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This is a general question, but an important one. What is the best form of government? I'm speaking for a hypothetical state, such as if you were to sail off to the wilderness and establish a state with a new government for your new people.If you want to brush up, here is a list of government forms (some rather ridiculous ones are included there, so don't mind those).
I agree with Plato that the best form of government is a benevolent dictatorship. The biggest and insuperable obstacle to this form of government is the problem of succession.
A long story but... utopian anarchy.
Wow. You've got my attention now. We have all the time in the world. ;D
According to an old Basque trail-cook, as quoted by a late and lamented history prof of mine… “… when every man can do as he G*d dam*ed well please as long as he doesn't interfere with any other doing as he G*d dam*ed well pleases!”As a young lad, the history prof was, sent down to Arizona for toughening up by ol' dad... a friend of dad had a rather large cattle ranch and young lad was set to work as Little Mary to the cook on a cattle drive. Happened to be nearing election time (maybe the 1920 election) and being a precocious fellow raised in a somewhat privileged home asked the old cook for whom he'd be voting. The cook replied that not being a citizen he'd not be voting but really neither the Republicans nor the Democrats had much to offer him anyway. Young lad then asked about his party of choice, to which the old boy answered utopian anarchist. ;D
I went with oligarchy as well. It seems to me that rule by a few of the “best” citizens would make for the best form of government. I think that dictatorship is also pretty good because decision-making is streamlined, less bureaucracy means greater efficiency, and so forth. But what I like about rule by a group of the best citizens is that the collective wisdom will be greater than that of any one individual. The expertise of each person within this group would lend itself to greater knowledge and understanding of the world, and the slight bureaucracy that would accompany this variety of minds would be a hedge against rash decision-making. So it would be a prudent and intelligent means by which to rule a nation.
With dictatorship, it's only two choices, good or bad. So it's dangerous. I think a few people, for the reasons you mentioned, is the better way. Agreements can be made among the few, but with too many people, agreements will be few and far between.
I went with plutocracy since if we're going to be ruled by the few, why not the richest few since they obviously understand how to make money and retain it responsibily (for the most part). It stands to reason that if they know how to manage their own money, they will be good candidates to manage ours as well. 🙂
I'll go with money, riches, and so on. That's the root cause of war. Oh, and power, but is that not same as money, riches, champagne, smolked salmom, et cetera. But only for the rich, mind you; the poor must go off and fight, and die, to finance the rich. It has been that way forever; do you folks really believe it is different now?
