A Three-Layer Analysis (TLA) of Livy, History of Rome, Book 1
1. Question
Why does monarchy lose its reason to exist when the king stops being the bearer of public order?
2. Abstract
Monarchy loses its reason to exist when the king stops being the bearer of public order because monarchy is a political OS that is rational only when the king monopolizes the control variables of the OS and keeps them functioning at a high level.
In OS Organizational Design Theory, OS health is evaluated by the following formula.
OS Health = A × IA × H × V
A means recognition.
IA means information architecture.
H means human resource and reward-punishment governance.
V means validity of decision criteria.
From this viewpoint, monarchy is an OS form in which the king has strong exclusive access to A, IA, H, and V. The king recognizes reality, receives information, decides whom to use, gives rewards and punishments, and judges what is right for the state. In other words, the king carries the core control variables of the state OS in one person.
This monopoly is not always bad. If the king keeps A, IA, H, and V functioning at a high level, monarchy becomes a fast and powerful OS form. However, if the king stops being the bearer of public order and keeps monopolizing A, IA, H, and V while making them function at a low level, monarchy is no longer a “strong OS.” It becomes an “uncorrectable low-health OS.”
At that point, from the viewpoint of the OS, there is no reason for the state to remain a monarchy. Rather, maintaining monarchy means maintaining a low-health OS.
3. Method
This study follows the structure of Three-Layer Analysis, or TLA.
In Layer 1, this study organizes the facts of the collapse of monarchy in Livy, History of Rome, Book 1: the ambition of the Tarquin house, the seizure of kingship, the murder of Servius, Tarquinius Superbus, the crime of Sextus Tarquinius, the uprising of Brutus, and the expulsion of the Tarquin family.
In Layer 2, these facts are connected to structures such as kingship, OS health, A, IA, H, V, exclusive access, corrective access, monitoring access, OS decision-maker, and the late monarchy and collapse transition phase.
In Layer 3, this study explains why monarchy loses its reason to exist when the king stops being the bearer of public order.
4. Layer 1: Fact
In Livy, History of Rome, Book 1, the collapse of the Tarquin monarchy is described as a continuous process from the seizure of kingship to the abolition of monarchy.
In Chapter 46, the schemes of Lucius Tarquinius and Tullia are described. In Chapter 47, the seizure of kingship occurs. In Chapter 48, King Servius is killed. In Chapter 49, Tarquinius is described as the proud king, and kingship begins to move away from public order toward rule by fear and private rule.
Then, in Chapter 58, the crime of Sextus Tarquinius occurs. The private desire and violence of a member of the royal house are not received as a mere individual crime. They are received as an incident in which the power of the royal house privately violates the community.
After that, in Chapter 59, Brutus rises. In Chapter 60, the Tarquin family is expelled. The important point here is that the community does not merely remove a bad king. It begins to doubt monarchy as an OS form and finally replaces it.
In other words, the problem of the Tarquin monarchy is not only that a bad person became king. The deeper problem is that monarchy concentrated A, IA, H, and V in the king but could not correct the deterioration of that king.
5. Layer 2: Order
In Layer 2, this problem can be understood as the rationality and limit of monarchy as an OS form.
Monarchy is a political form in which the king monopolizes the core control variables of the state OS. The king carries recognition, information, personnel placement, rewards and punishments, and decision criteria in one person. In the founding period or in a crisis, this can have strong effect.
If the king has high A, he sees the reality of the community correctly.
If the king has high IA, he receives field information and communicates policy.
If the king has high H, he properly operates personnel, rewards, punishments, and role placement.
If the king has high V, he maintains decision criteria that fit the purpose of the state.
In this state, monarchy has a reason to exist. The king functions as the center of the OS and carries order, defense, judgment, religious rites, diplomacy, succession, and institutional creation.
However, when the king stops being the bearer of public order, the same monopoly structure works in the opposite direction.
If the king monopolizes A while A is low, the state misunderstands reality.
If the king monopolizes IA while IA is low, information is blocked.
If the king monopolizes H while H is low, personnel and rewards are privatized.
If the king monopolizes V while V is low, decision criteria drift away from the state purpose.
At this point, monarchy is no longer a “strong OS.” It becomes an “uncorrectable low-health OS.”
OS health is A × IA × H × V. Therefore, if A, IA, H, and V decline while the king monopolizes those control variables, OS health falls rapidly. In the late monarchy, recognition, information, personnel, and decision criteria deteriorate at the same time. When this happens, the OS can no longer fulfill its survival purpose.
This is the structure by which monarchy loses its reason to exist.
6. Layer 3: Insight
Monarchy loses its reason to exist when the king stops being the bearer of public order because monarchy is a political OS that is rational only when the king monopolizes the control variables of the OS and keeps them functioning at a high level.
Monarchy is an OS form in which the king has strong exclusive access to A, IA, H, and V. The king recognizes reality, receives information, decides whom to use, gives rewards and punishments, and judges what is right for the state. In other words, the king carries the core control variables of the state OS in one person.
This monopoly is not always bad.
In the founding period or in a crisis, exclusive access can be rational. If the king has high A, he understands reality correctly. If the king has high IA, he receives necessary information and sends commands downward. If the king has high H, he uses capable people and gives rewards and punishments properly. If the king has high V, he maintains decision criteria that fit the survival purpose of the state. In this case, monarchy becomes a powerful OS form.
In other words, the state in which the king is the bearer of public order means that the king monopolizes A, IA, H, and V while keeping them functioning at a high level.
In this condition, monarchy has a reason to exist. The king functions as the center of the OS and carries order, defense, judgment, religious rites, diplomacy, succession, and institutional creation.
However, when the king stops being the bearer of public order, the same monopoly structure works in the opposite direction.
If the king monopolizes A while A is low, the state misunderstands reality.
If the king monopolizes IA while IA is low, information is blocked.
If the king monopolizes H while H is low, personnel and rewards are privatized.
If the king monopolizes V while V is low, decision criteria drift away from the state purpose.
At this point, monarchy is no longer a “strong OS.” It becomes an “uncorrectable low-health OS.”
OS health is A × IA × H × V. Therefore, if the king monopolizes each control variable and A, IA, H, and V decline, OS health falls rapidly. Even if only one factor is badly damaged, the whole system declines. In the late monarchy, recognition, information, personnel, and decision criteria are privatized and deteriorate at the same time. When this happens, the OS can no longer fulfill its survival purpose.
Here lies the structure by which monarchy loses its reason to exist.
Monarchy is accepted because the king monopolizes the control variables of the OS and, in exchange, keeps them functioning at a high level. If the king protects the community, maintains order, responds to external enemies, judges fairly, and makes decisions according to the state purpose, monarchy exists as the bearer of public order.
However, once the king stops doing this, there is no need for the state to remain a monarchy. Rather, remaining a monarchy itself becomes dangerous.
This is because monarchy concentrates control variables in the king. If the king functions at a high level, concentration becomes power. If the king functions at a low level, concentration becomes risk.
The Tarquin monarchy in Livy, History of Rome, Book 1, shows this structure. Kingship becomes connected with ambition inside the royal house, usurpation, rule by fear, family problems, sexual violence, and violation of the community. In this process, kingship is no longer the bearer of public order.
In OS Organizational Design Theory, an OS decision-maker is the subject that makes decisions on behalf of the OS purpose. Its failure condition is that the personal purpose of the decision-maker overrides the OS purpose. Even if a decision formally appears to be an OS decision, if it is actually based on self-protection, maintenance of power, or desire for approval, the OS decision-maker has failed.
This failure occurs in the Tarquin monarchy. The king is no longer the subject that represents the OS purpose of the community. He becomes the subject of royal power maintenance and private rule. At this point, monarchy is no longer the center of the state OS. It becomes a higher-level monopolist that distorts the state OS.
This condition can be described through A, IA, H, and V.
A recognizes reality not from the viewpoint of the community, but from the viewpoint of royal self-protection and elimination of enemies.
IA does not receive advice or opposition. It passes only information convenient to the king.
H operates personnel appointment, rewards, punishments, execution, exile, and confiscation according to loyalty to the royal house, not public criteria.
V is replaced by royal power maintenance, rule by fear, and private desire instead of the state purpose.
In this condition, monarchy cannot fulfill the survival purpose of the OS.
The reason monarchy exists is not that there is a king. The reason monarchy exists is that the king keeps A, IA, H, and V functioning at a high level and bears the public order of the community. If the king loses this role and monopolizes A, IA, H, and V while making them function at a low level, monarchy no longer raises OS health. It lowers OS health.
At that point, from the viewpoint of the OS, there is no reason to remain a monarchy.
Rather, maintaining monarchy means maintaining a low-health OS.
In a monarchy where the king bears public order, exclusive access enables fast decision-making. But when the king no longer bears public order, exclusive access becomes uncorrectable privatization. Exclusive access can speed up decision-making. But if recognition distortion or information blocking occurs and correction does not work, it creates unilateral decision-making, exclusion of dissent, privatization of decision criteria, and weakening of corrective actors.
The problem of the Tarquin monarchy is not simply that there was a bad king. The problem is that the institutional structure could not correct, monitor, or stop the bad king. Monarchy as an OS form concentrated A, IA, H, and V in the king, but could not correct the deterioration of the king.
Therefore, the choice that the community must make is not merely the replacement of one king. It is the replacement of the OS form.
Even if a bad king is replaced by another king, if monarchy keeps the same structure, the exclusive deterioration of A, IA, H, and V can occur again. Therefore, the community begins to doubt monarchy itself. If monarchy as a form cannot repair itself when it produces a low-health king, the reason to maintain that form disappears.
In this sense, the abolition of monarchy is not caused simply by hatred of the king. It happens because monarchy can no longer fulfill the survival purpose of the OS.
If the king monopolizes A, IA, H, and V and keeps them functioning at a high level, monarchy is strong.
If the king monopolizes A, IA, H, and V and keeps them functioning at a low level, monarchy is dangerous.
This difference determines the reason for the survival of monarchy.
Therefore, when the king stops being the bearer of public order, monarchy itself loses its reason to exist. Monarchy is a political form that exists only when the king monopolizes the control variables of the OS and keeps them functioning at a high level for the community. If the king loses that role and monopolizes A, IA, H, and V while making them function at a low level, OS health declines and the OS cannot fulfill its survival purpose. From the viewpoint of the OS, there is no reason to remain a monarchy.
7. Implications for the Present
This structure also applies directly to modern organizations.
In modern companies, founders, presidents, chairpersons, owners, and department heads may have strong exclusive access to A, IA, H, and V.
In the founding period or in a crisis, this can work effectively. If a strong leader can see reality, gather information, place people, and show decision criteria, the organization can move quickly.
However, if the leader’s A is distorted, IA is blocked, H is privatized, and V is replaced by personal purpose, that exclusive access rapidly lowers the health of the organizational OS.
If the president misunderstands reality, A declines.
If bad information does not rise, IA declines.
If personnel and rewards are privatized, H declines.
If decision criteria become self-protection or factional maintenance instead of the company purpose, V declines.
In this condition, continuing to say “we need this person because the top leader is strong” means maintaining a low-health OS.
Therefore, what matters in modern organizations is not to deny strong leaders. What matters is to judge whether the strong leader is keeping A, IA, H, and V functioning at a high level, or whether the leader is monopolizing them while keeping them at a low level.
If the latter is true, the necessary response is not merely replacing the person. The organization must redesign the OS form itself. This means redesigning authority distribution, corrective access, monitoring access, term limits, meetings, evaluation systems, information routes, and approval procedures.
8. Conclusion
Monarchy loses its reason to exist when the king stops being the bearer of public order because monarchy is a political form that is rational only when the king monopolizes the control variables of the OS and keeps them functioning at a high level.
In monarchy, the king has strong exclusive access to A, IA, H, and V. This monopoly becomes power when the king functions at a high level. But it becomes risk when the king functions at a low level.
If the king monopolizes A while A is low, the state misunderstands reality.
If the king monopolizes IA while IA is low, information is blocked.
If the king monopolizes H while H is low, personnel and rewards are privatized.
If the king monopolizes V while V is low, decision criteria drift away from the state purpose.
At this point, monarchy no longer raises OS health. It lowers OS health.
The reason monarchy exists is not the existence of a king.
The reason monarchy exists is that the king keeps A, IA, H, and V functioning at a high level and bears the public order of the community.
If the king stops doing this and monopolizes A, IA, H, and V while making them function at a low level, there is no reason for the OS to remain a monarchy. Rather, maintaining monarchy means maintaining a low-health OS.
Therefore, monarchy loses its reason to exist when the king stops being the bearer of public order.
9. Sources
Titus Livius, History of Rome, Book 1, translated by Satoshi Iwaya, Kyoto University Press, 2008.
OS Organizational Design Theory_R1.30.18.00