Re: Feudal Technocracy

  FEUDAL TECHNOCRACY AND JAPANESE TERMS (and firms!)


Hans Ranke [email removed] writes:

[David Johnson, I think...]
>>In this sense, if there is a `king' he has gained monopoly control of the
>>entire economic sytem.  This is why US industry fears the Japanese
>>*kieritsu* so much.  They are concerned that their coordinated activity
>>gives Japanese industry a competitive advantage.

As for US industry, part of the problem is the Japanese are much better
about long-term planning than we have been.  US companies seem to think
of next-quarter's profits.  Japanese firms try to think of next decade's.
Then, there's other cultural barriers...but that's off on a tangent.

>It sound like the *kieritsu* is merely capitalism without anti-trust laws.

No, not really.  The Japanese *do* have anti-trust laws -- the US
helped write some of them in the late forties.  They're run by that
boogeyman of the US, MITI (Ministry of Int'l Trade and Industry),
I believe.  And please be careful about the differences between
keiretsu and zaibatsu -- they are like apples and oranges (to use a
cliche).  They're both fruit.  They're both more-or-less round.  They
are not the same thing.

Let me try explaining the difference again in a *very* rough and at
least partly inaccurate way.  Zaibatsu were focused, vaguely feudal
cartels which, while not monopolies, occasionally were able to form
oligopolies in certain fields.  Keiretsu are loose, informal associations
which are in a sense networks of informal corporate "connections"
that can work together to overcome problems.  Members of a keiretsu
aren't tied together in the way the zaibatsu were.  The part that makes
either of these look "feudal" to Westerners has a lot to do with, among
other things, the associated lifetime employment traditional in Japan.

Let's look at the Traveller terms again:

"Feudal Technocracy.  Government by specific individuals for those
 who agree to be ruled.  Relationships are based on the performance
 of technical activities which are mutually beneficial."

The first sentence is the "feudal" part.  The second sentence is the
"technocracy" part.  (Roughly.)

Note both what this says and doesn't say.  Government "for those who
agree to be ruled".  The zaibatsu concept works for this; you can
choose who you work for. Maybe they aren't interested in what you
can offer.  Maybe you aren't interested in what they offer.  So then
you both pick someone else.  Once you choose, it's expected that you
have chosen for life.  In return, you have a place for life.
The organization won't desert you, and you won't desert it.  This
whole thing is a lot like the freemen --> vassal process worked in
the middle ages.  Those relationships were based on mutual
protection, so the equivalence isn't quite total.  Whether or not
these relationships are hereditary isn't specified.  Neither is
societal inflexibility.  Such a system might be constructed in which
it is possible to start at the bottom and be gradually promoted into
a position of power, perhaps even one of the "specific individuals"
that help to run the whole system, by being at the top of their
particular feudal chain.

Another quote on early zaibatsu, same source as yesterday (p. 297):

"The ownership of large family enterprises remained in the hands of
 the original family, but management was gradually transferred to
 head clerks, who stayed with the company for life.  In fact, the
 whole business firm was a sort of extended family, with a strong
 sense of mutual loyalty between employees and employers...."

Kind of a cross between the two.  And more extreme systems either
way can easily be imagined.  And companies don't even need to be
part of it -- that isn't specified either!  There are many ways
to develop a government by specific individuals by those who
agree to be ruled, based on whatever.


  ASLAN AND FEUDALISM

Another system to look at in Traveller while considering this is
the Aslan Hierate's clan system, which culminates in the Tlaukhu,
the council of the Twenty-Nine.  While not a feudal technocracy, it
is a fairly feudal system.  The fteirle have no king.  But one is
properly respectful to the Yerlyaruiwoko!  Some clans are considered
"more important" than others in stature, but there is no true central
authority.  There's other cultural stuff going on here too, so
be careful.  But you don't even *need* a single leader over everyone,
if you have another stable solution -- like a lot of little leaders
that don't go for each other's throats.

  OTHER RELATED GOVERNMENT TYPES

"Company/Corporation.  Government by a company managerial elite;
 citizens are company employees."

Note that this seems to imply one company in control.  Which makes
sense -- this government type is most often seen with small population
codes, so it works well for isolated mines, facilites, and so forth.
This covers everything from a SuSAG psi-drug facility on an otherwise
uninhabited world, to "The Chartered Zarathustra Company" which is
in charge of the resources and colonization of Zarathustra.

Now, if you have a collection of companies which own or control bits
of the planet, perhaps a better code would be:

"Balkanization.  No central ruling authority exists; rival governments
 compete for control."

And in fact, most of the government types can be twisted in a way
that allow companies to be used, if you twist the company enough too.
That's the beauty of Traveller government types; they are flexible.
A lot of the codes in the UWP are like this.  The idea of the UWP is
to have a system in which you can generate a sample world in ten
minutes and then be able to take it and develop it massively in many
different possible directions.  Without a system in the game like
the UWP, we'd never be able to develop entire sectors in a way that
was at all realistic in a reasonable amount of time.


  Steve Bonneville
  [email removed]