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

[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?

[Sword-dancer]

Originally Posted by 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.

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

[jason taylor]

"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.