Hypothetical SE Changes

[Brumec]

Firstly, at least judging by gameplay effects, your Industry rating doesn't necessarily indicate how efficient your industry, just how fast it is.
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In other words, the Industry penalty for Green doesn't mean that your factories are less efficient, just that they are slower - it takes longer to complete a given project because you have fewer factories to work on it, and those factories are more focused on using the minerals efficiently rather than quickly. This also means that your mining output is reduced (as you don't need all of that surplus material). Nevertheless, all these effects just show up in game as it taking 10% longer to complete a project.

Well, I must admit that, from SMAC perspective, that could be smart explanation of industry rating. And this explanation works fine with lower industry rating under Power: more people under arms, less at work -> longer time to complete something, with countless examples from real history.

Not exactly - democracy just means "rule by the people"; the extent and form of that rule can vary, however. For example, there are probably millions of details that, as faction ruler, you never have to consider - zoning issues, public safety laws, various civil services, and more - that still have to be handled. The Politics SE setting may well determine who is in charge of them: under Police State, they're handled by military lieutenants; under Fundamentalism, the clergy serve as the ruling class; and under Democracy, either the local leaders are elected or the issues are settled by referendum.

Okay, but it still means that SMAC democracies are unlike democratic republics, and more like democratic monarchies for which we also have modern-day examples, from Spain to Sweden.

Fun fact: the US began as what amounted to 13 different countries with a common army, rather than one country with multiple sub-divisions. This was actually something of a nightmare, in terms of efficiency, because each of the 13 states had their own currency and also tended to ignore the treaties into which the US as a whole had entered.

Yes, but never forget that first US constitution was called Articles of Confederation, not "Federal Constitution". And yes, question of federation/confederacy was eventually settled in civil war.

It was only when the Constitution created a relatively strong central government that the country was able to function.

Yes - and that is precisely why I think that we may look upon Smaniac's federation as synonim for efficient post-civil war american federation or modern German Bundesrepublik, not as synonim for Confederation (with capital C) or medieval german Holy Roman Empire.

Of course, there's also that economy/free market problem in SMAC for which I think that Smaniac got better, but still not quite good solution. I absolutely see no reason why strongly regulated economy ("planned" in SMAC vocabulary) would have greater population growth and - surprise, surprise - there's no such example in history. Most planned economies had big problems with population agening, especially DDR.

There is much greater chance to have bigger population growth because of - democracy: at least democracies don't kill their own people by millions in gulags, concentration camps or wherever.

And while both planned economies and free markets took their share in environmental devastation, me thinks that planned economies did far worse atrocities on this issue than free markets. See Caspian and Aral Sea or chinese rivers - you don't see such catastrophies in North America or in former Yugoslavia ("socialist free market").

Basically, as in Smainac's reasoning for his mod SE, environmental protection is political decision, not some inherent feature of this or that economical system. Smaller complaint about his SE is still negative talent modification, but which is much better than -5 police rating in original SMAC settings.

[Wobbo]

OTOH, if by federal you mean umpteen gazillion redundant ministries for each and every local government with associated bureaucracies then federal state is obviously not efficient.

In fact, this is exactly what the United States has. We have 50 states with over 1000 different counties each with 100's of cities each one with its own often overlapping agencies, councils, counties, legal jurisdictions, and legislative responsibilities. There is literally nothing like it anywhere else in the world. Yes, some European governments may be relatively more centralized than EACH OTHER, but none come anywhere close to the redundancy and inefficiency of the American federal system.

American pay a huge price for their obsession with "decentralization" and "devolution"" and their irrational fear of "big government". We demand "local" and "autonomous" government, and it leads directly to the problems I just listed above. The massive irony is that exactly the problems of governance commonly associated with "big government" are actually CAUSED by small government.

Smaller is NOT better, despite what most Americans think.

Not in context: efficiency, to a degree, represents the amount of bureaucracy in the system. If everything is handled locally, then there is less bureaucracy.

That's simply not true. Not in theory, or practice. Everything cannot be handled locally - modern economies are and always have involved large border crossing/expanding projects. Accountability in regulation and taxation require cooperation over MUCH longer distances than a federal system can optimally allow; if money and power can simply leave jurisdictions to escape policies they don't like, how do you expect to have any sort of democracy - or politics at all?

Part of the reason why countries like Sweden and Germany have been able to effectively reduce poverty and unemployment is because government power is so concentrated. German businesses can't just move to Berlin if they don't like the rules in Dresden, but American companies often do move to Alabama if they don't like the rules in New Jersey. Likewise, Swedish banks can't pick and choose the regulatory agencies that regulate them - Sweden has a unified and centralized regulatory system. But unfortunately American banks can and very often do switch their classifications to manipulate regulations and tax codes all the time, because we have several overlapping and contradictory bank regulations.

Yes - and that is precisely why I think that we may look upon Smaniac's federation as synonim for efficient post-civil war american federation or modern German Bundesrepublik, not as synonim for Confederation (with capital C) or medieval german Holy Roman Empire.

This only helps my argument - the political economy of the united States was MORE centralized - and of course, humane, civilized, and decent - AFTER the civil war. Which was exactly my point. To paraphrase MLK Jr.: the long arch of history bends towards centralized government power - not the other way around. Centralized Democracy should be the more "advanced" choice than Federalized.

[Wobbo]

Of course, there's also that economy/free market problem in SMAC for which I think that Smaniac got better, but still not quite good solution. I absolutely see no reason why strongly regulated economy ("planned" in SMAC vocabulary) would have greater population growth and - surprise, surprise - there's no such example in history. Most planned economies had big problems with population agening, especially DDR.

Russia went from being a third world backwater to the 2nd most powerful country on Earth (the Soviet Union), with one of the largest economies in the world. And yes, they had MASSIVE population growth. In fact, as soon as the Soviet Union disbanded and adopted more free-market economic policies they experienced a massive population die-off: over 1 million people fewer were alive by the late 1990's in Russia as the late 1980's. This is unheard of in any country not experiencing war. Even Vietnam's population never actually decreased at any time during their wars - millions of people died, but economic growth meant that many millions more were born.

The only reason it looks like planned economies have problems with growth is because exactly the countries that tend to use them are impoverished. That of course doesn't mean that social planning is a bad thing - most of the countries on Earth are very poor.

Economic planning is a feature common to every economy that has ever survived in human history. Despite American propaganda and popular opinion, the United States had, until recently an "industrial policy" - as do the governments of every other First world country pretty much ever. Japan, Korea, Britain, Germany - you name it, if the country is economically successful, it has strong government interference in markets and industry.

That doesn't mean that planned economies are necessarily the best thing for a society to have all the time (imo they actually are but this isn't a political forum so I'll shut up about that), nor does it mean that a video game trying to balance out SE choices should make Planned the best option all the time. But it is definitely NOT a bad idea to make Planned the choice for growth - all of human history confirms that.

[Wobbo]

And while both planned economies and free markets took their share in environmental devastation, me thinks that planned economies did far worse atrocities on this issue than free markets. See Caspian and Aral Sea or chinese rivers - you don't see such catastrophies in North America or in former Yugoslavia ("socialist free market").

Uh, no. Historically, by FAR the biggest polluters are and always have been the United States, Britain, and Japan. Not just per capita, but in absolute terms of carbon dioxide emissions, direct ecological damage etc. Of course the Soviet Union was by no means an ecologically sustainable arrangement, but it isn't even a contest to compare free market economies to planned ones - deregulated free markets are always bigger polluters, and that's relative to other countries and even internal to countries.

However, you really have to look at the internal mechanisms of a society get WHY free market economies are so much more harmful. Any healthy society is going to have GDP growth. The question is how is that growth distributed? Factories? Solar Power? Dense Cities? Sprawling Suburbs? Toys? Cars? Services?You're right to point out that ecological sustainability is a political decision - but if the economic priorities are entirely determined by the market than you can't actually make political decisions, at all, can you?

Maniac (and Firaxis) got it exactly right - Planned economies aren't necessarily GOOD for the environment, but Free Markets are always BAD. Besides, it's good game balance.

[Brumec]

Russia went from being a third world backwater to the 2nd most powerful country on Earth (the Soviet Union), with one of the largest economies in the world. And yes, they had MASSIVE population growth.

Imperial Russia 1916 estimate: 181 million people

Soviet Union 1991 estimate: 293 million

USA: 1910 - 92 million, 1990 - 249 million

Compare for yourself...

Yes, SU did have population growth (as any other country in this period), but not so massive at all. Tovarish Stalin was responsible for this almost as much as his moustached nazi buddy. Ever heard of Holodomor, for example?

Soviet economy was dwarfed by US and western europen economies and relied mostly on armament production and natural resources export. Yes, they did catch West in many high-tech fields, but those achievements were used almost exclusively in military industry. No consumer goods. No chewing gums. No jeans. No home computers - and when they did appear, that were almost exclusively copies of Spectrum and similar machines. Hell, they even didn't manage to feed their own population because of collectivised agriculture and have never achieved grain production of Russian Empire.

By the way, Soviet agriculture was never totally collectivised - somwhere around 2 to 4 percent of land remained in private hands of soviet citizens - and these land produced as much as quarter of entire soviet agricultural output!

See for yourself about demographic catastrophy in DDR.

In fact, as soon as the Soviet Union disbanded and adopted more free-market economic policies they experienced a massive population die-off: over 1 million people fewer were alive by the late 1990's in Russia as the late 1980's. This is unheard of in any country not experiencing war.

They did not adopt more free market policy, but simply, during Yeltsin's rule, switched to kleptocracy.

The only reason it looks like planned economies have problems with growth is because exactly the countries that tend to use them are impoverished.

I'd say that planned economy made them impoverished or more impoverished than before. South Korea didn't use planned economy and is doing much better than Vietnam. Post WW2 Germany was bombed out of existence with western part under heavy refugee burden but that didn't stop them to rise again using free market.

Economic planning is a feature common to every economy that has ever survived in human history. Despite American propaganda and popular opinion, the United States had, until recently an "industrial policy" - as do the governments of every other First world country pretty much ever. Japan, Korea, Britain, Germany - you name it, if the country is economically successful, it has strong government interference in markets and industry.

I agree with you on that. But I wouldn't call measures of those countries' goverments "planning" because it lacked the main element of it - state ownership over means of production. In all those examples, government supported their own enterpreneurs using mush more subtle mechanisms as tariff policies. They certainly didn't kill and expell "burgeoisie".

That doesn't mean that planned economies are necessarily the best thing for a society to have all the time (imo they actually are but this isn't a political forum so I'll shut up about that), nor does it mean that a video game trying to balance out SE choices should make Planned the best option all the time. But it is definitely NOT a bad idea to make Planned the choice for growth - all of human history confirms that.

Still waiting for a single proof of that idea.

[Brumec]

However, you really have to look at the internal mechanisms of a society get WHY free market economies are so much more harmful. Any healthy society is going to have GDP growth. The question is how is that growth distributed? Factories? Solar Power? Dense Cities? Sprawling Suburbs? Toys? Cars? Services?You're right to point out that ecological sustainability is a political decision - but if the economic priorities are entirely determined by the market than you can't actually make political decisions, at all, can you?

Well, present-day attempts of EU legislature is deregulation of economy and greater environmental protection so our talk might be based on misunderstanding.

By "free market" I simply mean no governmental subsidizing of some businesses at the expense of taxpayers' money and other businesses and letting to businesses decision how much and what goods to produce, not to some governmental bureaucrat.

[Ivorrus]

Offtopic mode on

Imperial Russia 1916 estimate: 181 million people

Soviet Union 1991 estimate: 293 million

USA: 1910 - 92 million, 1990 - 249 million

Compare for yourself...

Fraud. In 1916 Russian Empire included Poland and Finland.
USA was not occupied as USSR in 1941-1943. Let's compare Russia and Germany or France.

Yes, SU did have population growth (as any other country in this period), but not so massive at all. Tovarish Stalin was responsible for this almost as much as his moustached nazi buddy. Ever heard of Holodomor, for example?

Nazi is your buddy, Ustashi.
Starvation was in many regions and it was LAST starvation.

...South Korea didn't use planned economy...

Offtopic mode off

Returning to gameplay. I completely agree with Wobbo

Planned economies aren't necessarily GOOD for the environment, but Free Markets are always BAD. Besides, it's good game balance.

[Brumec]

Fraud. In 1916 Russian Empire included Poland and Finland. USA was not occupied as USSR in 1941-1943. Let's compare Russia and Germany or France.

Russian Empire's Congress Poland population estimates in the eve of WW1 are hard to find, but are probably somewhere around 15 million, plus Finland probably about 2 million. So, Imperial Russia, I stand corrected, 164 million in 1916, SU 293 million '91.

So, my words are not fraud.