From: jdunning@chagall.Princeton.EDU (John Alan Dunning)
Subject: Re: Industrial feudalism?
Originator: news@nimaster
Organization: Princeton University
Date: Mon, 25 Jan 1993 07:10:10 GMT

In article <ig25.727829955@fg70> ig25@fg70.rz.uni-karlsruhe.de (Thomas Koenig) writes:
>One thing which always disturbed me in quite a number of SF future
>histories is the assumption that a technical society can be run
>successfully with some kind of aristocratic system.
>
>As a prime example, let's take the N/P "Mote" universe, as described
>in "Building the Mote in God's Eye".
>
>In that essay, Niven and Pournelle (mostly Pournelle) argue that 
>armies need a focus of loyality and that personal leaders are
>a very likely focus of such loyality.  They quote Winston Churchill as
>an example during WWII for the British. They also argue that, since
>leaders are born to a position of power, it is likeley that they will
>be better educated to the task of leadership and therefore become better
>leaders than elected politicians.  Pournelle, in one of his solo works
>(King David's Spaceship) argues that the only way to get qualified
>technicians to a colony world is to offer them and their children the
>chance to become nobility.

One important point about the _Mote_ empire is that while they had the
Alderson drive, which let them move faster than light between solar
systems, they did not have FTL communication.  This has important
ramifications for a far-flung empire.  High-priority messages would take
weeks to move between two planets: the time required to move from the
first planet to the jump point at ~3Gs (the speed at which the "message
sloops" travel), and then from the jump point to the second planet.
Most news and information would travel considerably slower, probably
on trading vessels moving at maybe 1G.

At the end of _Mote_, for instance, the emperor formed a special commission 
to deal with the Motie problem.  The commission was based on New Scotland
(the planet closest to the jump point which brought you to the Motie
system) because Sparta (the Imperial Capital) was just too far away to
handle the situation effectively.

So I think it would be very difficult to run a democratic government
consisting of representatives from X planets (20-30 in the _Mote_
universe?) without FTL communication.  There'd be no way for the
Senators to get out and press flesh with their constituency (or even
hold an electronic town hall) and still be in the capital 
to make legislation.  I think it also would be very
difficult for them to stay in touch with what the voters' wanted.  If
something comes up in the captial, it's at least, say, three weeks before the
voters find out about it.  Then they fax their senator's office with
their opinions on the issue.  So it's another three weeks before the
senator finds out what the voters think.  Is the senate supposed to
sit around for a few months before making a decision?  Some would say
that's what they do best, but if time is critical, they just have to
vote without knowing the current situation on their home planet.

I know politicians in America don't jump every time their constituents
say "jump!" (although it may seem like it), but being able to write
your senator about your views on a certain issue at least gives you
a feeling that you have some leverage between elections.  How much
difference is there between a born aristocrat and someone you've
elected but really haven't been able to talk to in 10 years (senators
in such an empire would be elected to fairly long terms)?  An elected
senator may be living like an aristocrat on the capital planet in any
case, and the voters may have no real way of finding out.

So having someone who is loyal to the emperor and the empire
representing a planet or a sector in the capital may make more sense
than having someone elected to that position who is not especially
accountable to the people who elected him or her.  I do think,
however, that putting an aristocrat in charge of the local planetary
government is a recipe for rebellion.

>One key problem interfering with a society's success which has
>hereditary transfer of power ist that there is no easy way of getting
>rid of the duds, which education alone cannot do.  A prime example for
>this is Wilhelm II., the German emperor from 1889(?)  to 1918.  He was
>superbly educated and a real catastrophe for Germany after he had
>assumed the throne and taken control of policy.

How do you get rid of a dud senator, especially if they're elected for
a fairly long term?  Would there be anyway for them to campagin for
reelection and still govern?  Maybe they're elected for only a single
term.  Then what would they care whether the voters like them?

For comparison, how did previous empires, such as the British or
Roman, deal with the communication lag?  How were the Roman senators
elected/appointed/born into their positions?  How accountable were
they to the people they represented?

John
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