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SF has a notable anti-democratic trend, with Future! Space! Empires! with hereditary rulers and nobles. Asimov's Galactic Empires, Pournelle's CoDominium and Empire, Poul Anderson's empire. Often an empire falls, to be replaced by a second empire.
This hasn't been without rationalization. The usual line is that with poor communications, a feudal structure is good for long-range government. This never felt right, but I was thinking about it in the past day. Really... what? Europe's feudal realms were in rather smaller areas than the Roman Republic at its pre-Imperial height. Roman used pro-consuls and pro-praetors, so there was local autocracy, but appointed by the Senate, not hereditary. And why couldn't a democratic/republican federation handle the needed decentralization? Local governance, representatives sent to the capital. A bit like the early US, or the Commonwealth (though that has a weak Crown still, and had steamships and telegraphs relatively early.)
This hasn't been without rationalization. The usual line is that with poor communications, a feudal structure is good for long-range government. This never felt right, but I was thinking about it in the past day. Really... what? Europe's feudal realms were in rather smaller areas than the Roman Republic at its pre-Imperial height. Roman used pro-consuls and pro-praetors, so there was local autocracy, but appointed by the Senate, not hereditary. And why couldn't a democratic/republican federation handle the needed decentralization? Local governance, representatives sent to the capital. A bit like the early US, or the Commonwealth (though that has a weak Crown still, and had steamships and telegraphs relatively early.)
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Date: 2009-06-27 16:45 (UTC)From:A definition of "real" democracy that excludes all the ones which have ever existed is meaningless.
Sure, but that's not my definition. I've already mentioned the (proto-)Hellenistic democracy, and other examples in antiquity exist.
Just about the only thing about the Roman Republic that approaches democracy is that they didn't have kings.