Low-Tech Democracy.

[aesir23]

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.

[jason taylor]

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.

[jason taylor]

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.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by jason taylor

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

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').

[Hans Rancke-Madsen]

Originally Posted by jason taylor

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

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


Hans

[jason taylor]

Originally Posted by Anthony

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').

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.

[jason taylor]

Originally Posted by Hans Rancke-Madsen

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


Hans

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

[combatmedic]

Originally Posted by jason taylor

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.

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

Originally Posted by jason taylor

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

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?

[jason taylor]

Originally Posted by combatmedic

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?

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.

[combatmedic]

Originally Posted by jason taylor

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.

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?