Survival of the Fittest: An Argument  in Defense of Democracy on EarthMC
By: SayerQT

Liberal democracy, while being the prevailing mode of governance in our real world for the better half of the last century, does not hold the same stature on EarthMC. I mean, it makes sense, doesn’t it? EarthMC is a server for fun, in which you can form your own nation within the towny plugin and create your own customized frame of government to allow your nation to thrive. That being said, democracy has on EarthMC been proven to not just be a viable option for nations to use if they wish, but has in fact been outwardly proven to lead to long-form continuity and survival of nations. While a nation may be owned by one player at the top, at the end of the day it is those at the bottom that staff the nation’s ranks that allow it thrive. The people, as one body politic, are the ones that sustain a nation. While autocracy is the prevailing form of government on this server, it is essential to analyze the hegemony of such a system, and properly defend democracy against its common arguments. For this, I consulted several leaders of autocratic nations to obtain arguments used against democracy, and analyzed the failures in those arguments’ thinking. 

Common arguments against democracy:

It’s my gold, it’s my nation:

An argument often made by those that wish to run a nation as an autocracy is the idea that due to the fact that it was their gold they spent to found their nation, that is their right to own it. While this is true to an extent, it becomes more of a real issue when the nation expands into becoming a real country with many active players and communities. Since this argument is based on the idea of “My gold”, therefore meaning “My nation that I spent gold on”, we must analyze what the actual worth of the gold is. 

The primary worth of gold on EarthMC is not necessarily any in-game purchasable items such as chunks or overclaim shield. Instead, gold’s primary worth is based on time. EarthMC is a game, and the more time that you invest into obtaining wealth on the server, the less time you have on other portions of your life. Makes sense right? 

While this theoretical nation leader may have invested a significant period of time and effort into acquiring the gold used for creating the nation, the question becomes who allows the nation to survive? The answer to this question is, of course, the residents. Without residents in a community or nation, the nation is simply an /n spawn and a lonely mayor. While this leader certainly has a right to decide the future of his national project at the start, it is the residents of the country once it becomes a community that also have a stake in the future and have made an investment into the nation. We already acknowledge on EMC today that the people in a nation should have some input into its future, and thus we must acknowledge that simply spending the gold to make a nation doesn’t automatically give you the right to make all the unilateral decisions once it develops into a nation state. 

This theoretical nation leader could read this statement and think to themselves that this argument does not hold up because they molded the nation to be where it is today. To this leader once again I say that if they do wish to own and rule this nation unilaterally, then they are inevitably creating the nation’s own demise at the detriment of its longevity. This leader is creating a system in which the nation is reliant upon themselves and themselves alone. While they may pick a designated successor upon retirement, they may not have the same connections with the people and will often lead to decline and substantial instability, as can be seen in the example of Rus, after the abdication of Tsar HenriquePotter, losing many nations that had joined Rus due to connections with HenriquePotter’s regime specifically, not Rus as a unified nation state. 

Autocracy is more stable than democracy: 

Another major argument against democracy on EarthMC is the idea that democracy is unstable. While many attempting democracy may see instability during its infancy in order to establish a democratic order and civic culture, if a democracy can get through this period and cultivate this culture and create long-standing democratic institutions, it will lead to larger long-term stability.

Democracies, if set up well, by the nature of the political system, leads to higher citizen engagement with national institutions, cultivating political leaders throughout the national ladder both willing and able to take on the mantle of state leadership when a certain leader or officer retires. A civil society is essentially for the existence of a long-lasting state, and if a state revolves around a specific person, then it inevitably will lead to instability if not collapse when that one person leaves or becomes incapacitated. 

Autocracy inherently is more unstable than democracy for other reasons, as autocracies will inevitably lead to more decisions supported by a lesser portion of the nation than a democracy, leading to lower approval of state actions. This is a mathematical truth and an objective fact when analyzing democracy vs. autocracy, not just on EarthMC. This is critical in order to maximize citizen satisfaction with the government and national leadership, as the citizens, once again, are the cogs that allow a nation to survive and last long-term. 

Useless Roleplay:

As discussed at length, democracy is not useless when it comes to its impact on EarthMC nation building. Democracy, as a political strategy, is largely a winning one for nations, even at its most simplistic level. It has specific impacts that often are inhibited by autocratic governance; thus, whether you think it’s “roleplay” or not, you must face the reality that democracy has real and concrete benefits to nations. 

While roleplay may not be something a prospective nation owner wants to engage in, a constitution and complex separation of powers, while having their own merits, are not required on their own in order for democracy to function at the base level. The argument that Democracy on EarthMC is time consuming as well as roleplay falls flat when actually analyzing the ways in which democracy can be implemented. Democracy, at its core, is the most basic human group decision making strategy. Democracy, contrary to the arguments made by autocrats, is not intrinsically full of roleplay; rather it is, to reiterate, the basic mode in which humans make decisions. Even though EarthMC isn’t real-life politics, such arguments may be indicative of the overall tendency of many on EarthMC to be whiny, narcissistic 12-year old wanna-be edgelord conservatives that see Little Dark Age Edits of the Roman Empire on Youtube Shorts and yell “BASED BASED” in their head while drooling without properly understanding the way human interaction and society works on a real basis. 

This whole argument made by advocates for autocracy when it comes to roleplay hinges on the preconceived notion that Autocracy has less roleplay than Democracy. Having a president, prime minister, parliament, council, or congress, is much less in line with roleplay than declaring yourself a King, Tsar, Empress, Military Dictator, or Supreme Leader. You interact in democratic atmospheres in real life much more than you are in autocratic situations. Whether it’s high profile like being on a local organization’s committee or board, or you’re just in a classroom choosing a leader and making decisions for a group project, democracy is a natural and beneficial process to make decisions as it has naturally the highest satisfaction rate with decisions than autocracy. At least in a democracy, most of the time the decisions are more popular and supported by a majority than in an autocracy when you’re more likely to take a gamble on popular satisfaction with a decision. 

Towny is straightforward; Democracy is ineffective:

A final argument often made against democracy is that due to the Towny plugin being fairly straightforward in creating what is essentially a feudalist framework that all governments must be built off of, that democracy is ineffective at actually enforcing itself and being effective itself. By “feudalist framework”, I am referring to the very basis of towns being Towns in which players have complete autocratic authority within the town in an aristocratic fashion. Even the towny plugin itself makes the titles of mayors automatically the titles of European nobility in real-life (e.g. Viscount, Earl, Count, etc). To this, it’s a pretty simple response. Democracy on EarthMC never takes the form of town-wide democracy, and for good reason. Democracy in a town would largely be ineffective and has yet to be successfully implemented on a large scale. Democratic nations exist largely as alliances between towns, and having a democratic government for these “alliance of towns” nations increases the satisfaction of the towns engaged in the alliance. Even if there is a faction that disagrees with a decision, that faction will inevitably be a smaller proportion of the population if the decision is made with the consensus of a majority as opposed to a minority. In EarthMC, the players are the ones with an active stake in the future of the nation, thus they should get the decision over the decisions that impact their play. 

Overall, I will, always will, and always have defended the institution of democracy on EarthMC. In the words of former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, “Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others.” This especially rings true throughout every organization in society, including those of nations on minecraft servers, however infantile that may seem. When you are dealing with builds, towns, and projects that real people place real effort and real time into, it becomes a lot more important that the decisions over the future of their efforts are made with their thoughts in mind, and that no self-aggrandizing 12-year old autocrat is able to take that away from them. Democracy IS essential, and IS worth promoting, because of not just the various benefits that come with it for nation-building, but because of its persistence as a decision-making strategy throughout all of our history as a species and centuries to come.