Isekai Kenkokuki - Vol. 2 Ch. 13

[RhoninFire]

I'm sure most of us recognize that the narrative reason of this conversation is to act as a Chekov's Gun. I can just imagine that future chapter where going to get that "surprise" and be hoisted by he own advice some some-odd chapters down the road. It will be fun.

But despite we can see the narrative reason. One does not just bring up types of governmental systems and expect people to not want to talk about it. And especially Almus's advice as it subverts our usual expectations how character would usually advise for governmental systems (plus a good part of his advice is a bit unimplementable without revolutions or a lot of time)


I think we are being pretty civil about it anyways.

 

[InfiniteVerisimilitude]

Couple of notes, the Roman Empire ended up with various systems of co-Emperors and the like as it turned out that dealing with trouble on multiple fronts required people able to wield authority to be present on the front. This didn't turn out to ultimate be very stable as the people with authority generally fell into quarreling until one or both decided that they would be better off running the whole lot. A comment section of a manga is not the space to have a thorough discussion about the causes of the decline and fall of the Roman Empire, why the Eastern Empire persisted and the Western did not and what ultimately did it for the Eastern one but they were aware of the issue of lines of communications being to long at a time when peoples were pushing at the border in various places.

Divine Right Kingship generally works pretty well if the lines of succession are clear and the ruler and successor are competent. When that is not the case things tend to end in violence or disaster. Note that in the case of Rome lines of succession were rarely clear leading to crowning by army coup on many occasions and fun stuff like the year of five Emperors. In terms of succession in Europe most of the longest and bloodiest wars were over contested succession (see the Hundred Years War, War of the roses, War of the Spanish Succession, et al) when they were not about the other pillar of the Divine Right, namely religion (30 Years War, Albigensian Crusade, et al). Not to mention the great power politics driven by European Monarchs which ultimately triggered WWI and the unresolved issues of which then led to WWII a few decades after.

Anyone who thinks Divine Right monarchy leads to long term stability needs their head examined.

 

[swaggernaut77]

@Istvan90623 the reason all these great technologies came into existence in the first place was the free market economy where people are able to pursue things they want to do.

@boag its pointless arguing with left leaning retards that dont understand why our country came to be in the first place

 

[Vigo_to_Vigo]

@RhoninFire Bravo, you hit every nail on the head there lol.
Nearly every type of legit system is viable until you get into the extremes, then almost always the cons begin outweighing the pros.

To much centralization and most people are miserable the farther down the chain you go, to much de-centralization and...well your increasingly moving towards not being a nation at all.

Just like too much control over people's lives and they don't want to invent anything for others, the same with too little control over people's lives and they don't really want to invent anything for others.
If the state is just gonna own it, what's the point, but then again if there aren't patents and trademarks and people are just gonna steal the design without helping you, what's the point. @swaggernaut77
Free market is great, but no enforcement of terms is also a bit of a nightmare.

 

[SoloSera]

For that purpose, we need to get rid of common land and allow ownership of land.

This started my irritation, but the rest of the chapter was utter nonsense fed to someone I'd like to sell a bridge. Somebody listened to the powerful and did not think for themselves. The system he wants is beneficial solely to those with power. This is perfect for where the author wants the story to go, but it is naive. Take my quote, for instance. Crops are best served through common land. Everyone needs food, so it only makes sense that the production of food is democratically controlled. Putting this control of basic necessities into the hands of a select few gives them enormous amounts of power. To keep this power, however, it is beneficial for them to artificially limit the supply of food. This then forces people to obey or starve. Nobody should have that amount of power. I suppose I should expect this from a society where such people are already in power and already limiting food to keep themselves in power. It is a shame that our time is full of people that fall for the scapegoats of fascism, those who ignore societal problems because of their comfort, and even those who wish to reach a proper society using authoritarian heroes. Desperation, complacency, and self-righteousness are the ills of our time. Oh, also greed. Now get off my lawn! ?

 

[firosahoge]

this king is so cool. He needs to marry Yuria fast and become the king ?

 

[firosahoge]

@SoloSera I see what you're saying but I think you're looking down too much on centralization. Democracy is one of the most inefficient forms of government. Getting things done takes a long time if everyone has their say in the matter, and agricultural reform will take forever if land isn't even owned but shared, it'll defeat the whole purpose of the four crop rotation. What's good about democracy is that it has checks and balances against corruption. In summary, it loses out on efficiency in exchange for protection against abuse of power. For example, what if you're playing a kingdom building video game but every time you want to do something, you have to wait for people's votes, underground politics, schemes, lobbying etc even just to build a simple building?

On the other hand, if you centralize the power to the royal family or a king, then you can be extremely efficient. If Almus was say the king, then he can immediately reform the whole kingdom and increase their military, economic, and technological power by multiple folds. If power is not centralized, it will take years, maybe dozens of years for even fractions of that kind of reform to take place. Still, the weakness of this is if Almus is corrupt, the whole nation will die within his lifetime. If the next heir to the throne is corrupt, the kingdom will collapse in his generation, etc.

However, this kingdom is already on the brink of destruction so centralizing the power and putting Almus as king will not only potentially save this kingdom from destruction, but can make it far more powerful than the other kingdoms. With his knowledge and integrity, he can advance their society by hundreds of years.

 

[EaterOfBooks]

@SoloSera
@firosahoge

Something worth nothing is that democracy only really works when you separate political, military, and economic power, while eliminating personal loyalty as a factor in political decisions as much as possible. Most failure points in modern democracy or republics (representational democracy) arise because somebody manages to turn their economic power into political power (regulatory capture and oligarchies), uses personal loyalty and military might to obtain political power (a coup), or combines military and economic power to pressure the political establishment (a military-industrial complex, as one US president put it).

Going from a feudal system based on personal loyalty/fealty, landholding, and military strength of the feudal lords straight to democracy is a fool's errand, because family/personal ties, the consolidation of wealth and political/military power together under specific people, etc., which are what that system runs on, will wreck your fledgling democracy or republic.

Consolidation under a strong central government usually breaks the power of the nobility by splitting their political, military, and economic power pretty hard, while breaking the bonds of feudal loyalty. The MC kind of mentioned this:

Put tax collection under officials answering to the central government alone, while permitting non-landowners enclosure of common land (so they're no longer paying rent to the local landlord for usage of the common land - but instead working it and paying taxes to the central state), and you break the nobility's economic power. (This is similar to what happened in England, although that partitioning had its own problems.)

Transition to a professional and meritocratic military, instead of one based on hereditary nobles leading their retinues of knights and what peasants they can muster, and you break the military power of the nobility. (Again, this is exactly what happened in many European countries, which is why the MC brings it up a bit. You also need that national tax money to pull it off.)

Those steps, which can generally only be accomplished by a very powerful absolutist monarch/emperor are necessary to set the stage for the third act of transitioning from a feudal system to a democracy or representative republic: breaking the nobility's political power by giving suffrage to non-nobles (and, if you want to be extreme about it, non-landowners).

Generally, this whole process happens over the span of hundreds of years and involves a lot of bloodshed, but the MC's idea that centralization is the next step in this particular situation is on the money.

 

[botodopo]

theres no such thing as one system that is perfect everywhere, it depends on the people and location. there's plenty of countries where democracy has failed in our own world.

 

[retsura]

centralization maybe look cool, but it literally mean forcing everyone to follow you and destroying noble society
...

 

[KamiKira00]

Why every isekai MC is so naive. I mean adults should have at least few decades of experience in LIVING?
Let king use me as much as he wants and I will help him with all I have free of charge. What kind of stupid mindset is that? especially when he knows that everyone in that village were abandoned, previous civilians were killed by nations voodoo masters. All of it just doesn't make ANY sense.

 

[adfjs]

@KamiKira00 You're only looking at what's in front of you. Being an adult also meant you should have some experience in thinking in the long term. On the surface, he looks like he's being used but you also need to consider the fact that he's getting personal connection with not only the king but his brother (not to mention the princess). A personal connection with a king is worth more than a thousand gold coins. Many nobles would kill each other to be at his position, discussing how to run a country with a king and his brother who actually listens to what you have to say. At worst, he'll be a royal guard with the other children having a stable job once their support from the Griffin is over in a country improved by himself and at best (and the most obvious turn of events), is that he would be a candidate to marry his daughter thus making him king later on.

 

[KamiKira00]

@adfjs I totally agree with you. The problem is, this manga is written as if MC is naive old man who is mentally a child. I would have no problem if manga put few sentences to show that MC is thinking about gaining something (connections, money, etc. ). Now there is nothing, if reader want's to add details to feel better, he can. But those details are not in this manga.

 

[adfjs]

@KamiKira00 I mean, it's basically implied. On top of that, the story isn't really moving that fast so putting several pages of monologue of something that is already been implied wouldn't be great for the pacing.

 

[dreddex1455]

Spearman Tetra sooo cute 😍

 

[SotiCoto]

Obviously the answer to this loyalty issue is not centralisation.

It is Xwedodah!

Simply put... king takes like.... 4 wives or something. Fucks them a lot. Loads of kids.
Marries his daughters off to his vassals. Sets spare sons up as new vassals or just... I dunno... sends them off to monastaries. Great stuff, right?

Then the next generation comes. Heirs take over. They're all cousins. The relations are a bit more distant...
BUT.... there is an easy solution to that: 2nd verse, same as the 1st.
King has a few wives (preferably the daughters of the vassals), makes loads of daughters of his own.... marries them off to the cousin-vassals.

Now... here comes the trick...
Somewhere along the line you want to make sure that the heir to the kingdom is also close to the top in line to inherit all the vassal titles.
Then you just conveniently and covertly prune the family tree of unwanted branches.... consolidate all the titles back under the crown...

Centralisation achieved.

Then you can set up viceduchies or something where the titles always revert back to the crown rather than being inherited.


@Vigo_to_Vigo : The whole thing about patents and trademarks.... no. Just no. I mean what it all comes down to is whether, when you invent something.... you're inventing to use it yourself.... or you're just inventing it to sell it.
If you're inventing something in order to make your own life easier, and for that matter to make the lives of others easier, then it is far better NOT to involve trademarks nor patents in the process... so as to ensure it not only spreads as quickly as possible, but opens up the possibility for others to improve on the design.
If you're looking to make easy money then sure... patent things. Punish people for copying them. Try to restrict the spread of information just to line your own pockets at the expense of others. But that is an arsehole-move.

 

[GravityTaxes]

inclosure was theft on a national scale and i'm disgusted to see it spoken of positively
might drop this manga if mc has any more shit takes up his sleeve

just finished the chapter and saw the centralisation bit
dropped

 

[musicfreak12]

Imagine being paid two horses and a feed BY THE KING for a literal world changing farming methods and tools, and STILL sees the king in positive lights.

The king even milk him by throwing his kingly job at him, literally sending spy to his village, and binding him with his daughter for marriage and relationship with the Griffin.

 

[Kaarme]

Hairy barbarian: "Japanese is so inefficient! Three separate writing systems, one of them with thousands of characters!"
Japanese nationalist: "Nonsense! It's highly efficient and very fast. One character can contain as much information as several long words in your languages."
Hairy barbarian: "Such as 'centralisation?'"
Japanese nationalist: "Excuse me, I'll need to perform sudoku."

 

[KusumFawn]

@soticoto
If patent law is established, which IP rights may have been in some form, there is a reason to patent which would be to keep another from claiming rights and ensuring that the base design is open to use. Having IP rights doesnt mean that it cannot be free to use.