Although it is not explicitly stated in the trilogy, the implication was that the machine intelligences who dominate the social system in the Golden Age, much wiser and more experienced than any human mind, brought their considerable peer pressure, moral suasion, and psychological manipulation to bear on their merely human charges.

Since the founders of the social system are immortal, still alive, and still possessed of the dignity and authority heroic legend grants, it is not difficult to suppose that the original idealism of the Foederal Oecumenical Commonwealth (as the Golden Oecumene is officially named) would have remained true to their founding principles.

Imagine if, during FDR’s encroachment onto the Constitutional limits of power Washington, Franklin, Jay, Madison, Jefferson, and other heroes of the revolutionary war were still making speeches to denounce and oppose the encroachment.

The Golden Oecumene in the novel is both highly libertarian, and, paradoxically, highly sedate, conservative and inert. It is the tension between these two forces that forms the drama of the novel.