Theory Thursday: Thivic Thinking

[sythyry]

Well, that gave me a great deal to think about. [Apologies for not responding much, but Livejournal was being quite balky. -bb]

I don't know that it'll be a whole city-state quickly. (If all the traff-folk from the branch decide they want to live there, it might have enough people for that! But that is unlikely, especially if we are generous with monsters.) I expect to come up with some sort of semi-autonomous citylet sort of thing. We might be able to make our own laws; that happens sometimes.

And, as a lot of the point of the city is to have laws that we like ... how shall we make laws, in general?

A typical city has a legeriat, a dozen or so people representing the major factions and moieties in the city, who construct laws. Which, in some cities, simply become laws; in other cities, they must be promulgated by the duke (or whatever); in other cities, they must be voted on popularly, or approved by a court, or various other things.

Or, some other cities have, say, the duke proclaim all laws. Or a pure democratic approach, in which the citizens as a whole vote on all laws. Or a prophetic mirror that reveals wise laws. Or, I suppose, nearly anything else imaginable.

In any case, I want two things from a legal system.

First: I want to have some laws that please me. The city must be traff-friendly. In essence, it is Castle Wrong (or Strayway) in city form.

Second: I want to have just, fair, wise, and good laws. Not that I could give a good definition of any of those adjectives, or even necessarily recognize them if I were confronted by them.

So, how would you suggest designing a lawmaking apparatus for a young and probably tiny World Tree city?

Comments

[gavinfox.livejournal.com]

What we have found in our universe is that a mix of a democracy and a republic works well. Democracy in the sense that the people vote to elect representatives, and republic in the sense that the the lawmakers serve those that vote for them, and those lawmakers have limited terms. It also works best if the is a written constitution that lays out the rights inherent to everyone, and the responsibilities inherent in the various positions of government. Those responsibilities should be set up so that each branch of government has a vested interest in making sure that no other branch (or individual) can overstep their boundaries too badly. It should also be set up such that the representatives have a vested interest in not just helping the absolute majority, but in being fair and making compromises, and making sure all groups get fairly represented.

[gavinfox.livejournal.com]

Also separation of duties is EXTREMELY important. You want to build accountability and ownership of failures and issues into the system...