Economy Model Version 0.2

[heardie]

Yeah! Good work amjayee. can't wait to see it!

Keep up the good work all!

[Ramo]

Hmm... I've got a few suggestions....

First of all, there are three basic parts of a capitalist economy, as I'm sure all of you know: capital, labor, and land (which includes real land, machines, etc.). These three factors limit a society's potential output. Now, the values of the society determine the situation of each.

For example, a nationalistic country, such as post WWII Japan or the early 19th century German principalities/late 19th century Germany/Austria, would have a high investment rate, and would quickly increase the amount of capital it would have, as Japan has in the past half-century, and Germany has up till the first World War. Conversely, the society would demote foreigners to a lower status, and would flood the labor market, which in turn, would decrease the price of labor, setting off the need for political reform or outright socialist rebellion (which happened in several German principalities, though they were put down by other nations).

Secondly, going back to land, labor, and capital, these are the building blocks of all market economies, and should play the central role in the algorithm.

If you put capital into the system this would cause a proportional increase in both land (the price of land would increase, so more land would enter the market), as well as labor (the price of labor would increase, and more laborers would enter the market). If you put labor into the system, we would see a proportional increase in capital (labor would be cheaper, so more people would invest in industry). Etcetera.

These three variables alone could determine how the economy would behave in the future... Keeping track of every commodity would be near-impossible...

[Ramo]

quote: Unfortunately I am still a bit lost on how to implement land into the algorithm. It is required, not only because it is important in reality, but because it is propably the best way to implement both a capitalist and a nobility class in the political model. But wouldn't machines be a part of capital?

Doh! Hmm.. I meant to use machines as an example of capital. Oh well.. Land is generally meant to cover any natural resources. Therefore, land expansion can only occur through war or diplomacy. Land development, OTOH, comes with capital.

Wealth distrbution would be a bit more complex... I suppose we could have a distribution curve covering the percentage of people with the percentage of wealth. For example, the US would be exponential, while northern Europe would be significantly more linear. And, of course, this distribution would affect the investment rate, happiness, etc. The problem is, who's economic policies will we follow ? We don't have any supply-siders in GG&S, do we ?

quote: Excellent describtion of capital in nationalistic societies. I wasn't at all aware of that.

Thanks.

quote: But why do you think handling each commodity would be impossible? Do you think we will have to remove it from the model? I think at least having "commodity groups" like food, housing, communication, transportation etc would be required, to make the economy model any fun to interact with as a player.

I suppose that's feasible, but probably difficult. Come to think of it, it's not as hard as I initially thought, but still not that easy...

quote: What do you think of the work we have done so far in the econ model?

Great work so far (of course I've only read the first page ).

[The Joker]

Thanks for the suggestions, Ramo.

I am aware of the 3 basic economic parts. The first demo will only include labour, but later on we will build on it.

Unfortunately I am still a bit lost on how to implement land into the algorithm. It is required, not only because it is important in reality, but because it is propably the best way to implement both a capitalist and a nobility class in the political model. But wouldn't machines be a part of capital?

Excellent describtion of capital in nationalistic societies. I wasn't at all aware of that.

But why do you think handling each commodity would be impossible? Do you think we will have to remove it from the model? I think at least having "commodity groups" like food, housing, communication, transportation etc would be required, to make the economy model any fun to interact with as a player.

I have been thinking about how to implement capital in the model, but I would like to see Amjayee's econ demo first, to see if the initial supply and demand algorithms works.

What do you think of the work we have done so far in the econ model?

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Vote Gore. For the sake of people, not god.

GGS Website

[amjayee]

About elasticity: now I see. I thought it was something with what the old price is multiplied to get the new price, but now I realised it is the change of the price. Good, that cleared it out.

About capital and such, I don't have time to think of it seriously, but earlier I was planning, that the company system would take care of that, and had some plans for it. I will talk about it when I'm making suggestions for the company model.

About commodities, I think we can't live without them. They are an essential part of trade. Economy might live without them, but we need trade also...

BTW, this thread is really sprawling! 154 messages already!
[This message has been edited by amjayee (edited November 06, 2000).]

[The Joker]

Ramo:

Oh, so you think land would be covered by having raw materials?

But especcially conserning food producers the owners of the land (the nobility) should have a lot of importance.

Wealth distribution:
I have been thinking a lot about this some time ago, and I came to the conclusion that it would be way cooler to have an actual econ model with actual classes, than just a "fake" Lorenz graph based on some variables. In stead we should have the classes, and their wealth would be determined by the actual conditions of the economy. In the first demo there will be just one class (self employed people) but soon it should be possible to have two (capitalists and workers) and more could easily be added, to create a vibrant and living economy. From these classes a graph could be constructed, but now it would just show the state of the civ, and not create it.

quote: The problem is, who's economic policies will we follow ? We don't have any supply-siders in GG&S, do we ?

I'm not sure I understand. Do you mean what economic school we will base our model on? If so then I hope it wont become complex enough for that to be needed. But what do you mean about supply-siders?


Amjayee:

Elasticity:
Great!

Capital:
I have some ideas for it, it's just that I would like to see a supply/demand/price model the works before going on to more advanced stuff like capital. The next econ demo should include both capitalists and workers, capital and raw materials.

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Vote Gore. For the sake of people, not god.

GGS Website

[amjayee]

Collected Excuses by amjayee:

-I was going to use the last weekend for the economy demo, but instead decided to visit my parents after the funeral. So that delayed the progress.

-All code is now ready, the program compiles, executes, and runs stable. But: it behaves a little strangely, and I want to fix that before I send it. Shouldn't be tough, I hope tomorrow it would be ready. But don't take this for granted.

-Generally I have been doing some stupid things with this program, since I have never been creating this complex class hierarchies. But I have learnt lots of things.

Expect it soon. Though I have learnt enough not to give excact dates.

Yes, I agree the next version should have companies and such. Third might have trade.

[amjayee]

The first rough version of the prototype is now available. Get it from its own thread I made.

[Ramo]

Joker:

"Supply-Side" economics is the ideology that wealth "trickles down" from the rich to the poor. It's also called Reaganomics or Voodoo Economics. (needless to say, I call it crack-brained economics )

Land:

Yeah, land refers to all raw materials, so I suppose real land and minerals should be sub-categories (both expanding w/capital). They would merely be another market (but would be more of an oligarchy than perfect competition, until later).

Wealth distribution:

Making "classes" would be interesting, but not necessary. Dealing with a wealth distribution function would be a hell of a lot easier than dealing with a list of classes. Perhaps we could just use the class list for the end-user?

Classes, IMO, would make things a lot harder to deal with (especially since divisions get rather blurry).

[amjayee]

If we would just need to track wealth distribution, it may be that without classes it would be easier. But there are also some other things that we need to achieve, other than economics or wealth distribution; so, we need to find a balance point between different ideas. And keeping track of wealth class-wise is a necessity, otherwise it becomes quite inexcact, and that would harm the social system, I think.

[The Joker]

Ramo:

Supply siders:
Ok! So no, I'm pretty sure we don't have any of them on the team. We're all pretty liberal, as far as I know.

Land:
Yes, that's what I had in mind, too. It is a bit hard to implement, though.

Wealth:
I think at least having a capitalist class and a workers class is required to portray both economic and political concepts (communism, revolutions etc). And a self employed middle class could also be added. Besides, we don't need a lot of classes. And classes would be generic, so there is no need to have wealthy or poor members of a class.

How would you suggest to portray a market economy without classes?

(I just saw that Amjayee has said pretty much the same as I have, but either way...)

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"It would sharpen you up and make you ready for a bit of the old ultra-violence."
- A Clockwork Orange

GGS Website

[S. Kroeze]

quote: Originally posted by The Joker on 11-09-2000 12:42 PM Wealth: I think at least having a capitalist class and a workers class is required to portray both economic and political concepts (communism, revolutions etc). And a self employed middle class could also be added. Besides, we don't need a lot of classes. And classes would be generic, so there is no need to have wealthy or poor members of a class. How would you suggest to portray a market economy without classes?

Dear Joker,

Allow me to repost a message I posted about three months ago in your thread about "SI: a working system for including your people in the management of your civilization"!

'Firstly I think you make things rather complex by introducing so many social groups. Some of them, e.g.the scientists, as a rule are so small and wield so little power I don't think they need to be represented as a separate group. My suggestion would be: peasants, workers, traders, large landowners, entrepreneurs, priests and the nobility, which is usually in control of the army, perhaps also the bureaucracy.

On the other hand I think the influence of regional sympathies should be included. The nobility of Normandie and that of Gascogne could have conflicting ideas about government and division of spoils. Especially the second should never be forgotten: apparently the various political elites may seem to be divided on political issues, but very often more careful analysis will show they are actually in competition for favours and offices. Because anyone in a position of power can reward its own clientele -more or less like the Mafia does. People out of royal favour will have the natural tendency to join the opposition. The machinations within the EU make this regional/national tendencies manifest to every observer.'

I realize that these comments perhaps do not belong here. On the other hand, an important reason to include several different social classes is that without them a politically and economically challenging and also a realistic game structure, what I would call Domestic Politics, isn't feasible in any possible way. And I really love my division of spoils idea! It is in my opinion the only way "wealth will trickle down".

Yes, we are taught that politicians pursue some ideology or the interests of some class or pressure group. It might be true, but politicians are also individuals, members of a family -with or without pedigree- with local ties, their own circle of 'old boys' etc. In another thread the idea of individual characters was discussed. I would love to have a character representing the most honored noble family of the realm, the ambitious cardinal hoping to become pope, the union leader.

Best wishes!

[amjayee]

I start to see S.Kroeze's idea here. So, we would have own classes only for the powerful groups, that would be expected to share the same ambitions. The class list presented by him seemed good. But I don't think nobility should be always in charge of the military; today it's the high rank officers and powerful politicians in some cases.

So, those would be the classes, that create the social and economic environment. In addition to those, we need also several professions; for example we need to keep track of scientists, perhaps also artists and such, if those are implemented (and I think they should). They would not affect much the economy, and the social system they would affect only marginally. I think that these have in common the fact that they are usually "out of classes", so they are not attached to any class, and usually they are government funded. Perhaps military, meaning the ordinary soldiers, should go to this group also? This might not be very clearly said, what do you think?

Then what about students? They are quite a new "class", but they are somewhat powerful; they were important in the French revolution, like also in the Russian revolution in 1917. Also in Finland they have tried to throw a revolution. Can we ignore such a group? And if not, how whould it be handled? Would it be bad to have an own class for them? I mean, they don't belong to that class all their lives, but only some years. Perhaps we should come up with a special treatment for them? Perhaps we could only keep track of their number, like with scientists, and let the number affect some things?

[The Joker]

Thank you for reminding me of your post, Sander.

Once again I agree with you that the number of classes should not be too high, or the political model will be impossible to play with. But on the other hand I am not sure I completely agree with your list of classes.

I think my list would be something like this:

workers
peasants
capitalists (capital owners)
self employed people (I don't know a good word for these in English, though)
large landowners
bureaucracy
military leaders
religious leaders
(intelligentsia)

I don't think these would be too many. The main problem I see with the political model is the nobility. They do not really have a place in the economy. They would be part capital owners, part landowners and part military people. So how can they be handled? I also think that including the intelligentsia is important, also when considering possible near future scenarios. These would include both scientists, and the artists and students, that Amjayee talked about.

When this is said I also agree with you that classes should be handled at a regional level, and that the same class in different regions could have conflicting ideas.

At the moment I am not really thinking much about the political model. It is pretty much an addon to the more basic models, and so I would like to have a pop and an econ model ready, before I start worrying about any politics. But it is good to discuss this now, since we will have to decide it sooner or later.

And once again thank you for your help.

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"It would sharpen you up and make you ready for a bit of the old ultra-violence."
- A Clockwork Orange

GGS Website

[Guildmaster]

"Self employed people"
You don't know a good english word for this?
I will tell you the english word that means this, but first you must answer me these questions three:
1) What is your name?
2) What is your quest?
3) What is the average windspeed velocity of a laden swallow?

Ok, the secret word for today is: "Entrepeneur- A person who is self employed or runs their own business."

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How will you make it if you never even try?
-Macy Gray