Dwarkesh Patel

You choose which ones are fit to serve, meaning not ill and dying, not insane, not so deeply in debt that they could be manipulated by the people who they owe money to.

Their names go in a bag.

You choose nine guys at random.

They rule the city.

They are put in a palace where they rule the city from that tower.

They're actually locked in the tower for the duration of their time in office because if they left the tower, they could be bribed or kidnapped.

And they rule the city for two months or three months.

And then at the end, they are thanked for their service and escorted out and a different nine guys share power for the next three months.

A power sharing that is designed to be tyrant proof because you need consensus of like nine randomly selected guys to decide to do anything.

It's consensus.

Well, I mean, it's important to remember they were nobody when this set up.

They were a minor important family.

So an important part of it is when you have a merchant capital, everybody works for somebody who works for somebody who works for the boss.

And if you are a major merchant in Florence, you're importing and exporting wool to and from all across Europe.

You have employees all across Europe.

You're buying mass bulk wool from England.

importing it to Florence to use olive oil that you've bought from Naples to process into high-quality wool, which you're then exporting to Germany and France.

You are a very interconnected businessman.

You have a lot of contacts.

You have a lot of clout.