Re: [Freeciv-Dev] History of Republic

[Brent Nelson <nelson@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

OK, history lesson on early democracy, and the republic.  This comes
from my feeble memories of the Ideologies class I took last summer.  I
may be wrong on some of the details.  I didn't really pay too close
attention.

Socrates lived in greece from 470 BC to 399 BC.  This was in the
heyday of greek democracy.  The greek democracy was a pure democracy.
Every free property owning male would vote on matters of government.
If someone wanted to put in an aquaduct, all the men would get
together and put it to a vote.  The majority ruled.  Always.  There
were no elections, and thus no elected officials.  All government
matters were decided by a vote by the populace as a whole.  If I
remember correctly, socrates was either exiled from Athens, or
executed by Athens for saying contrivercial things because the
populace voted to do it.  Democracy is quite like rule of the mob.  A
person could rile up the mob and get them to vote the way they
wanted.  There was no constitution that controled government, just the
rule of the mob.

Socrates trained Plato, who in turn trained Aristotle (who in turn
trained Alexander the Great).  Aristotle wrote alot on Democracy and
the Republic.  The web page I am looking at doesnt have the
birth/death dates of Aristotle, but I guess they would be something
like 410 - 340 BC (based on the dates of alexander and plato).
So we see that the republic does date a long way back as a concept.
Aristole saw Democracy as rule by the mob, which wasn't bound by
reason and could easily be influenced by demigogs.  Monarchs or
despots would abuse the people for their own gain.  And the
aristocracy would just look out for their own good.  He saw the
perfect government as a mix of all these elements.  Each element had
strengths and weaknesses that balanced each other out.  

The US government system was defined as a republic when it started (it
has drifted more towards democracy, abandoning the republic model).
The President represented the monarch part.  The House of
Represntatives represented the people, and the Senate would represent
the aristocracy.  I am unsure of this, but I think senate seats were
not elected initially.  Someone more versed on american history and
politics may be able to correct me on this though.

There, I think I have typed enough and bored you enough for one day.

--brent nelson

On Wed, 10 Mar 1999, Lalo Martins wrote:

> On Mar 10, Rizos Sakellariou decided to present us with:
> > 
> > That was my impression too with respect to Republic. However, I am puzzled 
> > that Republic comes before Banking; even Trade or Currency discovery are not
> > necessary for it. If we accept that its basis is the late 18th century
> > developments, I think that the Republic comes too early in the tech tree.
> > IMHO, this means that almost always there is no reason why one should go
> > for Monarchy first rather than Republic (just one more tech required).
> > People with civI/II experience tell me that the Republic had disadvantages
> > that are not currently implemented in Freeciv. If this is true, isn't
> > perhaps time to start thinking about adding these?
> 
> Perhaps you are biased by having played Civ/reading its manual.
> I think I don't need to remember you that Civ is not free
> software, and many times the folks who wrote the manual had no
> communication with the folks who wrote the game :-)
> 
> As a History lover and grandson of a Historian, I look at
> FreeCiv from other perspective and use my History book as the
> game manual.
> 
> So, yes, Republic comes way before Banking or Trade. FreeCiv's
> Republic is half what we call it today; but it's also the system
> used in Rome before the Empire. Of course the description in
> helpdata.txt doesn't apply to this kind of Republic (roman
> citizens elected the Senate and the Senate elected the ruler)
> but the effects apply.
> 
> Of course before Rome went Republic it already had Currency,
> Trade and perhaps even Banking; I'd argue Currency is necessary
> even for this kind of Republic, but Trade is not.
> 
> [Note: on our world Banking was "researched" by the Babilonians
> at more or less the same time the Romans "joined the game". Rome
> used Banking a lot when it started expanding, but I don't think
> it was a necessary piece of the Republic.]
> 
> Also, fans of Babylon5 will easily think of the "Centauri
> Republic" which works exactly like the late Roman model (when
> Senators stopped being elected and started being hereditary).
>