What kind of Government System would you like to see in Civ 7

[Leyrann]

Nope, feudalism is not a form of anarchy

I fully agree.

it still has a centralised state, just a weak one.

No, it does not. Feudalism has a strongly decentralized state.

I don't know how you could look at a society that can have a literal king and say that there is no state there.

I am not saying that. You are.

A centralized state is one where power is centralized (hence the term) in one location - an absolute monarch, a central government, you get the idea. A decentralized state, conversely, is one where power is decentralized (again, hence the term) and any possible nominal ruler has to take into account the wishes of those who are officially their underlings. Feudalism is the textbook example of this.

Anarchy is neither a centralized nor a decentralized state. It is the lack of any state at all.

I'm struggling to imagine that you're actually interested in this topic of conversation in good faith given your antics in response to an extremely simple request to change a single word (would you react the same way if the game used the colloquial, propagandised and informal definition for any other political ideology?), but I'll give it a shot.

I was loathe to bring it up myself because accusing someone of not arguing in good faith rarely leads to a productive continuation of the discussion, but I'm not having an easy time seeing you (and the other guy, who brought up the topic first) arguing in good faith either.

"My antics" are literally limited to using the official definition of a word to back up my argument that the word is applied correctly. I don't see what's weird about that.

As for why I have a hard time taking your argument in good faith, we'll get to that in my next bit of response; I'd prefer to only say things once.

I will guarantee you that I have no intention to troll or offend anyone, at any point.

Dictionaries are a terrible source for this; if we're discussing historians and experts, they're not consulting Dictionary.com for their definition of political philosophies.

No. They're not. Rather, Dictionary.com (and all other dictionaries) are consulting them for the definition they put in their dictionaries. The dictionaries observe the usage of the terms, both colloquially and in literature, and define them based on that. Not on some arbitrary standard of "we think it should mean this".

To put it into terms more directly applicable to the topic at hand: The purpose of dictionaries is not to define words. The purpose of dictionaries is to provide the commonly agreed definition of a word. When I quote the dictionary, it's not because I'm saying "this is how it should be defined". It's because I'm saying "this is how most people define the term". And yes, that does include most experts; dictionaries will provide increased weight to the definition used among experts in the case of jargon, or at the very least provide separate definitions with clarification that experts may mean something different than the average person.

If we want to discuss the position of historians and experts, lets consult academic articles written by those experts. If you feel strongly about dictionaries, however, the 'regular one' you refer to when you're discussing Oxford Learner's Dictionary has the following two definitions:
[snipped by quote]
The second of which neatly refers to the concept we're discussing of a governance body without hierarchy - a stateless society that nonetheless is focused on cooperation, but voluntarily and not by force.

It does. But at the same time, the first definition aligns with usage in Civilization. That would simply make it a word with two meanings, one of which does apply, one of which does not. We've got oodles of words like that.

The rest of your post is very much a single topic, which I won't quote in it's entirety for length. I'll quote a few specific bits, but I very much mean to address the entire thing, including that which I don't quote.

Secondly, it definitionally cannot be true; anarchism is the political ideology that advocates for anarchism, it is nonsensical to say that "the vast majority of people who call themselves anarchists don't actually want anarchy".

The issue with this is in these quotes:

It's not that there is no order; it's not there there is no governing happening, it's that there is no hierarchical government - the governing that is happening is done by and for the people who live in that area.

Anarchism is an ideology interested in the removal of the state, and not an ideology dedicated to removing any semblence of order, shared obligations towards the community, or other things represented in both Civilization and the way you're using the term.

Despite this broadening of the term, the fundamental principle of the concept is the same - it is an ideology that pushes for a world without hierarchies, where people work together voluntarily to look after all.

If the governing is done by and for the people who live in the area... then governing is being done. Very low-level, yes, but there is governance. Similarly, if you have obligations towards the community, then these are effectively like unwritten laws (no matter how sensible and natural they are!), which are a form of government. Even if it's not official.

It's incredibly low level, and on a more subjective level I certainly understand the draw of it (although I'm too cynical of a person to belief it would work), but it's not completely without government. A group of respected elders taking care of complicated matters (which will arise in any community) to the complete satisfaction of the members of their community is still a form of government, no matter how light.

This is why, if you ask me, anarchism and a society based on an anarchist philosophy are not the same thing as a society in anarchy. Anarchism is a goal, whereas anarchy is a transition. Anarchism can be orderly, anarchy cannot.

Taking Civ 2 as an example for simplicity's sake (the actual game doesn't matter, as it's the terminology we're discussing), we've got various forms of government. Monarchy, Republic, Democracy, Communist, et cetera. When you're transitioning from one of these to another, you've got a period of 'anarchy'. Had this term instead been 'Anarchist', as if it were a government, I would have agreed with you that the term is incorrect. But it's not. Anarchy in Civilization is not a way to set things up, it's a passing phase.

So, to summarize a very long post:
-Anarchism is a political ideology that wishes to order society in a particular manner; this manner is often called anarchy, in my personal opinion erroneously.
-A chaotic and disordered society in a state of social upheaval and changing government is often said to be 'in anarchy'.
-Independent of your or my personal views, anarchy is a term used for both these things.
-Civilization exclusively uses 'anarchy' to refer to the second. This is valid usage of the term, even if it can also be interpreted differently.

EDIT: Oh, as for your comment on Wikipedia, here's what it has to say on anarchy: "Anarchy is a form of society without rulers. As a kind of stateless society, it is commonly contrasted with states, which are centralised polities that claim a monopoly on violence over a permanent territory. Beyond a lack of government, it can more precisely refer to societies that lack any form of authority or hierarchy."

As you can see, this also supports the argument that there are two ways to interpret the term anarchy, one of which aligns with the usage in the games.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

For those that don't want to use the term anarchy to represent civs without a system of government, do you have any alternative names in mind instead of just saying it shouldn't be used?

 

[Xur]

For those that don't want to use the term anarchy to represent civs without a system of government, do you have any alternative names in mind instead of just saying it shouldn't be used?

I think you missed his point. As I read it; civ games use anarchy/anarchism as North Korea uses democracy. It’s there in name, but not in function. So asking him for another name is a bit silly.

Having said that, I don’t really see a problem with a wrong or simplified government form that is so niche. Are there even any examples with anarchism in real life or is it just theoritical? I couldn’t even see anarchism work if it was just my small home town.

Maybe I misunderstood something… but just my imidiate thoughts.

 

[Leyrann]

Having said that, I don’t really see a problem with a wrong or simplified government form that is so niche. Are there even any examples with anarchism in real life or is it just theoritical? I couldn’t even see anarchism work if it was just my small home town.

Maybe I misunderstood something… but just my imidiate thoughts.

Anarchism (at least, as I understand it from the discussion we've been having) is an unrealistic utopia much like communism. If it actually worked it'd be great, but sadly you can only trust somewhere between 90% and 99% of humans (depending on who you ask), and that last 1-10% ruins things. Any system that has a hope of working in reality requires checks and balances to deal with them, and those aren't in place in anarchism or communism. Elected positions of power are one of the simplest and most useful examples of such a check - if people don't like what you're doing, you don't keep your position (and because I know someone's going to come in otherwise - yes, there are forms of communism that do include elections, but those have never been implemented in a society that decided to try communism, I wonder why?).

In the case of anarchism, moreso than with communism, there is also the issue that almost certainly, a mafia organization of some sort will form, which will then start to provide legitimacy for itself by taking on certain public work projects (while also using that as justification to increase the costs of it's taxes, erm, protection rackets), until eventually it turns into a de facto government that has no boundaries to it's power (and thus it's abuse of it's subjects).

The absence of a government is a power vacuum, and vacuums want to be filled. And if 99% of people say 'keep it empty'? That last 1% will fill it.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

I am by no means an expert on government/governing systems, even less specifically on Anarchy, except to note that Anarchism became an important movement/viewpoint in two cases in recent history: 19th century Russia and Spain during the Civil War in the 1930s. In both cases the growth of the movement seems to have been as a response to utterly unacceptable political/social situations: the absolute monarchy of Imperial Russia and the church/government axis in Spain that showed no signs of meeting any of the problems the people were experiencing. In both cases, the Anarchists had no chance to actually run things, but spent their time trying to destroy what they could of the established heirarchial order: assassinations and what by modern standards would be Terrorist actions in Russia, extreme actions against monarchists and the church in Spain. And in both cases, the end result was the same: the Anarchists couldn't come to any power in Russia when the 'old regime' collapsed in the face of an organized, centrally directed group (Bolsheviks), while in Spain after Franco took over they were systematically hunted down and exterminated.

Pure Anarchism, as has been noted, is a Theoretical concept only: people in large groups simply cannot accomplish anything without some kind of direction, even if only collaborative rather than Imposed. A case has been made, in fact, that many early polities were collaborative rather than centrally directed, and some of those are within Historical memory: most of the North American native cultures had societies that were far more collaborative than Centrally Directed: the Haudenossenee with their men's and women's Councils that decided direction for the society by unanimous decisions are a good example, because to reach those decisions required collaborative consensus amongst all concerned. A Leader for a War Party might have complete authority within the War Party and during the military operation, but had no institutional authority otherwise. That was, apparently, equally true in western North America and confused the US government frequently: the fact that Red Cloud was a great war chief of the Souix did NOT mean he could tell everybody to go onto a reservation and they would pay any attention to him: his only authority in that case was Charismatic, not Institutional.

In game terms, then, Anarchy is meaningless: it is NOT a form of government, just a reaction to forms of Unacceptable government. Historically, the nearest equivalent is the collaborative governance evident in several historical and archeologically-revealed societies. For example, as at Catal Huyok (for a well-known example) when you find a city in which every private home is the same size and there are no 'monumental' central buildings of any kind, you can be pretty certain that society had nothing resembling a Heirarchy or King: nobody was institutionally in charge, and decisions were arrived at consensually.

The trick is how to model that kind of governing mechanic in the game with its peculiarities while making it at least as playable for victory as the more commonly modeled Central State with King, Wanax, Basileus, Supreme Soviet, etc

 

[The_goggles_do_nothing]

For those that don't want to use the term anarchy to represent civs without a system of government, do you have any alternative names in mind instead of just saying it shouldn't be used?

The time between switching governments could be called revolution, or revolutionary , or a revolution is going on, or something like that. In civ after all your government still exists (the leader) but the form of government is changing. I'm not against using the term Anarchy but if a more accurate term is available why not use it.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

The time between switching governments could be called revolution, or revolutionary , or a revolution is going on, or something like that. In civ after all your government still exists (the leader) but the form of government is changing. I'm not against using the term Anarchy but if a more accurate term is available why not use it.

It's not necessarily more accurate though to call it a revolution either. Especially if you as the leader are the one creating a revolutionary government.

 

[Arent11]

For those that don't want to use the term anarchy to represent civs without a system of government, do you have any alternative names in mind instead of just saying it shouldn't be used?

Alpha Centauri uses "Frontier" as the most primitive form of government & the "absence" of more complex forms. Other games had something like "tribal".

That being said, I'm perfectly fine with the term "anarchy" for a civil war/broken down government. I don't get why this needs to be changed.

 

[Prester John 2]

As of now, the choice to change government is pretty arbitrary. I do it because I want to have more options (to slot in civics) whereas in history it was forced by the populace or certain revolutionary groups. I'd like to see in Civ7 more pressure (from unhappiness, bad economy etc.) that compel me to change my government. I should still be able to retain my older government, but at considerable costs (mutinies of army segments, unhappiness, looting etc.) and I should be able to choose between different systems of governments.

 

[Arcaian]

For those that don't want to use the term anarchy to represent civs without a system of government, do you have any alternative names in mind instead of just saying it shouldn't be used?

If the idea is to represent what the term 'anarchy' typically has in Civ so far, which is to say a period of time in which significant change in society leads to that society having significant conflict and an inability to productively work towards goals, I think something like 'turmoil', 'disorder', or 'chaos' would all communicate the concept just as easily without needing to use anarchy

 

[Leyrann]

If the idea is to represent what the term 'anarchy' typically has in Civ so far, which is to say a period of time in which significant change in society leads to that society having significant conflict and an inability to productively work towards goals, I think something like 'turmoil', 'disorder', or 'chaos' would all communicate the concept just as easily without needing to use anarchy

So are you then contesting that 'anarchy' can be a valid term to use for 'disorder/chaos in governing'? Because if it is a valid term, then it's simply a more specific term for the same concept, and specificity is always a plus if it doesn't lead to inaccuracies.

Mind, as I argued yesterday, that this doesn't mean anarchy only means that - words can have more than one meaning.

 

[Arent11]

So are you then contesting that 'anarchy' can be a valid term to use for 'disorder/chaos in governing'? Because if it is a valid term, then it's simply a more specific term for the same concept, and specificity is always a plus if it doesn't lead to inaccuracies.

Mind, as I argued yesterday, that this doesn't mean anarchy only means that - words can have more than one meaning.

If the idea is to represent what the term 'anarchy' typically has in Civ so far, which is to say a period of time in which significant change in society leads to that society having significant conflict and an inability to productively work towards goals, I think something like 'turmoil', 'disorder', or 'chaos' would all communicate the concept just as easily without needing to use anarchy

Why exactly is the term anarchy a problem? AFAIK already Plato/Greeks used it for a state of lawlessness/mob rule.

 

[Arcaian]

So are you then contesting that 'anarchy' can be a valid term to use for 'disorder/chaos in governing'? Because if it is a valid term, then it's simply a more specific term for the same concept, and specificity is always a plus if it doesn't lead to inaccuracies.

Mind, as I argued yesterday, that this doesn't mean anarchy only means that - words can have more than one meaning.

Why exactly is the term anarchy a problem? AFAIK already Plato/Greeks used it for a state of lawlessness/mob rule.

I have to admit, this is phrased as a 'gotcha' question, but I truly don't understand why it would be. My perspective has consistently been from the start that 'anarchy' is used in the way that Civ uses it, but it's also used as a legitimate political ideology, and it's frustrating for it to be used in the 'unconstrained chaos and lack of any functioning existence' way because that definition is used as a way to disparage the political ideology. In my very first post on the matter, I state that the political ideology definition is in addition to the Civ definition, and not an exclusive definition. I acknowledge it's a widespread usage of the term. Obviously anarchy is a valid term for disorder, because it's a very widespread usage of the term, and that in and of itself validates that meaning of the word; that doesn't mean it's the one we should pick.To reference my original post, I've bolded the relevant bits for my point here:

The term is also very much used, both historically and by experts today, to mean a lack of a centralised state - this isn't the same thing as no functional governmental structure. This isn't some new thing either, anarchists have been referred to as such for hundreds of years. There's a widespread assumption that the only way to have a structure that directs the governance of a region is through the use of a state, but that simply isn't true. Regions containing millions of people have been administered through non-state structures, and I do find it frustrating that Civ uses the same term that is used (historically and today) to refer to the governance of these regions for a game mechanic representing chaos and non-functional governance. That's especially true for me because they're using it to describe the political organisation of a region, and not just the general usage people have of soemthing like "the office was so unorganised that it was practically anarchy". That being said, it is a frustratingly widespread usage of the term - it's not like Civ is unique in this way. I'd appreciate it if they changed it - it would be very trivial to replace anarchy here with something like chaos - but I don't expect they will.

In terms of your reply to my post yesterday Leyrann, I think partially there is a different set of definitions being used (when I say decentralized, that's on a scale of 0-100, with 0 being no state, and 100 being a fully controlled autocracy, and anything above a 0 is a degree of centralisation), and partially a disagreement about the nature of anarchy. I don't disagree that there's governance in anarchism, but I disagree with the idea that this would be incompatible with anarchy - anarchy, to me, is the concept of there being no hierarchy, and no rulers. Governance that is voluntarily entered into and where no-one has power over anyone else doesn't contradict that idea. I'm keeping this short because when it comes to your summary of your post:

So, to summarize a very long post:
-Anarchism is a political ideology that wishes to order society in a particular manner; this manner is often called anarchy, in my personal opinion erroneously.
-A chaotic and disordered society in a state of social upheaval and changing government is often said to be 'in anarchy'.
-Independent of your or my personal views, anarchy is a term used for both these things.
-Civilization exclusively uses 'anarchy' to refer to the second. This is valid usage of the term, even if it can also be interpreted differently.

The only bit I disagree with is the 'in my personal opinion erroneously', which I think we both agree isn't the important part of this discussion - we can have different opinions on anarchy, that's not a meaningful issue here. I agree with your conclusion that Civ uses anarchy to refer to the second, and that the second is an widespread usage of the term. The reason I would want it changed is because that second usage (in a modern context, I don't have any feelings about the ancient Greek usage of the term) is used to disparage the political ideology. From my perspective, it would be like is the word 'liberal' was used in Civ exclusively as a way to describe a society that is trying to balance democracy + equal rights with a capitalist free market and failing to do so spectacularly, leading to an increasing polarized society and an increasingly authoritarian state. This is not an inaccurate usage of the word liberal; it quite precisely is using one of the two textbook definitions of the term, and it is using it in a way that is pretty widespread among the left (at least the further-left-than-liberals) and the right (though I've probably framed that in a more leftist way, it'd be a minor tweak to present it as a right-wing perspective). However, it is exclusively using the term in a way that is directly attacking the political ideology - I imagine most people who identify with the term 'liberal' would be frustrated if you adopted the Equal Rights, Democracy, and Free Market policies and the game then said "you're going into a state of liberalism that leaves your Civ unable to take meaningful actions for the next 5 turns as the rise of authoritarianism needs to occur to get you back to a state that can actually function". It wouldn't be an inaccurate use of the term, but it would be a frustrating presentation of the concept; that's how anarchy in Civ has historically felt to me. I don't expect a change to be honest (I understand that anarchism is still a niche political ideology to hold, and not well known or understood), and I certainly think it would be unreasonable to ask for a meaningful change to the gameplay here, which would be much more effort than it would be worth for a change to placate a niche audience. That's why my position is to change 'your civ has entered a period of anarchy' to 'your civ has entered a period of turmoil/disorder/unrest'.

 

[luca 83]

The problem is not only the form of government but its establishment and 1 the form a of government is chosen by a group of people religious, priests landowners, military, then bourgeois citizens, then the forms of the fascism2 the leaders are a contradiction and to the different ideologies, and to the management of the revolution 3 each faction should have demands expectations, to be met, the working class has demands in opposition to capitalism ,

 

[Arcaian]

The problem is not only the form of government but its establishment and 1 the form a of government is chosen by a group of people religious, priests landowners, military, then bourgeois citizens, then the forms of the fascism2 the leaders are a contradiction and to the different ideologies, and to the management of the revolution 3 each faction should have demands expectations, to be met, the working class has demands in opposition to capitalism ,

Can you please, please write out something that actually describes game mechanics you'd want. You've come back to these sorts of nebulous ideas SO many times, and I still have literally no clue what sort of game mechanics you're interested in here. Just a single paragraph with a very broad summary of what these mechanics would look like is needed for your suggestions - from what I can piece together, they seem far too specific to our history to implement in a Civ game, but I don't honestly know if I've just misunderstood your entire set of suggestions.

 

[Arent11]

I have to admit, this is phrased as a 'gotcha' question, but I truly don't understand why it would be. My perspective has consistently been from the start that 'anarchy' is used in the way that Civ uses it, but it's also used as a legitimate political ideology, and it's frustrating for it to be used in the 'unconstrained chaos and lack of any functioning existence' way because that definition is used as a way to disparage the political ideology. In my very first post on the matter, I state that the political ideology definition is in addition to the Civ definition, and not an exclusive definition. I acknowledge it's a widespread usage of the term. Obviously anarchy is a valid term for disorder, because it's a very widespread usage of the term, and that in and of itself validates that meaning of the word; that doesn't mean it's the one we should pick.To reference my original post, I've bolded the relevant bits for my point here:

In terms of your reply to my post yesterday Leyrann, I think partially there is a different set of definitions being used (when I say decentralized, that's on a scale of 0-100, with 0 being no state, and 100 being a fully controlled autocracy, and anything above a 0 is a degree of centralisation), and partially a disagreement about the nature of anarchy. I don't disagree that there's governance in anarchism, but I disagree with the idea that this would be incompatible with anarchy - anarchy, to me, is the concept of there being no hierarchy, and no rulers. Governance that is voluntarily entered into and where no-one has power over anyone else doesn't contradict that idea. I'm keeping this short because when it comes to your summary of your post:

But then just call it "non-hierarchical" or "decentralized"? Maybe confederacy/republic vs. centralized monarchy/dictatorship. Using the term "anarchy" for a state that does, in fact, have established hierarchy and iron fisted rulers - just only local, decentral "lords" or something - is confusing.

In fact, even the absolute "nature state" or "anarchy" would immediately have gangs, mafia and warlords that simply take whatever they want. Even in that case, there would be "rulers" and "oppressed", in fact arguably worse than in many states where such a rule is legitimized by elections or succession or some other peaceful manner.

 

[Leyrann]

I have to admit, this is phrased as a 'gotcha' question, but I truly don't understand why it would be. My perspective has consistently been from the start that 'anarchy' is used in the way that Civ uses it, but it's also used as a legitimate political ideology, and it's frustrating for it to be used in the 'unconstrained chaos and lack of any functioning existence' way because that definition is used as a way to disparage the political ideology.

That definition predates the political ideology.

From etymonline:

1530s, "absence of government", from French anarchie or directly from Medieval Latin anarchia, from Greek anarkhia "lack of a leader, the state of people without a government" (in Athens, used of the Year of Thirty Tyrants, 404 B.C., when there was no archon)

[...]

From 1660s as "confusion or absence of authority in general"; by 1849 in reference to the social theory advocating "order without power". with associations and co-operatives taking the place of direct government, as formulated in the 1830s by French political philosopher Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (1809-1865).

(note: fixed the wrong ordering of punctuation in the source for my quote)

As you can see, anarchy for a state of chaos predates the political ideology by three centuries. And that's without counting usage in Ancient Greek.

The reason I would want it changed is because that second usage (in a modern context, I don't have any feelings about the ancient Greek usage of the term) is used to disparage the political ideology.

So yeah - no it's not. The people that you claim are "disparaging" the political ideology are simply using the original definition, meanwhile those who proposed/supported the political ideology are the ones trying to push a new meaning. You cannot force a change in the meaning of a word. In the case of anarchy, the meaning simply has not changed, except to those who associate with the ideology of anarchism. Which is a small minority and thus not representative of the whole.

 

[Arcaian]

That definition predates the political ideology.

I fail to see why that is of any importance; the definition of 'liberal' was originally related to a position that combined free markets, individual liberties, and democracy. The most common usage of the term today is generally being left-wing and open-minded, both as an insult and as an identity. If someone said you had to use the first in Civ because it predates the second, no-one would give that perspective the time of day. I have never said that anarchy being used as a synonym for chaos is not the older term, nor that it's somehow incorrect, or tried to force a change in the meaning of the word, despite your seeming insistence on me having done so. Since the start, I have been clear; it's a relatively minor detail, but it's an incredibly easy change, so why not do it? I acknowledge the only people it would meaningfully impact is those who have looked into the ideas of anarchism, which is a limited set, but it's the most incredibly simple change that one could imagine.

Disparaging was likely too strong of a term, but (as my quotes above referenced) the use of anarchy in reference to a state of turmoil is a common method of dismissal of the ideology of anarchism. Continuing to associate the two in a political context is a bugbear for me, because there are many useful alternatives to 'anarchy' meaning turmoil, but very few alternatives to 'anarchy' meaning 'a self-organized polity without hierarchy'; the other terms used for it, such as libertarian, have primarily been completely replaced with alternative meanings in a modern-day context. Many people will use the term anarchy to mean turmoil without any context of that - again, I am aware that those who have a peripheral knowledge of anarchism are a small minority of all people - but in a series like Civ, which is mostly consistent in not using the terms of other ideologies in a way that could be confusing, I'd like the same for anarchism. Again, I think people would be frustrated if technically-accurate definitions of liberal, or capitalism, or communism, or facism, were used in Civ, especially in a way that directly ties into the most common ways people misunderstand/criticise those ideologies. If you were a merchant republic and wanted to change to become communist and the game said "you'll have to go through a period of free-market capitalism for 3 turns where private ownership controls profit, and your civ is unable to make decisions about what buildings are constructed, units recruited, or research done" people would be frustrated. That is not an inaccurate definition of capitalism, but it directly validates the criticisms of capitalism, and it does so in a way that would be considered unacceptable to just about everyone on this forum, I imagine.

Using "anarchy" to mean turmoil is not using the word in a way that it is not used frequently in modern-day English, and is a valid usage of the term, but using it in a political context to validate the most common criticisms of the ideology of the same term is something we avoid with functionally all other ideologies in Civ, and I would like that to be extended to anarchism, given the very minor difficulty in making the change. I imagine you could open up the full source for the game, run %s/anarchy/turmoil/ge across the files, and you'd probably be close to done without any meaningful impact on the game

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

I fail to see why that is of any importance; the definition of 'liberal' was originally related to a position that combined free markets, individual liberties, and democracy. The most common usage of the term today is generally being left-wing and open-minded, both as an insult and as an identity. If someone said you had to use the first in Civ because it predates the second, no-one would give that perspective the time of day. I have never said that anarchy being used as a synonym for chaos is not the older term, nor that it's somehow incorrect, or tried to force a change in the meaning of the word, despite your seeming insistence on me having done so. Since the start, I have been clear; it's a relatively minor detail, but it's an incredibly easy change, so why not do it? I acknowledge the only people it would meaningfully impact is those who have looked into the ideas of anarchism, which is a limited set, but it's the most incredibly simple change that one could imagine.

Disparaging was likely too strong of a term, but (as my quotes above referenced) the use of anarchy in reference to a state of turmoil is a common method of dismissal of the ideology of anarchism. Continuing to associate the two in a political context is a bugbear for me, because there are many useful alternatives to 'anarchy' meaning turmoil, but very few alternatives to 'anarchy' meaning 'a self-organized polity without hierarchy'; the other terms used for it, such as libertarian, have primarily been completely replaced with alternative meanings in a modern-day context. Many people will use the term anarchy to mean turmoil without any context of that - again, I am aware that those who have a peripheral knowledge of anarchism are a small minority of all people - but in a series like Civ, which is mostly consistent in not using the terms of other ideologies in a way that could be confusing, I'd like the same for anarchism. Again, I think people would be frustrated if technically-accurate definitions of liberal, or capitalism, or communism, or facism, were used in Civ, especially in a way that directly ties into the most common ways people misunderstand/criticise those ideologies. If you were a merchant republic and wanted to change to become communist and the game said "you'll have to go through a period of free-market capitalism for 3 turns where private ownership controls profit, and your civ is unable to make decisions about what buildings are constructed, units recruited, or research done" people would be frustrated. That is not an inaccurate definition of capitalism, but it directly validates the criticisms of capitalism, and it does so in a way that would be considered unacceptable to just about everyone on this forum, I imagine.

Using "anarchy" to mean turmoil is not using the word in a way that it is not used frequently in modern-day English, and is a valid usage of the term, but using it in a political context to validate the most common criticisms of the ideology of the same term is something we avoid with functionally all other ideologies in Civ, and I would like that to be extended to anarchism, given the very minor difficulty in making the change. I imagine you could open up the full source for the game, run %s/anarchy/turmoil/ge across the files, and you'd probably be close to done without any meaningful impact on the game

Maybe the best way to go about it would be to have the two be separate components in a game?
Anarchy could be a civilization with no government in place, starting from the beginning of the game, while Anarchism could be a modern ideology choice?

 

[Arcaian]

But then just call it "non-hierarchical" or "decentralized"? Maybe confederacy/republic vs. centralized monarchy/dictatorship. Using the term "anarchy" for a state that does, in fact, have established hierarchy and iron fisted rulers - just only local, decentral "lords" or something - is confusing.

I think I must have miscommunicated something on the first point; I would not call a state that has a hierarchy or rulers anarchistic, that would be deeply confusing, I agree. In the context of the literature I have read on the topic of anarchism, some will refer to any state with a degree of centralisation as centralised, and use decentralised to refer only to a fully decentralized state - feudalism has a central state to which the nobles have a reciprocal agreement with to exchange goods and troops in exchange for ruling the land. I'd refer to the resultant state as lightly centralised, because it does have some degree of centralisation, which is the context in which I defined anarchism as the lack of a centralized state (it is decentralized - it has no centralization at all), which would exclude feudalism in this definition. It's the sort of definition that only really comes up with people who are quibbling around the exact definition of state, which is not very useful for this discussion - especially as most people will use 'decentralized' to refer to a state that is lightly centralized, as Leyrann pointed out. I've changed to instead using the more common definition of an anarchist society being fully stateless, as anarchist differences in opinion on the nature of the state aren't particularly relevant to this discussion.

In fact, even the absolute "nature state" or "anarchy" would immediately have gangs, mafia and warlords that simply take whatever they want. Even in that case, there would be "rulers" and "oppressed", in fact arguably worse than in many states where such a rule is legitimized by elections or succession or some other peaceful manner.

On this topic I will just say that many, many books have been written. If you're interested in reading about this topic, a book such as Anarchy Works is directly trying to address these concerns. The anarchist position, substantially sumarrised, is that one must build a society in which the community has a culture of defence against these attempted take overs without relying on hierarchy or leaders to direct it. For a touchstone in modern media, this sort of question comes up in a lot of post-apocalyptic media - stuff like zombie apocalypse movies having conflict between a group of survivors banding together and work to survive the apocalypse and a villain who is trying to turn the group against each other or use other methods to establish control over the group. If one wants historical examples for this sort of thing, anarchist Ukraine (often called Makhnovshchina) lasted for four years during the Russian civil war, with a population of up to 7 million people living in a fairly anarchist society; the area was routinely attacked by both the White and Red armies, but did manage to hold their own in the conflict and play a significant role in the Civil War, with a fairly reasonable argument able to be made that they were a significant force in stopping the Advance on Moscow of 1919, and with battles such as Peregonovka having White army forces in the tens of thousands defeated by the anarchist Black Army, which was primarily run on a non-hierarchical basis. Alterantively, one can look at revolutionary Catalonia in the Spanish Civil War, but I won't go into more detail here than I already have.