King Philip I

Pretenders to the crown have been foiled as the general population still proclaims Philip I as their lord and king.

The rougue state of N'burg exists only as a fringe enclave, all but abandoned.

Long Live the King!

All but abandoned.

Yeah, right. That's why we keep having people move in, right?

Technically, the Lindens are not a monarchy rather they are a corporatist oligarchy, meaning that control of the citizenry is in the hands of the few (an oligarchy) and various internal groups compete for influence over that oligarchy (corporatist). This corporatism exists because there is no formal democracy in SL and all political action must take the form of lobbying (usually done here in this forum).

What's really fascinating to me is that when presented with an oligarchy which provides no democratic means for citizens to affect the system, the citizens naturally begin to lobby, which leads to text-book corporatism. Before joining SL I would have never seen the connection between oligarchy and corporatism but now I see they go together like peanut butter and jelly.

What's more fascinating is that the elimination of the oligarchy (allowing elections for instance) would naturally break down the corporatism, as there would be another avenue for citizens to seek power and affect change.

~Ulrika~

SL also has a strange link between their Oligarchy and residents that doesn't exist in RL. The Oligarchy led by King Phillip gets paid relative to how good of a job they do. In RL if a small group took over a country their wealth wouldn't neccisarily be based off of how much the citizens gave them freely. To make things worse, residents have to go through quite a bit of pain and hassle to leave a RL country controlled by a government they don't like. LL has the dilema that all a resident has to do to leave is stop paying for a premium account or not sign up in the first place. If they screw up and make most of the world mad; their paycheck gets cut dramatically. They even have to worry about other sites doing a better job at government than them. If a user finds another virtual world that they think is ruled in a better fashion, they only have to sign up with that world and send their money elsewhere. In a way the $10 basic accounts of new users, and the monthly premier acount fees of land owners work almost like votes. If you like the world you keep paying, if you don't like it you leave.

The other odd situation is that if enough people stop going to SL, the company will go out of business in essence destroying the government and the world. The very existence of the world itself depends on the happiness of its citizens. A rather odd government indeed. Just imagine if RL was like this. People don't like government leader X, so country owned by leader X blows up, and all its citizens reincarnate in new country Y. How weird would that be.

Free market of competing governments... De Puydt's panarchy ?

Morse Dillon is the King of SL. Just look at his group tag in world!

-Flip

Why would he be King Phillip "I"? This would assume there was a second Phillip to come.

Yes, the Linden monarchy is suseptible to succession. In time, another could come to rule and chose the regent name "Philip", thus becoming Philip II.

King Phillip the Second depends on who delivers Phillips baby first - me or Aimee.

Oh! I think my water broke!