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> It is so robust it outlasted the centralized government of Somalia and democracy, and even outperformed it. This is a pretty rose-colored way of putting it.

> It is so robust it outlasted the centralized government of Somalia and democracy, and even outperformed it. This is a pretty rose-colored way of putting it. Put another way: Somali society has a long and deep history of decentralized clan-based organization which, for better or worse, was deep-rooted enough that replacement with a centralized democratic government failed. The system you describe didn't merely survive the failure of centralization, it was one of the existing Somali institutions that resisted centralization and won out in the end. Which depending on one's perspective on Somalia's current state could make it deeply problematic as a local maximum that makes the current status quo unassailable.

colechristensen 1y ago
shrug clans are small states (or whatever label you want to put on the organization that starts with small family tribes and scales to multi-continent empires), that kind of society organization was more or less everywhere in the history of every human society. There is a tendency everywhere towards larger, more complex states and a path up and down the scale locally as the bigger ones are created and fall.
- demosthanos 1y ago
  > clans are small states Nope, clans are definitionally not states for several reasons. A state has definite territory, whereas clan-type structures have tended to overlap with each other geographically because they're usually embedded in some larger society. A state by definition has centralized authority whereas clans may not. > or whatever label you want to put on the organization that starts with small family tribes and scales to multi-continent empires There is no such label because these organizations are not just shades on the same theme at different sizes, they're fundamentally different in character. > that kind of society organization was more or less everywhere in the history of every human society True, but there are wide variances in how long in the past that form of organization was dominant. You won't see Egypt reverting to decentralized non-state clan-oriented governance any time soon because they've been ruled by one state or another for 5000 years.
MangoToupe 1y ago
Why do you consider this problematic? Especially if a "centralized democracy" undermines the social structures that are known to work
- demosthanos 1y ago
  This is what I said: > Which depending on one's perspective on Somalia's current state could make it deeply problematic It's pretty hard to look at Somalia's current state and say that their current social structures are "known to work" by essentially any metric.
  - ty6853 1y ago
    [flagged]
    - nullc 1y ago
      An interesting demonstration of relativism is that we might use the same phrase, say "brutally killed", to describe a players dominance in a friendly game of monopoly as we would for a Somali warlord firing a round through the head of a rival. But, strangely, they are not the same thing at all.
      - demosthanos 1y ago
        Exactly. Also, OP pointedly avoided addressing the fact that the existing Somali institutions are responsible for the fact that their "democracy" devolved into warlords brutally shooting each other. OP is saying that the old system is clearly better because when they tried the new system the old system fought back and killed people, so they shouldn't have tried to replace the old system in the first place. It's democracy's fault that Somali warlords had to be brutal to keep democracy from working. Everyone would have been better off if they had just continued to put up with the warlords' old way of working. This logic isn't comparable to the logic of Western democracies, it's comparable to the logic of criminal mobs everywhere. Play along and no one has to get hurt.

colechristensen 1y ago

shrug clans are small states (or whatever label you want to put on the organization that starts with small family tribes and scales to multi-continent empires), that kind of society organization was more or less everywhere in the history of every human society. There is a tendency everywhere towards larger, more complex states and a path up and down the scale locally as the bigger ones are created and fall.

demosthanos 1y ago
> clans are small states Nope, clans are definitionally not states for several reasons. A state has definite territory, whereas clan-type structures have tended to overlap with each other geographically because they're usually embedded in some larger society. A state by definition has centralized authority whereas clans may not. > or whatever label you want to put on the organization that starts with small family tribes and scales to multi-continent empires There is no such label because these organizations are not just shades on the same theme at different sizes, they're fundamentally different in character. > that kind of society organization was more or less everywhere in the history of every human society True, but there are wide variances in how long in the past that form of organization was dominant. You won't see Egypt reverting to decentralized non-state clan-oriented governance any time soon because they've been ruled by one state or another for 5000 years.

MangoToupe 1y ago

Why do you consider this problematic? Especially if a "centralized democracy" undermines the social structures that are known to work

demosthanos 1y ago
This is what I said: > Which depending on one's perspective on Somalia's current state could make it deeply problematic It's pretty hard to look at Somalia's current state and say that their current social structures are "known to work" by essentially any metric.
- ty6853 1y ago
  [flagged]
  - nullc 1y ago
    An interesting demonstration of relativism is that we might use the same phrase, say "brutally killed", to describe a players dominance in a friendly game of monopoly as we would for a Somali warlord firing a round through the head of a rival. But, strangely, they are not the same thing at all.
    - demosthanos 1y ago
      Exactly. Also, OP pointedly avoided addressing the fact that the existing Somali institutions are responsible for the fact that their "democracy" devolved into warlords brutally shooting each other. OP is saying that the old system is clearly better because when they tried the new system the old system fought back and killed people, so they shouldn't have tried to replace the old system in the first place. It's democracy's fault that Somali warlords had to be brutal to keep democracy from working. Everyone would have been better off if they had just continued to put up with the warlords' old way of working. This logic isn't comparable to the logic of Western democracies, it's comparable to the logic of criminal mobs everywhere. Play along and no one has to get hurt.