The Merchant Exchange?

[Blake]

Here’s my take on the SMAC Free Market and Democracy and justifying the penalties.

Politics refers to the command structure

Police State involves a military command structure, very rigid, people are ordered what to do, and do it or get beaten.
Under Fundamentalist a religion is created to suit the faction leaders goals and "priests" appointed, the "priests" provide guidance, and the temples/churches act as hubs of organization. Fundamentalism actually isn't dissimilar to police state, except everything gets wrapped up in religious dogma.
Democracy is not like the party democracies of earthly nations, that much should be obvious by the lack of leadership change.
Rather it's like elected/volunteer/random selection councils that govern each community, every community is governed by members of the community (which really is very much the spirit of democracy). Naturally they will choose to promote growth (as is human nature) and efficiency is better (because the councilors are strongly aware of local issues rather than being arrogant sods from faction HQ). Finally support is low, because each community is natural going to want to use their resources within the community. And on the whole they are pretty content with their little power to the people setups and tolerate the military issues because they aren’t morons and know that security is important.

To summarize:
Police State – The state sends a bunch of arrogant and armed military officials to ruthlessly command each base.
Fundamentalism - The state forces their religion upon and appoints high priests at every base.
Democracy - The state allows each base to form their own council, comprised of members of the base selected in a democratic manner, giving a high degree of autonomy to each base and a nice warm fuzzy feeling of freedom.



Now for Free Market. Free Market is much too broad a term because it can basically mean "Prices are set by supply/demand in the market and not set or manipulated by an authority". This is not sufficient to create negative impacts, especially under certain financial systems, for example interest bearing currency strongly promotes short term profits and un-sustainability, for example if you own a forest, you do best to chop it all down and sell the wood and put the money in the bank to earn interest. However interest bearing currency isn't the only possibility, it is equally possible to use currency with a demurrage charge (negative interest, basically), if your money is going to decrease in value over time you'll sell the wood from your forest only as you need the money so as to avoid excessive demurrage. Hence interest bearing currency promotes un-sustainability in a free market, while non-interest bearing currency in a free market promotes sustainability. (and in fact the solution to the worlds problems is that easy, change how money works and you change how people act - fortunately the new money systems can and are growing inside the old system and in fact even complement rather than compete with the old system, there is no need for revolution)

But I digress, even if the digression is fascinating in and of itself and highly relevant to any speculation of future economics, especially when in societies that form with no existing financial system.

The Free Market in SMAC refers to an economic system controlled by capitalists and ruled by greed. Competition for resources and money is massively promoted. All social security safety nets are stripped from the state, people work or starve. What’s more, the state taxes as much from the system as possible, "extracting" energy for it's own purposes, in an economy ruled by greed, it is only natural for the state to be greedy also. Under this system people work like dogs (they don't have time for any extra breeding), they are forced to be self-centered to survive and so have little tolerance for being told what to do by police or military (Usually like "We pay your ****ing salary with our taxes and you dare tell us what to do"). People are far too busy working to care about environmental issues, or really any issue other than their own survival in the dog-eat-dog world. It's a total free for all, and like most free for alls there are more losers than winners, yet there’s no choice but to play the game, because the other choice is starvation.

Before anyone commences holywars, remember I make it a nasty system to fit the penalties. I in no way say that this is the only way a free market can work, as I hopefully explained sufficiently earlier. In fact I would say the penalties don't fit a free market at all really, it's just that that SE setting got called Free Market, perhaps for want of a better term, or because the name Free Market can be applied to many different systems, or just because Free Market is an economic buzzword. So just remember first and foremost I am talking about that setting in the 1,1 slot on the SE table in SMAC and not Free Markets or Capitalism in general.

[Sikander]

Originally posted by Blake
Here’s my take on the SMAC Free Market and Democracy and justifying the penalties.

Politics refers to the command structure

Police State involves a military command structure, very rigid, people are ordered what to do, and do it or get beaten.
Under Fundamentalist a religion is created to suit the faction leaders goals and "priests" appointed, the "priests" provide guidance, and the temples/churches act as hubs of organization. Fundamentalism actually isn't dissimilar to police state, except everything gets wrapped up in religious dogma.
Democracy is not like the party democracies of earthly nations, that much should be obvious by the lack of leadership change.
Rather it's like elected/volunteer/random selection councils that govern each community, every community is governed by members of the community (which really is very much the spirit of democracy). Naturally they will choose to promote growth (as is human nature) and efficiency is better (because the councilors are strongly aware of local issues rather than being arrogant sods from faction HQ). Finally support is low, because each community is natural going to want to use their resources within the community. And on the whole they are pretty content with their little power to the people setups and tolerate the military issues because they aren’t morons and know that security is important.

To summarize:
Police State – The state sends a bunch of arrogant and armed military officials to ruthlessly command each base.
Fundamentalism - The state forces their religion upon and appoints high priests at every base.
Democracy - The state allows each base to form their own council, comprised of members of the base selected in a democratic manner, giving a high degree of autonomy to each base and a nice warm fuzzy feeling of freedom.



Now for Free Market. Free Market is much too broad a term because it can basically mean "Prices are set by supply/demand in the market and not set or manipulated by an authority". This is not sufficient to create negative impacts, especially under certain financial systems, for example interest bearing currency strongly promotes short term profits and un-sustainability, for example if you own a forest, you do best to chop it all down and sell the wood and put the money in the bank to earn interest. However interest bearing currency isn't the only possibility, it is equally possible to use currency with a demurrage charge (negative interest, basically), if your money is going to decrease in value over time you'll sell the wood from your forest only as you need the money so as to avoid excessive demurrage. Hence interest bearing currency promotes un-sustainability in a free market, while non-interest bearing currency in a free market promotes sustainability. (and in fact the solution to the worlds problems is that easy, change how money works and you change how people act - fortunately the new money systems can and are growing inside the old system and in fact even complement rather than compete with the old system, there is no need for revolution)

There has almost always been demurrage in the guise of inflation whenever currency has been used. The reason that currency has always been constructed of rare or difficult to manufacture materials is an attempt to minimize inflation by making the spamming of currency more difficult, with mixed results. But inflation has been the rule over time.

The countervailing tendency to inflation in the past was hoarding. As fairly safe interest bearing notes have been a pretty recent innovation, people in the past tended to hoard cash, which caused deflation by reducing the amount of cash in circulation. Deflation is a huge disincentive to investment, as cash becomes more valuable over time with no risk to the holder. One of the main positive economic results of warfare over the ages has been to reduce hoarding by either relieving the hoarders of their cash by force, or forcing them to spend it in order to protect themselves. One impact of Alexander's conquests was to put an immense amount of currency back into circulation, which in turn caused an immense amount of growth.

Of course currency is only a small percentage of capital. Agriculture had an enormous impact on the growth of capital, moreso than in the growth of currency. There are two main reasons for this. Firstly, when one doesn't have to move around all of the time to survive it becomes possible to accrue a lot of capital in the form of land, tools, buildings etc. Secondly, agriculture requires a lot of labor, which makes capital more valuable because capital saves labor. Heavy tools like plows can't be dragged around the countryside easily, but they save an immense amount of labor for the farmer who stays put. Likewise, a fort substitutes the labor of many soldiers in its ability to defend the possessions of its owner.

It is interesting to note the relative percentages of populations engaged in the profession of arms over the ages. Simple agricultural societies could afford relatively small armies (percentage wise) contrary to popular belief. They were nonetheless generally successful over their nomadic cousins because they had much larger populations to draw upon, their members were typically professional or able to draw on a cadre of professionals unlike the nomad who is the consumate generalist. They were also able to make use of capital in the form of fortifications and superior arms and armor. Finally, armies from agricultural societies had staying power, as they had food surpluses from which to draw sustenance when they operated within range of their own stores. This was a powerful defensive combination, and it was very difficult for nomads to make much of a dent in it most of the time.

More complex trading economies can afford larger armed forces, as they make more efficient use of their labor. If one can buy grain cheaply and regularly from more efficient fields and farmers, it make sense to find a profession which can offer a better bottom line, as a tradesman, soldier etc. This was Rome's strength in large part.

The signal event in fairly recent times for the growth in the size of armies was the advent of the Republic, where every man was a stakeholder in the government and could be called to service in times of national emergency. Note the difference in the size of forces deployed in the middle of the 18th century vs the hordes that Napolean could call upon just a few decades later. This is why I have an extreme dislike for Democracy's support hit in SMAC. Yes, compared to the Police State, Democracies keep a smaller portion of their population in the military, but this is a choice not an inherent condition. One reason that the West went with smaller armies than the Soviet bloc was that their citizens were much more productive, and it was felt that it was more efficient to substitute capital for labor as capital was not in nearly as short supply in the West. This process fed back on itself, as with more labor available to the economy more capital was available for the military.

Anyway, thanks for the interesting post.

[Santiago_Claus]

I did say free markets were the "lesser of evils".

Free markets by themselves don't protect the commons, but "communal" systems do an even worse job.

The larger the commons, it seems, the more abuse they suffer.

Free markets would therefore seem to be simultaneously part of the problem and part of the solution, inasmuch as any other economic system would create a bigger problem.

I do agree with you, though, that all this talk about economic systems does "miss the point", as you put it.

Solutions to environmental problems, like all issues involving "The Commons", will derive from the wisdom of voters and officeholders in making and enforcing scientifically valid, peer-reviewed, common sense rules, not by increasing the scope of the commons through tried-and-failed Marxist economic policies. That, as history demonstrates, will only make the problem worse.

[smacksim]

I think, under my new Utopian social engineering choice I get +5 holy longsword energy at my bases, which really energizes my base

Smack

[Livid_Imp]

wow, 109 posts about the Merchant Exchange eh? You all must loooove talking about the Merchant Exchange

**Livid Imp fights back the urge to get involved in a sociopolitical discussion**

[Santiago_Claus]

"Hi, Jack!" isn't just something that gets you kicked off airplanes ...

[smacksim]

Originally posted by Santiago_Clause
Free markets by themselves don't protect the commons, but "communal" systems do an even worse job.

The larger the commons, it seems, the more abuse they suffer.

IE, in your own family unit, it's harder to abuse resources without getting confronted/corrected, etc.. In a small town, it's hard to get away with anything b/c everyone knows how things are 'supposed to be', and changes you make are easily tied to you. In small cities, small companies are obvious, but individuals begin to disappear. In big cities and countries, noone can see obvious cause/effect relationships at a glance. Thus, the larger systems are less geared towards protecting common interests, just by their size.

{...}
Solutions to environmental problems, like all issues involving "The Commons", will derive from the wisdom of voters and officeholders in making and enforcing scientifically valid, peer-reviewed, common sense rules, not by increasing the scope of the commons through tried-and-failed Marxist economic policies. That, as history demonstrates, will only make the problem worse.

If this is a satifactory conclusion to these issues, I'm pretty dissapointed. For one thing, the 'Commons' is not contained or defined by the people or their government. We can't decide 'Ummm, the Earth and her ecosystems are no longer part of the Commons'. What would that mean, that we have decided that our impacts no longer effect the larger environment? That we can no longer legally share the environment? Huh? It's an arithmetic dividing by zero error.

Two, since when have voters or their reps (officeholders) shown any wisdom in following scientific processes about setting environmental law? Politicians make decisions for political, not scientific reasons. Voters oversimplify issues because they 'just know' the right thing to do, or want to save baby seals, or can't understand that their God-Given-Right to Petroleum is in conflict with their leftist leanings about the environment. I just don't see it.

What I see in your paragraph here is an artificial comparison of 'Make better laws' vs. 'Enlarge the Commons'. Am I missing something? Surely. But I'll ramble anyways.

I'd argue that we will never make better laws r/e the environment until we undergo some sort of radical change. Mere scientific progress/research/conclusions will never be enough to stand against a tide of culture. Certainly there is a good chance that we Will eventually make much more comprehensive environmental laws, but I'd argue that this will be after the ZIT of our consumer culture has popped, after some unrelated cultural upheaval, or after a very long epoch of prosperity. With stable prosperity, eventually we'll be ready to 'afford' environmental laws that are strict, far-seeing, and comprehensive. I just kinda wonder how long that'll be? And I do worry that this last path will involve significant environmental backlash, just like any other non-Planned policy will.

Backlash: Overpopulation continues, increasing mass starvation. Increasing global disease (AIDS, west nile, Hepatitis, Cholera, etc.). Global disease peaks with decimation of even the (oh my god noooooo!) Western Countries.

Backlash: Thousands of years pass with little cultural change, or non-rapacious policies. Prime resources are fairly decimated (Timber, Oil, Fisheries, arable land, etc.). War, energy failure, breakdown in transportation system, or other 'fluke', knocks the world off this precarious precipice. Many hundreds of years to recover (considering there are very few resources for a more primitive economy to get started)

Backlash: Interstellar police come by and give us all a spanking for having ruined their Zoo. (See the Vogon invasion in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy)

Now, what's this bit about enlarging the Commons? The Commons is infinately large, eh? Bigger? But you refer to Communism as an enlargement, so I'll take it to mean that 'Enlarging the Commons' means to intentionally extend our interdependence. But this breaks down as well. The thing that causes the MOST interdependence between individuals in the modern world is Modernization itself. The more backwards and primitive a group/country is, the less interdependent the indivituals will be. Five nomads in central Brazil are completely independent, with the exception that in 50 years, they will no longer have any land/jungle/trees/food, and that the air quality, etc. is impacted by those far away.

So, there are really two sides to the ever expanding environmental 'Commons'. On one side is our increasing dependence on global resources and transportation networks. Very likely, the food you eat comes from all over the globe, etc.. On the other side, our increasing impact on global scales, such as CO2 emissions, deforestation, ocean pollution, etc., also increases the effect of the Commons on the individual. If both continue to increase, it will become ever more obvious that we are all living IN the Commons, which has always been true, but isn't visible until it slaps you (apparently).

The Commons is increasing in size irregardless of politics. It is increasing in size b/c population pressure and Modernization. B/C global environmental impacts. B/C global disease, etc.

This is not a good thing, and it has nothing to do with Communism. With this perspective of the Commons, any backwards political system in fact slows down our progression towards complete interdependence, and hence, slows down the expansion of the Commons. For example, as I know you all are thinking of it anyways, what about the U.S.S.R.? If we can demonstrate that the USSR was slower to Modernize than the west, we can show that one variable in expanding the Commons was smaller there than in the West. It is arguable that another variable was larger: Direct impact on the global environment, from pollution, irresponsible harvesting, etc.. These variables are like particles and have different energies/masses as far as balooning the Commons is concerned. To grossly oversimplify all the variables a person could think relate to such an equation....:

Increased Interdependence (Modernization) * Number of people per hectare = Balloon factor one.

Increased Damage of global environment = Balloon factor two.

Balloon1 * Balloon2 = Volume of the Commons / Volume of Independence

Or some such

-Smack