A Three-Layer Analysis (TLA) of Livy, History of Rome, Book 2
1. Question
Why does political agitation easily connect with personal ambition and power struggle while pretending to defend freedom?
In Livy’s History of Rome, Book 2, Rome expels the kings and begins to form the Republic. In early Republican Rome, “freedom” was one of the most important political ideas.
Rejecting kingship, preventing royal power from concentrating in one person, and governing the state through law, terms of office, two consuls, appeal, the senate, and popular integration were institutional designs to protect the freedom of the whole community.
However, the word “freedom” is not always used only for the whole community.
Freedom can be a proper purpose for preventing the return of kingship. At the same time, it can become a political language for accusing an opponent of “trying to become king.” It can also become a language used by the old privileged class to claim that “our freedom has been taken away” and to justify a return to the old OS.
This study uses OS Organizational Design Theory to explain why political agitation easily connects with personal ambition and power struggle while pretending to defend freedom.
2. Research Abstract
Political agitation easily connects with personal ambition and power struggle while pretending to defend freedom because the word “freedom” is a highly flexible legitimacy application.
It can be used for the OS purpose of the whole community. It can also be used for the power gain of a specific user. It can even be used for restoration of the old OS.
In early Republican Rome, freedom was a proper purpose for rejecting kingship and forming the republican OS.
However, soon after the formation of the Republic began, freedom did not work only as a simple purpose of the whole community.
Young men close to the royal house felt equality under law as unfreedom. They wanted the king’s favor and discretion. For them, freedom did not mean the freedom of the whole community. It meant the freedom to receive special treatment through the discretion of the king.
Also, Valerius, after becoming sole consul, was suspected of seeking royal power. This shows that, in early Republican Rome, the suspicion that someone was “trying to become king” could become a powerful political attack.
Thus, in early Republican Rome, “freedom” was an idea that protected the community. At the same time, it was also a word that could be used for political suspicion, popular mobilization, restraint of power, restoration movements, and personal attack.
3. Research Method
This study uses Three-Layer Analysis, or TLA, to analyze Livy’s Book 2.
Layer 1 is Fact. It organizes the events written in Livy’s text. In this case, the main facts are freedom after the expulsion of kingship, the conspiracy to restore kingship, the discovery of the conspiracy, the suspicion against Valerius, the appeal system, and the Battle of Lake Regillus.
Layer 2 is Order. It extracts the institutional structure behind these facts. The main structures are the transition from kingship to the Republic, rule by law, the old royal restoration network, young royalists and the privileged group that lost power, and the appeal system.
Layer 3 is Insight. It connects these structures to OS Organizational Design Theory. In this study, the political language of defending freedom is read as a legitimate purpose of the community OS. At the same time, it is also read as a legitimacy application that can be used by faction OS and old OS restoration pressure.
4. Layer 1: Fact
At the beginning of Livy’s Book 2, Rome changes from kingship to the consulship after the expulsion of the kings. One-year terms, two consuls, and the strengthening of the senate form the early structure of the republican OS.
Here, “freedom” does not mean only the expulsion of the king. It means protecting the freedom of the whole community by dispersing royal power into institutions and preventing arbitrary rule by one king.
However, soon after this, a conspiracy to restore kingship appears.
Young men close to the royal house and envoys of the Tarquin family try to restore royal power. They do not see equality under the law of the Republic as freedom. They see it as unfreedom. Under kingship, those close to the king could receive favor, discretion, and special treatment.
This conspiracy is discovered through letters sent to Tarquinius. Information connections with the old royal house become a route of betrayal inside the Republic.
At the same time, even on the republican side, the defense of freedom was not only a simple ideal.
After the death of Brutus, Valerius became sole consul. Then he was suspected of seeking royal power. He was not an enemy of the Republic. Rather, he had supported the Republic. However, the condition in which one person held the highest power made the people suspect that he might become king.
Valerius responded by lowering the symbols of authority, moving his house, and establishing the appeal system. In this way, he handled the suspicion through institutional action.
Therefore, in early Republican Rome, “freedom” was a proper purpose for rejecting kingship. At the same time, it was also a word used for political suspicion and restraint of power.
5. Layer 2: Order
Layer 2 shows that the word “freedom” can connect not only to the purpose of the community OS, but also to the purposes of individuals and factions.
For the republican OS, freedom means liberation of the community from the arbitrary rule of the king. Preventing the reconcentration of royal power through law, terms of office, appeal, the senate, and popular integration was a proper institutional purpose of the Roman Republic.
However, the word “freedom” is highly abstract.
If we do not clarify whose freedom it is and freedom from what, it can connect to different purposes.
For the Republic, freedom means freedom from the arbitrary rule of the king.
For the old privileged class, freedom means the freedom to escape equality under law and receive special treatment through the discretion of the king.
This difference creates room for political agitation.
Also, in early Republican Rome, “becoming king” or “seeking royal power” was the greatest political danger. For this reason, calling an opponent a person who seeks royal power became a very powerful political attack.
This was originally a proper form of vigilance to protect the Republic. But at the same time, the language of “that person is trying to become king” could also be used for political attack and popular mobilization.
Therefore, the language of defending freedom can be an idea for protecting the community. But it can also become a tool by which a faction OS makes its own purpose look like the purpose of the whole community.
6. Layer 3: Insight
The main insight is this:
Political agitation easily connects with personal ambition and power struggle while pretending to defend freedom.
The reason is that the word “freedom” is a highly flexible legitimacy application. It is the OS purpose of the whole community. At the same time, it can mobilize public anxiety, accuse an opponent of seeking royal power, and justify one’s own power gain or old OS restoration.
In early Republican Rome, freedom was a proper purpose for rejecting kingship. However, young royalists felt equality under law as unfreedom and wanted the king’s favor and discretion.
On the other hand, even on the republican side, suspicion toward a person holding sole power was expressed through the language of defending freedom: “Will he become king?”
Therefore, the danger of political agitation is not freedom itself. The danger is that freedom is separated from the OS purpose and transferred to the V of a specific user.
Here, V means the decision criterion. It can be changed into personal ambition, factional purpose, or old OS restoration purpose.
This structure can be expressed as follows:
Political agitation
= cause of freedom × public anxiety × label of royal ambition against the enemy × personal ambition or factional purpose
It can also be connected to old OS restoration pressure in OS Organizational Design Theory:
Agitation type old OS restoration pressure
= old OS incentives × old OS information structure × old OS application × old OS execution environment
The important factor here is old OS application.
An old OS application means a reusable action or method of the old OS, such as military action, mobilization, propaganda, claim of legitimacy, and resource acquisition.
In this case, political agitation corresponds to propaganda and claims of legitimacy.
In early Republican Rome, words such as “freedom,” “legitimacy,” “restoration of kingship,” and “anti kingship” could be used by both the republican side and the old royal side.
In OS Organizational Design Theory, faction OS means a small OS formed by some users inside the higher OS. It has its own purpose, decision criteria, and interests.
Political agitation is an application by which this faction OS makes its own V look like the V of the whole community.
In other words, political agitation is an act of disguising the V of a specific user as the V of the whole community by using public purpose language.
This insight can be summarized in one sentence:
Political agitation easily connects with personal ambition and power struggle while pretending to defend freedom because the word “freedom” is a highly flexible legitimacy application that can be used for the OS purpose of the whole community, for the power gain of a specific user, and for the restoration of the old OS.
7. Implications for the Present
This analysis also applies to modern states and companies.
First, words such as “freedom,” “reform,” “transparency,” “justice,” and “defense of the organization” can be used for proper purposes. But they can also be used for personal or factional purposes. Therefore, it is necessary to ask what the word protects and whose interests it connects to.
Second, political agitation hides personal ambition by using public purpose language. A person cannot easily gain support by saying, “I want power,” “I want my faction to win,” or “I want to remove my enemy.” Therefore, such a person borrows words such as “defending freedom,” “protecting the organization,” or “promoting reform.”
Third, agitation easily appears just after a revolution or reform because legitimacy is not yet fixed. It is still unclear who represents the new OS, which institution has the final decision authority, and what level of authority is allowed. In such a stage, each group can claim, “We are the true defenders of reform.”
Fourth, faction OS disguises its own interests as the purpose of the higher OS. In companies, departments, old factions, reform groups, and anti reform groups may use words such as “for the company,” “for employees,” or “for customers,” while actually trying to protect their own authority or budget.
Fifth, public anxiety and employee anxiety are easy to use for agitation. Statements such as “freedom will be lost,” “the old regime will return,” or “someone is trying to become a dictator” may be proper warnings. But they may also become emotional mobilization.
Therefore, in modern organizations, it is not enough to look only at the public cause of political or organizational language. It is necessary to check the V behind that language.
Is the decision criterion directed toward the whole community?
Or has it been replaced by the interests of a specific user or faction?
This check is necessary to protect a free state and a healthy organization.
8. Conclusion
The political tension of early Republican Rome in Livy’s Book 2 clearly shows the double nature of the word “freedom.”
For the Roman Republic, freedom was a proper OS purpose. Rejecting kingship and preventing the reconcentration of royal power through law, terms, appeal, the senate, and popular integration were institutional designs to protect the freedom of the whole community.
However, because the word freedom has strong legitimacy, it is also easy to use for political agitation.
The old privileged class felt equality under law as unfreedom and wanted the king’s discretion and favor. Their freedom was not the freedom of the whole community. It was privileged freedom inside the old royal OS.
Also, even on the republican side, suspicion toward a person holding sole power was expressed through the language of defending freedom: “Will he become king?” This was necessary vigilance, but it could also be used as a political attack.
Therefore, freedom can be an idea that protects the republican OS. It can also become language that leads back to the old royal OS. It can also become a tool by which a faction OS makes its own purpose look like the purpose of the whole community.
In OS Organizational Design Theory, political agitation is an application that disguises the V of a specific user or faction OS as the V of the higher OS.
Therefore, to detect political agitation, it is not enough to look only at the word “freedom.”
We must ask whether that word improves the A, IA, H, V, M, and T of the whole community.
Or whether it is being used for the power gain of a specific user, factional purpose, or old OS restoration pressure.
This distinction is essential for protecting a free state and a healthy organization.
9. Sources
Titus Livius, History of Rome from its Foundation, Book 1, translated by Satoshi Iwaya, Kyoto University Press, 2008.
OS Organizational Design Theory_R1.31.00.00.