ClaimsNassim Taleb

“It's not a Republic.”

Nassim Taleb, interviewee 10 July 2017 Nassim Nicholas Taleb on Work, Slavery, the Minority Rule, and Skin in the Game (EconTalk) archived copy

Factual Other

The United States is a federation, not a republic.

Resolved false The record shows it did not happen or was not so.

Factual: Statements about the present or the past, checked against the record: did they hold up?

What would count as true or false

The test is the claim's central assertion: the United States is not a republic. True: authoritative constitutional and political-science sources show that the US is not a republic in any standard sense. Mostly false: the sources show that the US is a federation and is also commonly classed as a republic, but there is a recognised scholarly view that it is a republic only in a contested or nominal sense. False: the US Constitution (for example the Article IV guarantee of a republican form of government) and standard political-science classifications identify the US as a republic (a federal republic). In that case the claim is wrong outright, even though the US is a federation.

Set before the research began.

Evidence (2)

  1. E1 U.S. Government U.S. Embassy in Argentina (U.S. Mission Argentina) · 16 February 2023

    “While often categorized as a democracy, the United States is more accurately defined as a constitutional federal republic.”

  2. E2 Democracy versus Republic OUP Academic (Oxford University Press), chapter in Democracies in America: Keywords for the 19th Century and Today · 31 January 2023

    “Many commentators have made the careful distinction that the United States is a “republic,” not a “democracy.””

Reasoning

An official U.S. government site describes the United States as "a constitutional federal republic" (E1). It is independent of the subject. A scholarly Oxford University Press chapter notes that many commentators have described the US as a "republic" rather than a "democracy" (E2). Under the criteria, sources that class the US as a federal republic make the claim that it is not a republic resolve false, even though the US is a federation.

Cite this claim

Nassim Taleb, “The United States is a federation, not a republic.” (said 10 July 2017). Verdict: resolved false. Reliability API, claim c_dae2c491d4d6, method 0.1.0+28da144b, dataset release v1.1.2. https://epistacklabs.com/claims/c_dae2c491d4d6

This claim is in dataset release v1.1.2, with the same verdict.

Reply to this claim

For Nassim Taleb, or someone speaking for them: a correction or counter-evidence. Replies are read before anything is shown; an approved reply shows your name, role, date, statement and link. Your email address is never shown and is deleted 30 days after the decision (privacy).

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    Chef Alain Ducasse in France has recently offered a bulgur or quinoa and vegetable dish resembling the "Lent Kibbeh", packaged as a "burger".

  3. Mostly true Factual 11 April 2018
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    Only a third of Roman emperors died in their bed.

  4. Mostly true Factual 11 April 2018
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    It had been reported that Donald Trump lost a billion dollars of his own money.

  5. Mostly true Factual 10 July 2017
    “contrary to what political scientists say, effectively people do exercise the right to leave.”

    Contrary to what political scientists say, people in practice do exercise the right to leave a jurisdiction.

All of them

Verdicts are made automatically; how verdicts are made.