking he may need not only printing presses (TL 4) but steamboats, lots of improved roadways, and maybe telegraphy.

Is there a reason why the OP doesn't want a federal system?

How centralized is ''centralized''?

Re: Low-Tech Democracy.
 

Not at all. Rule by unicorns is an aristocracy.

Re: Low-Tech Democracy.
 

Multiplication of direct citizen referenda tends to make governing difficult even in modern-day American states, so if we want an efficient democratic government at low tech levels I think a federalized system of representative democracy is about the only way anything will get done.

You will want a good system of roads and a well-funded post, so that levels of government can communicate with each other. Government communications might have dedicated Pony Express stations. Of course, this benefits trade as well.

Federalization will result in regions being jealous of their prerogatives, but the American experience with the Articles of Confederation (and later, the Civil War) firmly supports the necessity of a strong central government with some taxation power, control over purse strings, authority in well-defined legislative spheres, and a standing army if the nation is to remain a single entity. Lacking any one of these things means they will have either no resources to fight regional entities, no political leverage, no areas in which to use their influence, or no muscle to back up the first three.

Re: Low-Tech Democracy.
 

There is a book entitled The Secret History of Democracy which covers more democracies than the usual selective list of European ones.

The representative principle is rare in our world, and the voters at least need to be able to follow what their representatives are doing. I am skeptical that a large democracy could work without printing, and probably without electrical communications. Something the size of England or the Aegean might work without either ...

I would also think about how ordinary people keep the moneyed, leisured elites in check. Aristocratic feuding, and aristocrats trying to squeeze more money and power out of everyone else, ended quite a few ancient democracies.

Re: Low-Tech Democracy.
 

LOL, good one, dude!

:)

Indeed.

And how are mobs of poor citizens kept from voting in demagogues who wreck the state?
That's been another common death mode for democracies.

Re: Low-Tech Democracy.
 

I wouldn't call it "centralized" or very large in population (only about 300 K people) but is the familiar with the Yeomanry League of the World of Greyhawk?



http://www.canonfire.com/wiki/index.php?title=Yeomanry

I always found it a plausible sort of medieval fantasy democratic state.

Warriors form local groups which elect representatives, who form groups which elect representatives who form the council that forms the highest level along with the elected heads of state and governments.
It's bottom up and concrete/organic in development, not top down and abstract/theoretical.
Over time craftsmen got the franchise.

By the late period that the article I've linked to represent, gainfully employed folks who have not borne arms also get the vote. That's not a retcon. It's a historical development, near as I can tell.



The Yeomanry may be rather too small for the OP's purposes. AN d of course it is a fantasy country, not a real world historical example.

Re: Low-Tech Democracy.
 

That is actually pretty close to the original Soviet system: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_(council)

Re: Low-Tech Democracy.
 

I'd start with the Roman Republic and then tinker with the setup to eliminate or at least lessen the opportunities for the shenanigans the PTW (Powers Thas Was ;-) ) in Rome used to effectively disenfranchise the rural tribes.


Hans

Re: Low-Tech Democracy.
 

The Roman Republic is definitely a promising model, but because all votes had to be in Rome the system broke down over time. People could elect their own local governments, and many seem to have been satisfied with that and the privileges which came with citizenship even if they might only vote in Rome twice in their life.

I like PTW.

I don't know Greyhawk, but it seems like it could work. If each clan/robber band/pirate crew elects a member to the council, that could expand to a representative system over time. Some of those early gamers and fantasy writers knew a reasonable amount of history.

Re: Low-Tech Democracy.
 

Agreed, but I draw a distinction between these sorts of local democracies (tribes, guilds, city-states), which have existed since the dawn of civilization, and a large democratic state.

"Democracy" has a huge number of variations, as many posters have pointed out. I am interested in hearing any workable systems people might come up with, but it seems to me that any low-tech democracy would be necessarily representative (along the lines of The Colonel's post) and federal (with an elected local government theoretically subservient to a national one). It would also probably require a strong executive like a Roman consul or American president to take command in situations where waiting for a council vote would be impractical.

An excellent question. By sea, probably yes; by land, probably not. That is merely speculation, however, and if anyone has a different opinion, I would love to hear it.

Literacy and education are definitely a benefit to democracy, but I don't know if they are required per se. As others have said, you can get a lot of distance out of public debate. I don't even know if the printing press is necessary (although again, it helps): I could easily see political operatives traveling from village to village making stump speeches just as friars gave sermons in medieval Europe.

Which brings me to a related note: the existence of political parties. What party politics might one see in a low-tech democracy? Land reform was a crucial element in Rome's political discourse, and I think similar issues would predominate in any low-tech (and thus necessarily agrarian) democracy. Justice and law enforcement, especially between rival districts, might also be a crucial issue at the national level; this was a large part of a medieval king's responsibilities. It might also be interesting to see "pork barrel politics", with local representatives arguing for federal funding to repair a frontier castle or build a bridge across a river.

I can see what you mean, although I would argue that a federal state needn't be decentralized (see the modern United States for an example of that). I said "federalized" because I think that a low-tech democracy would necessarily require local districts because of problems in communication. By "centralized", then, I mean that the federal government still holds a great deal of power over the state as a whole.

Excellent ideas all around. The postal system of the Mongolian empire provides a good structure for this kind of society. River and sea traffic would also be hugely important, and perhaps a central body of water (like the Mediterranean, or the Mississippi) made it possible for this democracy to exist in the first place.

Much appreciated. I will find it.

I agree. Do you have any ideas? A bicameral House of Lords/House of Commons system, perhaps?

I think that a "bottom-up" origin for a democracy makes the most sense, yes. For gaming purposes, however, a "proselytizing" democracy that abolishes old customs and replaces them with a representative government, like Revolutionary France, could be very interesting.

I especially want to provide opportunities for all of the dirty tricks common to democracy (rotten boroughs, "pork barrel" politics, lobbying, and so on) to exist. Any ideas on this front are also welcome.

Re: Low-Tech Democracy.
 

It's really the opposite of what the Bolsheviks created, because the local councils actually do have real power.
But I seen that you mean small s soviet, a concept that predates the Bolsheviks and at the roots has nothing to do with Marxism.
Good catch. :)


Sounds like a good ''bad guy'' country for the heroes to battle against.

Jacobins!

Re: Low-Tech Democracy.
 

Another possible model would be federations of tribes or city-states, which typically had a central council with representatives from each member. They tended to either be dominated by the strongest member or break up under the slightest pressure, because tribes and free cities were usually enthusiastic about their independence, but in a game one could solidify.

Some of the typical scenarios to think of are someone just ignoring a court ruling, bribing the judge or murdering the witness because he has ten times the income and political capital and a hundred times the armed force of the court; feuding and self-help which are manageable when each side has a dozen buddies getting out of hand when each side has a thousand soldiers; and people with money using high-interest loans or generous laws around landholding to acquire most of the farmland. Expanding upon partial solutions to these is a bit beyond the scope of a thread, but reading history helps.

Re: Low-Tech Democracy.
 

I note, in an example that goes against my own argument, that the Swiss Confederation dates back as far as the 13th century, a bit before printing came to Europe.

However, I think that the fact that they and the other city-states and confederations were a lot more participatory than the other options available (monarchy, feudal overlordship and so) we shouldn't allow verbal slight of hand to persuade us to identify them with modern representative democracy which though it has roots way back in the past is a creature of the Enlightenment and after.

Secret ballots, parliamentary privilege to grant immunity from arrest, open debate, the idea of a 'loyal Opposition'. All of those are quite modern and without them democracy looks a lot like what its opponents accuse it of being: mob rule.

The idea that the laws should be openly published and known by everyone goes back a long way though. The idea that as many government decisions as possible should be made publicly so that the people can see what's going on... Well, that one's still an ongoing battle.

And I would say by the way that one person's demagogue is another person's radical reformer and if the peasants are offered viewpoints that might cause them to vote for someone other than their feudal lord's son for parliament then that's a damn fine thing for the health of the state.

I also consider that any praise of the Roman Republic is... At this point I have to pause and take a deep breath and sip some tea to calm myself down. The Republic was designed to be a rigged game right from the start and was always played that way. I have no sentimental admiration for it and regard the idea of instilling paralysis deliberately into a constitution to be a madness that always serves the interests of the established political elites.

(Dammit, I'm getting more and more radical in my old age. I hope when I stop being able to remember to put my trousers on in the morning I won't start looking for some barricades to man...)

Re: Low-Tech Democracy.
 

Historically that would describe almost every Medieval government. For the matter of that Poland managed to survive the Liberum Veto for a surprising amount of time, considering.

Re: Low-Tech Democracy.
 

Okay? It largely describes any cohesive single nation, which would be required for the request in the OP. The AoC and the European Union are good examples of what you can't really call a united, functioning country (in the case of Europe, no one does) because it lacks one or more of these elements.

Re: Low-Tech Democracy.
 

The ideal of democracy, in various forms, is quite ancient. Item 1 is not hard to find in history.

That comparison overlooks something basic. Any form of government at low tech levels tends to be 'loose' once it gets above the city-state (or equivalent) level. It's true that most of the great empires of history were monarchical, but in practice those great empires always had a lot of local rule. They had to do so to work. When that local structure broke down, as it did (for ex) in the later stages of the Roman Empire, the result was generally collapse.

So your low-tech democracy will tend to be loose. It might or might not be technically a confederation, but it'll necessarily have a lot of local control, just as it would if the central authority were an emperor or a high priest or whatever.

The most probable form it could take would be the 'loose democratic confederation' you mentioned above. This could potentially work, because at low technology levels, most of life is local anyway, even in a big empire. There are some exceptions, but in general food has to be produced locally because transporting bulk foodstuffs is difficult at low tech levels. Most manufacturing tends to be local, though again some exceptions have existed.
Travel tends to be slow, difficult, and often dangerous (though a big empire can reduce the danger considerably), so there are incentives to do things locally.

So what does the central state provide to such an assemblage? The same sorts of things monarchical empires do, to begin with. Policing the roads, keeping one city-state from destroying another, setting standards for trade and commerce, providing a reliable currency, providing defense from dangerous outsiders, etc.

Now, if your city-states are on the big side, the central government might build and maintain Roman-style aqueducts to provide water for the cities and agriculture in dry regions. Maintaining the road network is an ongoing chore that needs organization, money, and scale. Certain raw materials simply are not locally available (if there is no iron ore, there won't be any iron mines), and that provides another reason to maintain large trade networks.

It's simpler for such a state to congreal around a monarch, but it could be democratic, in part because most of what the central state would be doing would be pretty basic, by today's standards. It would probably not be a multiparty democracy in the same sense that modern liberal democracies are, because the central state wouldn't be elaborate enough to generate that. More likely you'd have a governing council with an elected representative from each city-state or equivalent, and that council would then elect the president or whatever to actually run the state and command the armed forces.

The big difference between such a democratic empire and traditional ones would be that the central official would likely rule for a set time, and might be removed from office by the council without (at least in theory) using force. The armed forces would probably be so organzed that they are paid by and chartered by the state as a whole, rather than individuals in the service of the state.

But the resulting federation would still bear a distinct resemblance to the Roman Empire, the Han Chinese empire, the Indian empire, etc. It would do a lot of the same things, and not do a lot of the same things, as the other realms.

Now, local politics would quite possibly be vibrant, with parties or the equivalent, and all the fun and games we associate with democracy. Maybe small regions might display such tendencies.

The common defense would be more popular and sustainable if there is a distinct cultural unity encompassing the city-states. If the people of each city-state recognize a common identity with the people of the other cities, it's a lot easier to hold the democratic federation together. A common religion, a common language, common heritage, all help.

But that, again, is also true of monarchical realms. The Roman Empire never got much bigger than the territories of Classical Civilization, for ex, and when it did its rule was always tenuous.

Even if the whole thing is working, though, most citizens are likely to be primarily interested in local politics. The comparison would be the EU today, or the USA in the early decades, when interest in State government tended to be greater because the State government impacted daily life much more.

Re: Low-Tech Democracy.
 

It seems like a parliamentary (or other representative republic) system would be simplest. Every n summers, every township, county, or shire elects a representative to go to the Capital and uphold the interests of his or her region.

Communication and travel isn't a big problem because the common man is only voting on which of his neighbors will be in the government.

Re: Low-Tech Democracy.
 

Democracy is based on the environment as much as anything. If a country is in a cultivated area requiring protection, at a time when protection is based on a hard-to-master weapons system it will end up as an aristocracy. Whatever it's name.

Re: Low-Tech Democracy.
 

How is sanitation kept? Do you have the technology to avoid doing it by manual labor? If not it is hard to see how you would get by without having Untouchables of some sort.

Re: Low-Tech Democracy.
 

How does that follow? Sure, you need someone to pick up the trash, but they don't need to be any special caste (other than 'not wealthy').

Re: Low-Tech Democracy.
 

So? You can have a democratic state without having universal suffrage.


Hans

Re: Low-Tech Democracy.
 

Because in low TL societies, occupations are usually hereditary either de jure or de facto, anyone with enough money/connections to get their children an apprenticeship will do so and no one want's to take care of a whole city's trash. "Not wealthy" usually means "dad wasn't wealthy, won't marry anyone wealthy, and won't have kids that are wealthy." It does not need an ideological justification. However likely it will end up having that any way; if a given VIP cares enough about the public health to clean it up, the tendency will be for the job to trickle to those who cannot get another, and those will tend to stay in that job. After enough time, humans being humans, those who clean the city will form a self-perpetuating caste, and others will not merely take advantage of their services, but spit on them while they do so.

"Not wealthy enough"(or skilled, or strong, or just plain mean enough) sooner or later becomes a class by virtue of having no other.

Re: Low-Tech Democracy.
 

True. But I got the impression that the OP wanted a society that was more then merely Fair For It's Day.

Re: Low-Tech Democracy.
 

I don't agree. Paid gong farmers dug out the cesspits in English cities in the Late Medieval and Early Modern Period.

You seem to be using caste and class interchangeably, and using a very particular term , ''Untouchable'' in a confusing way.

Was that hyperbole to make a point?

Re: Low-Tech Democracy.
 

No actually it was not a hyperbole. I meant a section of society in which people were fixed from birth by social stagnation. Japan did not have caste in the same sense as India, but the ones who got stuck with the dirtiest jobs got treated more or less the same way and had little ability to get out of their place except during times of chaos.

As for the cesspits in English cities I am presuming an efficient sanitation not a throw-it-out-the-window sanitation. Someone is going to pay for it and what is more important(for unpleasant work can be justified), they will get treated sadistically. It is the habit of the human race to dump on anyone that handles, well, the dump.

Re: Low-Tech Democracy.
 

Do you have any sources that show how sanitation workers in Medieval or Early Modern England were treated sadistically as a matter of course, notably more so than anyone else of low status?

More to the point, what do gong farmers and ''low tech democracy'' have to do with one another?
I'm afraid I'm not seeing any connection, Jason.
Are you saying that democracy cannot exist without TL 6 or 7 sanitation systems?
It existed at TL 1 in Hellas.
But maybe you mean something else entirely?

Re: Low-Tech Democracy.
 

If this makes democracy impossible, it must be impossible now. People do work for sanitation and sewage treatment companies or government departments, and they mostly work pretty efficiently.

Re: Low-Tech Democracy.
 

If this makes democracy impossible, it must be impossible now. People do work for sanitation and sewage treatment companies or government departments, and they mostly work pretty efficiently. And sure, lots of people look down on them, same as they do all sorts of other lower class jobs. Yep, democracy is impossible

Re: Low-Tech Democracy.
 

They have the advantage of advanced technology and organization, not to mention enough wealth floating around that even garbage men can change clothes and bathe privately after work.

And the question was not whether it makes democracy more impossible then. There were plenty of Medieval republics and constitutional monarchies. The question was whether it would be something that would look like a modern democracy with liberal values, or would look like-a medieval democracy.

Re: Low-Tech Democracy.
 

Ok, we will hypothesize that the OP has a democratic state in which either: A) the nation is shreaded by plague every few years or so, or B) there is a system of constantly clogged aquaducts and pits and waste carried out by animal or even human muscle on unwashed people who die like flies, are shunned by everyone else and have an extreme Social Stigma. Neither is admittedly incompatible with the technical term Democracy. I am just assuming that the OP has in mind a society he likes or at least likes better then neighboring monarchies and I got the impression that what he had in mind lacked some of the more distasteful things that come with a low TL society.

So what I am really asking is does the OP mean, "a state that has mores recognizably similar to modern liberal values that has nothing but obvious physical concerns to give a modern westerner discomfort", or "a giant Swiss Confederation." Because if the answer is the later, then yes, nothing prevents it other then administrative ingenuity. If the former he is out of luck; some things just can't be gotten at that TL.

Re: Low-Tech Democracy.
 

I don't think extreme social stigma is necessary for gong farmers. They were paid workers in England of the centuries in question, not slaves.

But, sure, if the OP wants what you say he wants, it might not make sense below a certain TL.

Maybe.


But I really don't find your argument about poop collection convincing.

We have people now, in this country, who do dangerous and dirty jobs.

So do India, Mexico, Brazil, South Korea, etc.

Re: Low-Tech Democracy.
 

I certainly don't find it unlikely that 'nightmen' (as they were called in Danish -- natmænd) might be disenfranchised in a low-tech democracy. What I don't see is why having a small group of disenfranchised people would make a democracy impossible. Or a fairly large group for that matter.


Hans

Re: Low-Tech Democracy.
 

There's an important distinction here. Liberalism is actually in opposition to democracy - it defines a set of things that the state can't do *even if the vast majority of the people want them*. Things like enslave the untouchable scum might very well win a supermajority, it conflicts with the liberalism not the democracy.

The not particularly liberal concept of rule of law, and it's cousin constitutionalism, functions the same way, and are likewise fundamentally anti-democratic. Any of these can appear independently of the others, and democracy is the least important of the three for creating a government modern westerners could feel comfortable with.

Re: Low-Tech Democracy.
 

No more then was in practice. Plenty of "democracies" existed then which fill the technical definition as well as now. At the very least many merchant states and many monarchies had constitutionalist elements that included some provision for the rights of the commons to a vague form of participation. Iceland was certainly a democracy. And modern bureaucratic oligarchies don't fit the definition much better even if individual rights are often better protected. The point is that some nasty elements of Medieval and Antique life might be criticized by philosophers but really needed technology to excise them. And that if the OP wishes a realistic Medieval democracy he has to be willing to tolerate them. Treatment of sanitation workers was just one example.

Now that could actually be made a useful plot point, by allowing the PCs to have Pet The Dog moments. And so on. The problem is that to be anything like reality the PCs will be as shocked and possibly as sanctimonious as Cordelia was in Barrayar and if they are written up as natives that will make it hard to roleplay.

Re: Low-Tech Democracy.
 

Or to put it another way, is the OP making a low tech democracy just for the fun of making a con world, or is he trying to make a "good guy" country? If the former it can be arranged; an empire sized state on that model is difficult to believe but one can stretch a point. If the latter, antique and medieval constitutionalist states may have been on the whole better then traditional monarchies but that does not make them nice places either.

Re: Low-Tech Democracy.
 

That is just one example of the problems of environment. Social, economic, and even economic realities define government more often then vice versa. The example just given is just a question of how humanely it would be ruled in practice. Other social realities define whether a democracy can exist at all. There has to be a strong middle class with plenty of money and an easily mastered weapons system that does not require spending so much time practicing at arms that normal work cannot be done. That is you can have a hoplite democracy but not a samurai one.

Re: Low-Tech Democracy.
 

Isn't that assuming the PCs are all ignorant foreigners (which could be fun)?


If the players are playing natives, but don't care about engaging with and RPing the culture their characters are supposed to be part of, why are they playing natives?

That latter approach would cheese off Peter Knutsen. It would annoy me, too.
I'm going to run a game set in a world, I expect players to treat the world as a ''real'' place for gameplay.

YMMV, natch.

Re: Low-Tech Democracy.
 

Oh, quite, quite. And like I said if the OPs purpose is the fun of worldbuilding it is an intriguing idea. If he just wants to make the PCs comfortable it is not.

Re: Low-Tech Democracy.
 

I'm not sure it would make me comfortable, depending on what he thinks ''Western, liberal values'' really are...

But, yeah, I'm not quite sure what he's going for.

Re: Low-Tech Democracy.
 

Not sure how helpful this is, but I thought I'd throw it in. Although probably a bit embellished, the Kikuyu as described by Jomo Kenyatta in Facing Mt. Kenya were reasonably democratic. All things considered, he isn't a reliable source, but every ethnography I've read about the Kikuyu agrees that they were lead by an elected council of elders and had something like an unwritten Bill of Rights. The best bit is the alternation of generations, so that governing body automatically dissolves and is replaced completely every 15 years or so. The cultural understanding/Bill of Rights made it clear there could be no nobles of any kind in the tribe.

For an illiterate early iron age people, it's not bad.

Re: Low-Tech Democracy.
 

You can require every clan to have a trained Lawspeaker.

Also have the law committed to verse-and require every citizen to memorize it.

Re: Low-Tech Democracy.
 

How do you have a law that says "women have the same social status as men" or for that matter "anyone has the same social status as anyone?" Certainly not a civil law guaranteed by public force. Perhaps a religious law of that nature.

Re: Low-Tech Democracy.
 

Sorry, that was from my Ubantu's version of the Gikuyu. I don't remember what Kenyatta said - probably something pithy and revisionist. The man was trying to portray his people as the natural leaders of a democratic Kenya. First generation post-colonial tribalism, before people realized that tribalism is a monster force best suppressed. I've heard so many times from well meaning Americans who think Africa's problems are because the colonialists drew the boarders arbitrarily and that everything would be fine if everyone got a homeland....it seems to be an American perspective based on our basic like of tribal background.

Re: Low-Tech Democracy.
 

Suppressing tribalism would require a Mao. But even in Europe there are towns who are on the wrong side of the border from their language base.

Re: Low-Tech Democracy.
 

Not that bad - Marshall Tito did it, and made socialism vaguely profitable to boot. He was probably an alien transvestite robot, but still.

Re: Low-Tech Democracy.
 

Tito had to ride to power at the end of six years of mutual ethnic cleansing and Nazi tyranny. He didn't need to be a Mao because the times provided it. He was also putting his jackboot on a far smaller portion of the Earth then Africa.

Re: Low-Tech Democracy.
 

Excellent points all around, you have my thanks once again. I apologize for not being able to post for some time, but I will try and answer a few of the questions that have been raised.

I am under no illusions to the fact that the past was unpleasant, and I definitely do not want an anachronistic "liberal democracy", or even less a "good guy" state. There is no such thing today, let alone a thousand years ago. It is the pre-industrial democratic mechanism that I am interested in, with all the warts that entails (limited suffrage, the abuse of power by the state, the hijacking of politics by moneyed interests, etc).

I like the idea of a "generational council", although I suspect that the universal council it implies is unworkable for anything much larger than a village. It also brings to mind the idea of terms, and term limits. The Roman republic made due with yearly terms by and large (but being elected once gave a senator tenure of a sort, entitling him to sit in the senate for the rest of his life), and today terms are generally two to six years. I think that this hypothetical democracy would skew towards the latter, if its representatives come from the realm as a whole rather than the capital itself, and might even appoint certain prestigious titles (like judges, or high priests) for life.

One direction I would like to press this thread in is the idea of political parties. Several posters have indicated that parties are unlikely, but I have to disagree; the tendency of people to divide themselves into factions and cliques is universal. I mentioned land reform as an issue previously, and it's logical to assume that existing landholders would have their own party to oppose the reformers. What other parties might there be, and what issues might they crystallize around?

Re: Low-Tech Democracy.
 

Weren't they drawn particularly to allow setting tribes against each other, rather than arbitrarily?

Re: Low-Tech Democracy.
 

Oddly enough, I rather like the idea of competing for who gets the biggest piece of the pie in the next Doge's term instead of competing over ideology. If it's all about money, power, and influence there is nothing to hate each other over and if it's regulated so no faction becomes an existential threat, nothing to fear each other over.

Re: Low-Tech Democracy.
 

From what I can see they were mostly drawn as a result of moving typical European diplomatic dickering to Africa. Europeans had no motive in stirring up feuds that they would have to waste troops suppressing.

Territorial diplomacy is often a poor fit in other climes because it requires among other things concentrated areas of cultivated land and a political culture that had been formed around trigonometry. Even in Europe it was a long time before the concept of exact borders was fashionable.

Re: Low-Tech Democracy.
 

Using Iraq as a judgement for that is like using the mid seventeenth century to judge the Parliamentery system.

And with the system we have now people usually vote for the nominee of their own party anyway.

In any case I don't see Democracy as having a purpose much more elevated then keeping the oligarchs from beating on the proles to much. Nor do I see that voters have much choice if they are one hundred millionth of a king. If there are enough clans, tribes, and sects, the tribe that is getting most powerful will just provoke an alliance which will make for a constantly changing politics. Furthermore, the ways of calculating "wealth, power and influence" will be so complex that in any given tribe it is not unreasonable to presume differing citizens calculating their particular tribe's interest differently. It would in effect be like a city voting on whether or not to fund this road or that road.

In any case there is enough precedent for such a thing. Rome got along all right.

Re: Low-Tech Democracy.
 

Mostly they didn't know where the tribal boundaries *were*. Note that when the partition of India came around, the Commission needed to dispatch a lot of survey teams - after a century or more in the heavily populated part of richest, best administered colony, the government still didn't know which villages practiced which religion. When they were drawing straight lines across barely explored parts of interior Africa nobody had any idea who lived where.

Re: Low-Tech Democracy.
 

Maybe you ´d a knighthhood, not necessaily an aristocracy.

In Europe Free Men were part of the Military, like fyrd of the saxons or the swiss

Re: Low-Tech Democracy.
 

"Maybe you´d a knighthhood, not necessaily an aristocracy."

Knighthoods have an unfortunate tendency to become aristocracies when there is nothing to balance them.

"In Europe Free Men were part of the Military, like fyrd of the saxons or the swiss"

Which is one reason European culture was able to bridle it's aristocracy. Not everybody can find a cheap military system or a robust middle class.

Furthermore both those examples are exagerrated. The fyrd was composed largely of thanes and the core of the Saxon military was carls. The Saxon aristocracy was, in it's Northern way less overweening then Central or Eastern European counterparts tended to be, not least because they were dragoons rather then heavy horse and had to fight on foot like peasants did when they turned out. But they were still aristocrats.

The Swiss had terrain as a force multiplier even if they hadn't rediscovered(or readapted) the phalanx.

The point is that you need a natural and economic environment friendly to democracy. Lush bottomland is usually not such.

Re: Low-Tech Democracy.
 

tendencies yes, an automatic no,

In the Middle Ages, every free Household was needed to send one equipped man to the host of their Liege... the burghers of the flamish cities met French Knights on the battlefield.

Many man at arms were afaik free farmers in feudal Service, the Backbone of the englisch armies in the HYW were the longbowmen - Yeoman.

The swiss developed the Gewalthaufen, and they met foreign armies in open combat.

Their mountains were helpful, but i doubt without theirhigh morale, ruthless discipline and merciless dedication they would be as feared as they were on the battlefield nor so successful.

Re: Low-Tech Democracy.
 

Free farmers didn't usually do much service for the obvious reason that they were farmers. English longbowmen were hirelings; the militia stayed at home. Come to think of it the Swiss that went into valley country were also hirelings with those that just wanted to farm staying home. Farmers were also extended and vulnerable to chauvauchees. Burghers have the obvious advantages of walls and money. However I specifically included the economic environment because burghers did in fact stand up to nobles in many places including Germany.

The point is that there is required either a rich middle class or a warlike one or both which means there should be an area favorable to the development of such. Political aristocracy and the form it takes is a reflection of other aspects of culture. Moreover you are neglecting the point where I said "if it is dependent on an expensive weapons system requiring intense training." Much of Europe was able to find a system that did not require such as you just demonstrated. That cannot be counted on.

Re: Low-Tech Democracy.
 

As mentioned, the early US qualifies. The Industrial Revolution is beginning to dawn with more widespread water-driven factories, but the main widespread advances over medieval times are muskets and the printing press plus paper. By 1792 Kentucky is a state, so the country goes 700 miles inland while river steamboats are still highly experimental. Ohio and Mississippi rivers give good water connection to New Orleans, but not to the east coast. Extends over 1200 miles of coast, from Georgia to Maine in a straight line, and over 1400 miles between the far corners of Georgia and Maine.

By comparison Switzerland (which I think got really democratic after Napoleon) is 200 miles across, England about 300 miles tall, Britain about 550 miles. 300 miles wide including Wales or Cornwall, otherwise typically 80-150 miles. Small compared to the US, big compared to a city-state, of course slow to get democratic.

The Iroquois League was interestingly republican in structure too, and covering a lot more land than a city-state, if not more people; not even literacy, here.

Direct democracy... you're not going to get many if any federal initiatives, but I could see changes to the constitution, or even major laws (federal tax or criminal law changes), requiring approval by referendum. Congress writes, the people approve or reject. The US came close in one way -- amendments need to be approved by legislatures or conventions in 3/4 of the states, but if you remove the legislature option then approval gets closer to direct popular approval. Or at least special elections on the issue, rather than just consulting the usual representatives.

I've tried to imagine how the Athenian Delian League, or the Roman Republic, could have stumbled into representative federalism given the ideas they had to work with; haven't had much success. Rome seems more fruitful territory. The Republic was cooked toward plutocracy in the Centuries, but I think tribunal elections were more one man one vote: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:R...nstitution.svg
Get power to shift even more to the "tribes" and you curb the plutocracy. Then you need some way for the municipia or colonia to get a voice in Rome... this seems the tricky part, given the pseudo-direct democratic structure (consuls propose laws, centuries approve them). Maybe getting to send tribunes who veto laws affecting the home city?

Athens did give more and more power to randomly selected bodies, the Council of 500 and similarly sized juries; it's possible that idea of random sampling could allow scaling to a larger area, vs. the awkward logistics of a popular assembly, which may have been getting problematic for Athens itself -- assembly of maybe 6000 people, vs. total population of maybe 250,000, and adult male citizens of 25-30,000. At this point the juries start looking more representative than "whoever shows up"...