Fantasy systems usually have "gold" or something as a currency, and that often plays a big part in character power, but there are some speculative economic systems where currency isn't really a thing. At most, you might see "labor vouchers" that are good for one transaction. How would you run an RPG system where character wealth is a big deal, but in a setting with a moneyless economy?
>commies REEEEEEEE
Let's assume for a moment that in our pretendy fantasy elfgames, we can have communists or whatever. It's tabletop. If you want to debate the relative merits of economic systems, there's a better place for it than 4chan.
>>43573201
Well I'd probably use one of the various "resources" systems where you have to roll under your "ability to aquire stuff" stat to see if you can acquire stuff. Party backing, underworld contacts, etc
>>43573201
How are labor vouchers different from money?
As for an alternative system to money, the thing that pops to my mind is gratitude economy. Before we had cities or money, people lived in tribes, but things still got done. Being wealthy in that environment would just mean being well-liked enough that people would want to give you gifts or do things for you just to win your favor. Or being capable in some specific way that made your services valuable; like if you're the only guy who can climb up and get a specific kind of delicious fruit.
>>43573237
This pretty much. Money appeared as a necessity for bigger"state-based" armies/empires and more bureaucratic societies.
>>43573201
If you are looking for alternatives to currency, eclipse phase has a few systems,mainly based on reputation, for their "post-scarcity" social anarchist communes.
>>43573201
>OP brought his faggot voucher
>>43573286
>>43573237
Not to mention that many societies used both systems at the same time in different contexts, the Vikings come to mind.
Marxism needs to die out. It's been nothing but a catastrophe and quite frankly may have permanently stunted human development.
>>43573201
Question: How did the Feds in Star Trek do this again? Since they don't use money either but they have stuff. So just say we got the power to make it so make it I guess. And they did use credits whatever the hell that was really in that setting is anyone's guess.
Use the rep system from eclipse phase. You can use it to model favors owed by a community, and how they get repaid.
>>43574061
>permanently
why not temporally?
>>43574061
Why /pol/ comes on /tg/ so often?.
OP said specifically that this was not about politics or serious economics but about a different economic system in our make-believe games. One that doesn't use metal-based money.
>>43574108
You got an allowance of Energy Credits you use to replicate stuff.
>>43574108
Energy is all you need to produce material goods. A matter-energy replicator can build anything from energy.
>>43574108
Because all the material good are easily satisfied by replicators, the only thing truly scarse is prestige/political power/rank etc.
>>43573201
Unless you're basing it on pre-currency systems of economy (barter or group/tribal resource sharing) it will inevitably feel very forced and stupid.
Money (especially when the precious metal content of a coin was important) makes too much sense for people not to use it in their world building if their setting is anything above primitive.
>>43574108
The Federation is post-scarcity. Replicators can manufacture 99.999% of anything you could want out of energy alone, which is also plentiful because the first thing they had the replicators churn out were futuristic power plants.
The Federation is beyond requiring exchange of goods because access to all resources is now universal. One doesn't need a medium to facilitate trade between the farmer, the miller, and the baker because each of them can simply get what they need straight from a replicator, no fuss about harvests or equipment or transportation between several stops.
For most of human history, most commerce could be summarized as making resources available to other industry. With replicators, logistics have been finished.
Federation citizens work as a hobby. A cook only cooks for the fun of it, and people only eat it for the novelty and social experience of eating a hand-made meal, since a replicator could create an identical meal in seconds and a holographic projector could simulate the restaurant perfectly.
The only things that are still in demand are energy, which is tracked by energy credits issued freely to all citizens, and novelty. When you can have anything you can think of at the push of a button, the most important person is the one of thinks of new things to want.
And gold-pressed latinum.
>>43574171
>Why /pol/ comes on /tg/ so often?.
Because, as you have just illustrated, /tg/ always replies to /pol/ shitposting, thus giving trolls a convenient foothold in the thread.
You could have ignored him, but you didn't.
>>43573201
No, communism is too fantasy even for fantasy.
Jokes aside, Why don't You have a divine king setup?
>>the King of our communist fantasy kingdom is the earth goddess's "husband".
>>their marriage is obviously, more of a ritual and cerimonial thing that anything else.
>>Every resource belongs to the Earth Goddess/The genius loci that, through her husband, grants their use to humans.
>>The King doesn't Just let people use whatever and/or have "propriety" per se. Rather he instructs his incorructible paladins so that they either help him write his seven years economic plan for the development of utopia or go around the various agricultural and industrial settlements, making people act it out and administering justice.
>>Every 7 years the King is sacrificed to the earth goddess and She selects a new husband among the paladins, making her choice known through her Avatar: the Celestial Cow.
>>You become a paladin through direct investment from the king at the end of years of gruesome training and indoctrination at the House of Joy, if you're found worthy. Both King and queen can veto one's admission to the order of Paladins.
>>The Goddess of the Hearth is trying to build utopia because last time, When She created the world, Demons (the other gods) corrupted her creation with greed and egoism.
And here we have communism+celtism+matriarcal preindoeuropean social order.
An interesting twist to this could be a God of the Earth that selects only (Virgin) women for paladins and chooses his waifu through his avatar: the Unicorn.
However he probably wouldn't want them sacrificed at the end of their mandate.
>>43574835
*goddess of the earth.
I had a game set in a penal colony where the residents would earn iron coins for their labor but most of the residents relied on barter and trade.
>>43573201
Have them be able to own Slaves essentially.
People are usually a commonly found commodity and have and intrinsic value in the value of their labor.
Otherwise, you aren't going to get very far in a barter economy. Are we assuming that the elves live in a post scarcity society where one simply needs ask in order to receive? Then there simply is no method of transaction, go nuts with your kitted out level 1's.
>>43573201
You could try to go for something like the Inca. They had a functioning command economy, with most non-command economic activity being done via barter.
>>43574835
As far as actual exchange system go; rather than having money You have a bracelet with various pendants that describe your deeds, the quality of your job etc. The shinier and blingiest it is the better your food, your room, your equipment and your concubines are.
>>43574598
What happens if a citizen prints power plants? Is he richer?
>>43574171
>>ideology written by euphoric fedora manchild that never worked a day in his life and that betrays complete ignorance of the laws of economics murders more people than two word wars combined.
>>if You suggest out loud that the world would've been better off without it, You belong to /pol/.
I've never been there, but i'm starting to think it can't be so bad since i allways read it mentioned in such retardastic contexts.
>>43573201
commies REEEEEEEE
>>43574061
>Capitalism is literally killing the environment and the human spirit.
>>43573201
Shouldn't you reds stay in /his/?
>>43575020
Wow such arguments, much shill. Go back to /pol/.
>>43575020
I think the problem is that what you said has absolutely nothing to do with the thread except in the most perfunctory way possible.
You are literally a shitposter, and if you had a trip, everyone would instead be screaming about how all tripfags need to die.
>>43575448
>reds in /his/
/his/ is France under Nazi occupation right now.
>>43575527
I'm not that anon.
>>43574061
>>43575020
Wait for it.
>>43575020
What's interesting about Marx is that he actually had the makings of a good labor economist, if only he hadn't gotten into lousy philosophy and worse politics.
>>43575428
...Also the environment is perfectly fine and capitalism IS the human spirit.
Nevermind. Let's talk settings. Nobody answered me yet.
>>43574835
>>43574927
It's not like you'd ever imply i've contributed nothing to the thread otherwise, hm?
>>43575655
Perhaps. Please explain what You mean.
So, how many fantasy commie villains do you know /tg/? I only know this guy and every single bad guy in the Sword of Truth series.
>capitalism the economic system for psychopaths
>mah wealth
>mah wars
>mah oil
>mah can't into logical efficiency
It's shit and it gives humanity exactly what it deserves a shitty life for 99% of the population, we'll even get to witness WW3 the next 50 years and we'll get to see how humanity destroys or enslave itself wouldn't that be great?
if you believe capitalism is good you are literally everything that's wrong with humanity
To be fair, introducing Communism ideas into a broken, war torn kingdom/society is a sure way to bring it down with the best efficiency.
Even better if you are playing the ruler of another society as judging by circumstances you might not even suffer casualties to make said kingdom into a vassal state
How long until this turns into a Horo or Maoyuu thread, anyway?
>>43575696
He was one of the earliest writers to seriously treat the issue of labor as an economic input, and his writings on the relationship between capital and labor were solid for their time. He's not perfect, but if he had focused more on being an economist than a demagogue he probably would have made significant contributions to the field. To put it economic terms, his positive writings were good but his normative writings were lousy.
>>43575686
Go to bed, Ayn Rand.
>>43575839
Well, it's not like command economies do any better. A mixed economy (what almost every modern nation-state already has) with stronger abilities to regulate negative externalities is probably the best solution out of a range of bad solutions.
>>43575839
Exactly, if we ever want to improve the lot of our entire species and maybe expand to other worlds or simply make our world better (if FTL or other cosmic shortcuts are not actually possible) we're going to need to all work together.
Capitalism is a distraction and the resources it produces are spent poorly. With the technology and freedoms many humans enjoy, socialism is possible without the dictators of old.
>>43575839
You think communism is the better alternative and you have the balls to call anybody else a psychopath. What is wrong with you.
>>43575897
there are MUCH better options see article Venus Project and Jaque Fresco for reference, but sure that would never happen and humanity will get what it deserves which is either annihilation or an 1984-esque dystopia.
>>43575839
Everything You said, socialism did. We're in a state of mixed economy in with there's no true economic freedom and great corporations, banks etc get bailed out by the government -pretty inevitable When they're ONE with it, in perfect fascist lockstep with one another- while small business are forced to close.
A small government wouldn't do ad much damage, and big corporations that did what certain people did in 2008 would just collapse, leaving more space for small to medium enterprises.
>there is only either capitalism or communism
- The fucking blithering idiots ITT
OP, either people will trade for things of value or people will trade in currency even if it's not really a minted currency. You could have players amassing land and cattle and such to trade with - "four of my sheep for one your best swords", whatever. In a futuristic setting, you could have players trading, say four tons of Unobtainium for six tons of Arbitrarite. Ultimately, though, in this instance they're essentially still just trading rare metals.
Vouchers or credits or whatever are themselves still just a form of currency. Players could trade in something magical, a generic "yeah I'll channel you X AU of my chi if you suck my dick" but ultimately, then they're still just paying for things with gold except this gold comes from the aether rather than the ground. Ultimately, the only real alternative to currency is what >>43573237 says and that only works in tiny communities. You could play a game set in the stone age and have people barter with favours, that would be cool, but that's the only currency-less deal I can think of.
>>43575839
Governments will continue to do horrible things with or without capitalism. Before you make this argument again, please make the distinction between the two.
>>43575966
>1984 dystopia
Which communism would almost inevitably cause, what is your point.
Where do you crazy people that think valuing individual rights leads to authoritarianism even come from.
>>43575987
Well this is the problem, people don't seem to understand money is necessary and that whenever possible people will barter and trade no matter how oppressive and collectivist their government is.
>>43576003
>communism
where did you see me name that word? a resource based economy is not communism and you have no idea what you are talking about. and yes the fact that a tiny tiny fraction of people hold all the power and wealth of the world will eventually lead to they enslaving us to not lose said power/wealth, but don't worry you have at least until WW3 for that to happen, enjoy what you have so far.
>>43575987
A good number of people also didn't get paid during the Middle Ages. It's a matter of how strong is the central governments.
>>43575966
I did some reading on the Venus Project, it seems to basically advocate central planning except with computers instead of people making the allocation decisions? Let me know if I'm missing something here, but that doesn't seem any different than your standard command economy.
>>43575987
I do fundamentally agree with this dude, though, as long as people need to trade with one another it's going to be money (even if you call it something silly like energy credits) or barter, which is objectively worse than just using money because of the double coincidence problem.
>>43576042
Exactly so - I thought MY understanding of economics was bad but then I see some of the comments ITT. People always barter and trade and as soon as ANYTHING other than swapping stuff you need to use or favours becomes part of trading - it could be gold, teeth, beer, bottle caps, service credits, magical essence - you've got, essentially, a currency.
>>43576076
Go ahead, explain how 'capitalism' is going to cause WW3.
>>43576131
>explain how 'capitalism' is going to cause WW3.
the problem with spending other peoples money is sooner or later it runs out
there will be a time when the hardworking are done being trodden on
>>43576103
I don't know maybe you missed something about forgoing all countries and instituting a new society where resource shortage and crime is non-existent and people actually get to enjoy this reality.
>>43573201
>EXCEPT COMMUNISM DOESN'T WORK.
But seriously, it doesn't. So unless your setting is basically Dicken's England or post-Industrial Revolution pre-Labor Reform America, but with labor vouchers, it's stretching pretty far. To be honest, even socialism is a pretty sketchy line, with a pretty fine balance to walk.
>>43576160
>the problem with spending other peoples money is sooner or later it runs out
Again, you're describing socialism and fascism, not capitalism.
Even dragons and elves makes more sense than communism. Literally impossible unless
1) small scale
2) brainwashed humans
>>43576127
This said, it is fun to think about different forms of currency other than metal coins. Only today I learned that 40k orks trade in teeth, making it lucrative to either be a big tooth-grower or an ork strong enough to beat the teeth out of your fellows. Bottle caps in Fallout is kinda cool. I was thinking how a renegade/Chaos warband in a 40k RPG might do trade with other warbands or corrupt planetary officials and decided that crates of rare materials or weapons/ammo, possibly stolen gene-seed stocks, would make sense. Just now I realise another big one that would fit - slaves.
>>43576171
I must have missed the unicorns and fey folk, too.
Your freedom end where mine begins.
Wasn't communism an idea arisen by the believe that, sooner or later, machines would replace mankind's working classes?
>>43576160
Money isn't destroyed by spending it, though, it just goes to someone else.
>>43576127
I think this is why so many economics textbook start with the production possibility frontier - "Yes trade makes both parties better off, not every transaction is exploitation, now learn."
>>43576200
The brainwashed human thing does suggest a possibility - could a nonhuman race be a functional command economy in a fantasy setting? Elves, gnomes, one of those nature-revering sorts?
>>43576160
You do realize that the reason why there is no WW3 is because everybody else in the world is scared shitless about the carnage of WW2 right?
>>43576294
>The brainwashed human thing does suggest a possibility - could a nonhuman race be a functional command economy in a fantasy setting? Elves, gnomes, one of those nature-revering sorts
Not if they have
1) prices
2) free will
3) scarcity
4) bad demand forecasting
and so on
You would need to design a very specific society
>>43576294
>command economy
The Tyranids, if I understand correctly?
>>43576294
>could a nonhuman race be a functional command economy in a fantasy setting? Elves, gnomes, one of those nature-revering sorts?
Functional is a loaded term. What does that mean? The economic calculation problem means that any centrally planned economy is going to produce things arbitrarily, without regard for the true desires of the people. If the people were willing to accept a less optimal distribution of goods in the name of equality or somesuch, then you'd think they would share their product privately without the need for a command economy.
>>43575897
>>He was one of the earliest writers to seriously treat the issue of labor as an economic input,
False: if You receive a salary to do something it stands to reason that this means what You do,even if perhaps demeaning tiring and repetitive, is worth paying for and so it has value.
Are You perhaps implying people started paying for other people's work only after Marx?
>>and his writings on the relationship between capital and labor were solid for their time
In what way exactly? He litteraly said the investor, even if he put up with the starting expenses, the marketing research etc, amounts for shit and Actually profit at the worker's expenses because he dares keep the difference between what the workers AGREED to be payed and what the clients AGREED to pay him.
He's a non-start.
>>He's not perfect,
The understatement of the year.
>>but if he had focused more on being an economist than a demagogue he probably would have made significant contributions to the field. To put it economic terms, his positive writings were good but his normative writings were lousy.
I can sorta agree that he was better When he was younger and that growing old and secure of himself and his ideas definitelly ruined what was good about him.
>>A mixed economy (what almost every modern nation-state already has) (...) is probably the best solution
Where were You in 2008?
>>43576223
and this is why you get ww3 and 1984 (: enjoy
>>43575839
You're talking about unregulated capitalism, which is basically what we have.
Without a solidly run, mostly corruption free Government, corporate entities, be they large incorporated bodies, small businesses, or single entrepreneurs, have free reign to fuck over anyone and everyone in the name of profits. Make no mistake, these entities have no social or moral obligations to anyone except their shareholders, and even then, that's less a social and moral obligation, and more of a economic obligation to provide as much money to their shareholders as possible, at whatever cost. They are not people, no matter what the law says. Unfortunately, they're embedded too deep into politics to ever excise completely without a massive uprising and massive anti-corruption reforms at the highest level.
But Capitalism in and of itself is not a system for psychopaths. Unregulated capitalism is. And despite what the media tries to spin, socialism and capitalism are not mutually exclusive. It's just a matter of reaching a happy medium between unregulated capitalism and places like Sweden where your citizens are taxed so much they might as well have no money (average tax rate there is like 60%+?). So the idea is to find a happy medium, where you have healthy support systems and infrastructure but the citizens still have motivation to actually do things.
Interstellar traders are retarder given that there's no material in existence that could justify the energy and time necessary for travelling across the stars. On the other hand, there are no planets in the solar system capable of supporting human life outside closed environments. A lone colonist cannot build a farm in space.
>>43576399
>You're talking about unregulated capitalism, which is basically what we have.
Tell me where You live so i can move there.
Jokes aside. Capitalism is regulated as shit today. The biggest enterprises are one with government and that' the hearth of the problem.
>>43575918
>>43575839
Except your basis for capitalism comes from a system that isn't capitalism, but a monopolistic competition. Look at it, the market is dominated by several brand choices, all of which offer a similar service or product that all do about as well as each other because of consumer preference.
Perfect Capitalism, like true communism(the only kind that works) is hard as fuck to achieve.
Soviet Union existed for 69 years. That's quite a lot of time for a system that cant last even 10 years.
>>43576468
69 years is pretty much nothing, tho
>>43576468
It fell in 5 as soon as Reagan decided not to pay its Bills anymore and the Pope decided to go all "fuck diplomacy" with it.
>>43576457
>Perfect Capitalism, like true communism(the only kind that works) is hard as fuck to achieve.
Pretty much impossible since You can't keep the government out of the economy without every idiot in the world getting angry and breaking stuff untill someone gives them free shit.
>>43576438
>The biggest enterprises are one with the government and that's the heart of the problem
Are you high? That's not regulation, that's corruption. The problem is that corporate entities have no social, moral or legal obligation to anyone but themselves. The problem is basically Ayn Rand.Who was a huge fucking hypocrite by the way. Seriously, spent the last 20 years of her life living off the system that she wrote so many books vilifying.and her ilk. The problem is the idea that we have zero obligation to anyone but our immediate family. You fix that, you fix half the problems with society.
>>43576200
>small scale
But most communities in fantasy are small towns ruled by a feudal overlords. The taxes come in the form of food, not money, because the peasants are never paid anything.
>>43576535
Exactly, so there really needs to be a distinction.
>>43576399
>You're talking about unregulated capitalism, which is basically what we have.
Do you live in Hong Kong? Because Sweden and the U.S. are practically the same from a regulations standpoint. Other "social democract" posterboys like Canada and Switzerland are even less regulated. You are very confused.
>>43576546
You would just have to take all the "feudalism" stuff out then. Not that easy
>>43576438
>>43576539
To be more specific, the corporations are not regulated on an economic level in any way that matters. They are taxed and they have environmental restraints on them, but they have no societal dues. And they pour millions of dollars into trying to remove what relevant restrictions they do have.
>>43576535
"True communism" however is easy as fuck to obtain. The gulags, the 70 years of unabashed oppression and the genocide of the ucrainans are JUST WHAT HAPPENS When You try communism.
Capitalism isn't an ideology, its the formalization of man's instincts and need to exchange goods. It won't promise You an utopia but it's simply as vaguely non-awfull as economic systems get.
In short: communism can't work.
Why did God invent economists?To make weathermen feel good about themselves.
>>43576553
I'm gonna call bullshit on that.
>>43576539
God, I hate social engineers.
Yes, lets make it a law that you have to care about complete strangers.
The State can solve anything.
>>43576599
What do you think a 'societal due' is exactly?
>>43576607
That's not true communism. True communism is when you are assigned a specific role and you do it unquestioningly for the better of the whole society. It can't be achieved by humans as it requires humans to be drones(basically bees, and to a lesser extent, ants). Which is why only insects have managed to do it successfully.
>>43573201
>Commies in fantasy
>Let's not talk about merits of economic systems and just figure our how to make fantasy commies work
>Thread derails into merits of economic systems
What's the point of discussing Communism vs modern Capitalism in fantasy setting when neither dominated pre-19th century societies? Almost everybody believed that farmland and mercantilism was more important.
>>43576539
>Are you high?
No, You.
Take minimum wage. Who do You think it "regulates"? Mc Donald litteraly makes burger at post scarcity rates: it could GIVE You 2 free burgers with all your orders and still make a fucking profit. They don't care if they have to pay everyone of their burger-flippers a few dollars more.
Your grandpa's hardware store, however, has to close.
Here's how awfully not regulated our wonderfull mixed economy is; we should vote whoever wants to give everyone ANOTHER raise; so at least we'll imperceptibly inconvenience McDonald again and close your grandma's cake store while we're at it.
This will show them capitalist old faggots that see your grandparents, it'll sure show them!
About "obbligation" i agree with You of course but You seem to believe that You can impose such a shift of perspective through government, like all socialists want to.
>>43576619
Regulatory policy can't be compared perfectly, of course, but Sweden is only 3.5 points below the U.S. under the index of economic freedom (a 100 point scale). Sweden's taxes are horrendous, but it's relatively lax regulations and less corrupt government raise it's score back up.
>>43576711
If it's fantasy setting, then maybe elves could have achieved some form of communism, or socialism. A lot of their products come not from necessity, but boredom, or a need to create and yet they still manage to maintain a lifestyle better than most other job equivalents of other races.
>>43576550
If that's your ground of discussion then fine.
Modern capitalism could not have existed without industrialization. That means that communism and other system might become possible in the future thanks to technological advances that makes mankind's labour obsolete.
>>43576734
Elven utopia = peak era swedish social democracy? I can believe it
It makes sense too. They ensure conflict in the rest of the world so by having the only nation/capital that is unspoiled by war, they can competitively have welfare.
>>43576599
>have no societal dues
Agree perfectly. Now listen:
It's not the government's job to define social dues. It's society's.
>>43573201
Status and privilege. A lot like in Star Trek, really. You aren't being paid to be a starship captain, but it has its own rewards in terms of influence and resources that are available to you. The position is also seen as desirable on its own, due to the idealism of the society.
Of course, you could also adopt a barter system. Technically, it's moneyless, but it's still very much a capitalist economy. Maybe the most capitalist, as this sort of setting also seems to imply weak or completely lacking regulations.
A barter economy would certainly be interesting for the players to deal with. Without coins to fall back on, the act of buying and selling gear becomes much more of a negotiation.
As I see it, the main problem in designing a plausible 23rd century these days isn't lack of grandeur, it's the imminence of changes so fundamental and unpredictable they're likely to make the dramas of 2298 as unintelligible to us as the Microsoft Anti-Trust Suit would be to Joan of Arc
>>43576730
And I'm sure Sweden has a lot of subsidies for small businesses and for new businesses, meaning it's easier to start something there than in the US, giving more economic freedom.
>>43576640
Yeah.
Trying to do THIS ends with 500 milions dead and a collapsed eastern europe and VARIOUS bullshit wars.
>>43576668
>>lets not talk about the merits of economic systems but about the merits of this economic system.
It was inevitable and you know it.
Command Economy in the past? There was barely even Central Government. You need far more bureaucracy than has ever existed. The closest thing would be China.
It's OK economist and philosophers students. We the engineers and scientist will make all your ideas and fantasies obsolete. We are the true drivers of human progress.
>>43573201
>How would you run an RPG system where character wealth is a big deal, but in a setting with a moneyless economy?
Everyone gains "points" (you can substitute the name points with whatever you want) for doing positive actions towards society, there "points" can be used to buy goods.
>>43574061
>tips fedora
Just look at this thread, anon. Good show!
>>43576983
You won't be able to display your degree if you keep jacking off on it.
>>43574108
They still had things that a fabricator couldn't make like vintage stuff and ancient artifacts; if you were a collector that wasn't interested in repos., well you needed /some/ way of buying that sort of thing, hence the credit system.
>>43576539
I want to get back at this because it drops My balls in disbelief.
>>The problem is basically Ayn Rand and her ilk.
In our age, an age undreamt of in wich every big corporations is playing the social justice card for marketing purpouse, defend a ridiculous conception of the environment and of the weather so they can passive aggressively ask for ecological subsides; an age i say where the government Gera bigger and bigger without stopping and bureocracy rules the land in such a dystopic way orwell would have had serious problems describing it...
You come to me to say that's Ayn Rand's fault.
Nobody listened to her. She was a C list authoress of Sci Fi. She's the last of the problems this planet has. And her philosophy, while completelly divorced from human instincts and altruism; is completelly irrelevant and unknown to the great majority of people while, for instance, Peter Singer's is universally discussed.
YOU should be the one explaining me how is it that the Rockfellers are allways ON When someone wants more government control on the economy, Why Bill Gates is allways Enthusiastic when we talk taxes and enviromental policies etc.
>>43577034
>not laminating your degree
good luck getting your GED dude
>>43576553
Speaking of which there's this saying that Korean large Corporation heads practice some sort of chivalry code where they feel that it's their burden to lead their country into prosperity.
There's also Taiwan, but it's currently experiencing a hemorrhage of talent and workforce to the Mainland just like how Eastern European countries are to Western Europe.
>>43577063
Not to mention the Picard family vineyards - what if someone else wants to grow grapes there? Or the Picards want to lease the land to a neighbor? There are obviously still scarce resources, the Federation seems content with just leaving them in the hands of whoever had them when they decided to turn money off.
>>43576983
Yeah. Because people fund your research. However the Party has decided it doesn't need science to being on the Gloryous Dawn of the People so report to the Local commissar for reallocation of workforce OR deportation.
>>43577099
It must suck being a Chinese person living in one of the places that escaped being part of the PRC only to have to go work there.
>>43577115
>of whoever had them
I believe You mean "of party members".
>>43576382
That's why their central planning agency is a cabal of diviners tasked with optimizing production by viewing many futures.
>>43577130
It can't be helped, not when Mainland managers are willing to pay you almost twice the amount for the same work you do back there.
>>43573201
>Let's assume for a moment that in our pretendy fantasy elfgames, we can have communists or whatever.
Well, there's your problem. Nearly every civilization has invented some kind of currency. It's just too useful to not have. And unless you have stern laws against free choice, you'll have the laws of microeconomics take hold. And even if you ban choice, you'll have a black market that follows the laws of microeconomics. Those laws don't depend on species specific traits of humanity, incidentally. Well, except for behavioral economics. So they'll apply to Dwarves, Elves, magical ponies, whatever.
With that said, ok so you want a fantasy world where thermodynamics, newtonian physics, and microeconomics don't apply. That's the whole point of fantasy, so no problem. Let's look at it from the POV of how you acquire resources:
The placid pastoral communism of Elves is the canonical example, right? You flat-out handwave the problem of where all the food and other resources come from. Tolkien's extended writings included a brief mention of elf farms, but middle earth is a shining example of this approach.
Another is a reputation-based economy. For that, you create a wealth system like D20 Modern used. An excellent system, wrongly disparaged by gamers especially here on /tg/. Then relabel "Wealth" as Status, Renown, or Face. You make a Renown check to get items from people. Gaining and losing Renown requires great deeds being recognized (or shameful scandals going public!) You could also use this basic mechanic for favor of the gods or karma. You can borrow some anthropological lingo and talk about deferred reciprocity etc. It won't hold water as a genuine economic system, but it'll be pretty solid as a game mechanic and it'll feel workable.
Also keep in mind that while the textbooks talk about "durable, valuable, portable, divisible, uniform", many real life currencies (including the modern US dollar) violate one or more of those requirements.
>>43576096
They didn't get paid in money. They could use the land of their lord, had his protection and could still trade stuff against other stuff.
>>43577081
>>43576715
What the fuck are you trying to say?
>>43575020
>murders more people than two word wars combined.
>every death is murder
>every famine is on purpose
>every military death is because of communism
>its so much worse because they targeted their own people
The United States managed to murder a million Filipinos by the end of the 1910s and during world war 2 the policy in the UK was to export food from the colonies regardless of their ability to do so. The Bengal famine of 43 killed around 2-4 million, despite the region having the same output since 41.
That's not counting the standard policy of the Brits to let colonies starve because of shitty social Darwinism, which led to work camps where Indians "earned" their food that killed 97% of the people who went into them. Again, millions dead in India alone thanks to starvation.
Yet where's the outrage over this? No where, its because its characterized as a catastrophe that just happened, not something the UK did to them. Same thing with the brutal decolonization wars, its something that happened, not something the colonizers did to someone.
Yet during events that led to deaths due to incompetence or whatever, if its by the communists its done on purpose and could have only happened under them. You can hate communism all you want, but you can at least unlearn this doublethink bullshit.
also
>Communists got rid of Pol Pot when he was supported by the CIA
You're welcome.
>>43577503
He is saying minimum wage laws fuck over small businesses and that anybody who says Ayn Rand is a problem is ignorant because the government has got a lot bigger since she wrote her books about governments being evil and oppressive. Which implies she is not that influential.
>>43576003
>Which communism would almost inevitably cause
Hey asshole, 1984 was written by an English Socialist as a critique of UK fascism that melded into the UK conservatives.
Same thing with Animal Farm, a critique of Stalinism not socialism.
>>43576131
Artificial scarcity causes resources to be exchanged at an inflated rate which encourages conquest in order to solidify your sphere of influence. Literally the most basic answer to war is what is agitated by capitalism.
>>43577604
Communism can lead to that just as easily as fascism, in fact it did several times. Both are horrible ideologies that disregard the rights of the individual for their own version of a 'greater good'.
>>43576607
>The gulags, the 70 years of unabashed oppression and the genocide of the ucrainans are JUST WHAT HAPPENS When You try communism.
Yet Yugoslavia was a socialist nation that didn't do any of that.
>>43576384
>False: if You receive a salary to do something it stands to reason that this means what You do,even if perhaps demeaning tiring and repetitive, is worth paying for and so it has value.
It's a lot more complicated than that, really. I don't want to into an argument now, i've got minis to paint, but basically Marx says something only has the value it is given and holds no intrinsic value. Just for your information.
>Where were You in 2008?
I dunno for him, but personnally I was in an unregulated capitalism. There may exist regulation on a national scale, but on a worldwide scale there are none, or so few it's just as if there wasn't. I think that's what they're trying to say: our modern capitalism is unregulated on a worldwide scale and that's what counts. That's how I perceive it at least.
Anyway no political system is going to last forever, and debate on 4chan is pointless. But I wanted to give my two pence. Bye.
>>43577671
If by that you mean resource wars: no. Soviets didn't expand their territory, they placed satellite states and used their resources to develop the warsaw pact.
If you mean 1984, still no.
Though I'm amused by the idea that capitalism is the vanguard of personal rights when its literally a continuation of a system designed to subject others and deny them sovereignty for cheap stuff.
Capitalism jerks off about personal liberties until its time for imminent domain evictions or the democratic choices of communist sympathizers. Not to mention the apartheid states of 60s America, South Africa, and Israel all being founded on disregarding the original inhabitants and selective democracy.
The most insidious lie is that capitalism is the economic system for the free, despite nations that are used to champion it like South Korea and Taiwan being dictatorships until the fucking 80s.
>>43577762
>the system in which you have control over both what you do and what you purchase
>less free than ones in which you can't
Ayy lmao
>>43577895
Choosing between two material things from the same corporate source doesn't protect your personal freedoms dumb ass.
>control over both what you do
Unrelated to socialism, once again I direct you to the many dictatorships who were part of the capitalist sphere.
>>43573201
I would suggest you look into economic anthropology for alternative value/production systems. There have been many different takes on it apart from the impersonal, fungible money connected with states/militaries.
I would recommend reading David Graeber. He is good at overviews, guiding and hooking the reader which makes even his theoretical ruminations accessible. "Debt - the first 5000 years" is a good introductory book while his "towards an anthropological theory of value" is a clever theoretical account about symbols of value and social production. Be warned that he is better as an anthropologists than as a political commentator, focus on the historical bits.
Obligatory.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-URQrU_j9lk&list=RD-URQrU_j9lk
>>43577578
Yes more or less.
>>43577578
>Which implies she is not that influential.
Well, she was certainly influential in the intellectual sense. But how much of an impact has she actually had? Since Ayn Rand's books were written, the size and scope of the federal government has expanded dramatically.
Her followers, mostly libertarians, have mostly been integrated into a faction of the larger conservative movement. But while Rand-inspired rhetoric wins elections, nobody's ever actually made serious cuts to government spending or repealed large swaths of the legal code.
So Rand has had an impact, but more on what we say or think than on what we actually do.
To actually put some input in here that isn't IRL politics, here's my thoughts about communism and capitalism in fantasy land:
Capitalism as we know it, isn't a governmental concern. Unless we're talking 18th or 19th century style development, capitalism will only be a product of merchants and lower nobility. As far as the higher ups are concerned, its just more tax for them and their feudal peers.
Money would probably not be gold, developed commerce systems don't depend on the physical value of the coinage; if anything the cheaper the materials the better since you want to be able to cheaply mint and exchange it. Paper money and coinage well diluted with cheaper metals will be better choices.
If you're looking for non money options/pre-industrial communism you're going to be talking about extended periods of labor as your method of exchange. Feudalism's most basic mode of operation is exchanging protection and land for the labor of those who dwell upon it, peasants (who were actually better off than destitute freemen) rarely deal in actual money in favor of their agricultural gains. So by extension, your service on the land will act as your measure of worth. Time spent on land and loyalty would be enough to convince this semi-communistic kingdom to support your family out of the collective granary.
This leaves the problem of security in economics, people are less likely to participate if their income is likely to be confiscated by banditry or unfair practices. While by no means equal to nobility, people overestimate the degree of cruelty and mindless destruction put upon the peasantry. If you crossbow their children for fun they might leave or kill the knight that deals with them; so in reality and in the fantasy it makes sense to minimize the suffering of peasants.
For more ideas on how an agricultural collectivist society would operate, you'd need to look at the early days of the People's Republic of China.
>>43577604
Calling him an asshole won't change what happened. Orwell was critiquing a socialist movement which was indistinguishable from fascism. Hence why the Party in 1984 was called Ingsoc: English Socialism. Goldstein was a clear reference to Leon Trotsky. "2+2=5" was an actual soviet slogan.
"We have always been at war with Eurasia" deserves special mention. It was a reference to the Molotov-Ribbentrop agreement where international communism (obviously especially the USSR) was now allied to Hitler's Nazis. Loyal socialists world-wide obediently stopped criticizing fascism and threw their energies into the anti-war movement and undermining the remaining free market democracies. However, many intellectuals were horrified by this turn of events and deserted Socialism, never to return.
Among them, George Orwell. Just as the Spanish Civil War made him an open socialist, Molotov-Ribbentrop turned him against Comintern forever. He quit the Labour party shortly thereafter. While he remained a "socialist" for the rest of his life, it's important to note two things. First, at the time there was no "free minds/free markets" party; you had royalist conservatives versus socialists.
He supported massive waves of deregulation and while he considered the Left his ideological home, his post-WW2 ideology would be more at home with Milton Friedman or Rand Paul than the Marxist nationalizers of Labour. He abhorred the Soviet Union and its defenders.
So 1984 was an explicit critique of socialism. You're saying he was anti-stalinist like it was any different... can I assume you've never read Lenin? Or anything by Trotsky? Or a good history of the Cheka, pre-Stalin? That WAS socialism, following its natural course.
By the end, Orwell was still looking to upend aristocracy and colonialism, but now clearly understood that a socialist economy was necessarily despotic.
>>43577762
>Soviets didn't expand their territory, they placed satellite states and used their resources to develop the warsaw pact.
Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia, would beg to disagree with you. Oh, and Finland would join them if they hadn't beaten the Soviets.
Also, the soviet satellites WERE expansions of Soviet territory. The governments were all subservient to the CCCP, which as a marxist body does not recognize the validity of nations as institutions. They had about as much freedom as a country like Georgia, which was a soviet republic. Many of the original national and military leaders of the satellites were Soviet citizens-- the leader of the Polish army who signed the treaty attaching poland to the Warsaw pact was a soviet army officer who didn't even speak Polish.
That's why the Warsaw Pact formed after NATO. NATO was a treaty framework required to knit together separate nations with separate policies into common defense. After it formed, the WP was created as a PR ploy to formalize the Soviet Empire. It was a coordinating agency, though; in time of war, individual eastern european divisions would be attached to Soviet Armies, Fronts, and Strategic Directions.
Czechoslovakia tried to pursue political and economic reforms, promising to stay allied to the USSR and in the WP, and got invaded and re-conquered for their troubles. All aspects of life, internal and external, were subject to Soviet approval, much as with provincial governments within their formal borders.
>thinking about grad school for economics
>secretly afraid listening to grad students debate economics would be like this thread
>stay home and cling to Hayek body pillow
>>43577677
It wasn't allied to the Soviet Bloc (thanks, mountains!) but it was a brutally repressive regime. I know many people who lived there pre-1989 and it was awful.
It's telling that when the system fell, the "communists" who ran it immediately turned to racist hate-mongering in an attempt to cling to power. Notice how now that they have free markets the ethnic tensions have died down again?
>>43577671
Fascism is just a mutant offspring of communism. They replace classism with nationalism and racism. Otherwise, the entire mess remains identical. Same political philosophy, same economic system, same everything. Most of the Nazi program would be very familiar to modern socialists: nationalization of industries, worker ownership of the means of production, "free" health care, "free" education, suppression of all opposing political movements.
In practice, the distinction is even fuzzier. Different national fascist parties have always coordinated and considered themselves allied (even though it conflicts with their nationalist philosophy) and communists almost always use appeals to national, ethnic, and racial loyalties in their rhetoric (even though it conflicts with their post-nationalist philosophy).
>>43578672
>Notice how now that they have free markets the ethnic tensions have died down again?
You have no idea. The Balkans are a bomb ready to explode. I predict that countries like Bosnia will not survive the next 15 years.
>Fascism is just a mutant offspring of communism.
It is not. The roots of Fascism come from the Romanticist movements. Spirit of a nation and all. Meanwhile Communist and Liberals come from the Enlightenment. The belief that men/women are at their core a rational being.
>>43578432
>herf derf being anti soviet union makes you anti socialist
>Stalinism is the same as Leninism as Trotskyism
>Stalinism is the only system the soviets ever had
>wanting less royal control over the economy makes him equal to Ayn Rand
>Orwell was a socialist who wanted capitalism for everyone
>Orwell only called himself a socialist because he wasn't aware Liberalism existed
What a load of horse shit. Its more depressing to read someone's opinion that is wrapped in layers of revisionism than someone who never learned it to begin with. You clearly bothered to learn something about him only to throw it away for this retarded 'secretly agreed with the majority' narrative that went against the very idea of his work. He didn't write 1984 to reassure everyone to continue following the trends of the time, and he didn't write Animal Farm to reassure everyone communism was always heading in that direction; he did it so people could understand the scenario without resorting to "commies did it" shorthand that you seem to have stamped onto his work regardless.
INGSOC wasn't representing what would happen if UK Socialists got to power, he blatantly stated that they were inspired by pre WW2 British fascist parties. But fuck this, time for actual quotes:
>http://www.vision.org/visionmedia/biography-george-orwell/15287.aspx
>“Nazi theory . . . specifically denies that such a thing as ‘the truth’ exists," he wrote. "The implied objective of this line of thought is a nightmare world in which the Leader, or some other ruling clique, controls not only the future but the past. If the Leader says of such and such event, ‘It never happened’—well it never happened. If he says that two and two are five—well, two and two are five. This prospect frightens me more than bombs.”
>>43578672
>It wasn't allied to the Soviet Bloc (thanks, mountains!)
It stopped being allied after Tito refused to capitulate to Stalin's hegemonic ambitions.
>but it was a brutally repressive regime
If you ignore every other regime in the world.
>Notice how now that they have free markets the ethnic tensions have died down again?
Notice when Tito was in power they didn't disintegrate into what they are today? Except Tito has an actual verifiable effect on their stability while the idea that freedom made them stop is fucktarded correlation/causation fallacies.
>They replace classism with nationalism and racism. Otherwise, the entire mess remains identical
>Same political philosophy, same economic system, same everything.
Nazis literally had a system where old nobility and corporations gained favor and political power by involving themselves with the state. Slaves didn't work in the people's factories, they slaved away in corporate ones.
You know nothing about Nazism or Socialism, fuck off until you bother to even read the Wikipedia summary.
>>43577739
Labor theory of value was discredited decades ago. Economics has its own views of value, actually several of them. None rely on intrinsic value; while there were a few still around in Marx's day, they were being supplanted. The relativistic view is that the value of a commodity varies from person to person, and is measured by what they are willing to exchange for that commodity.
>>43577762
>Though I'm amused by the idea that capitalism is the vanguard of personal rights when its literally a continuation of a system designed to subject others and deny them sovereignty for cheap stuff.
It's worth noting that 1) capitalism isn't a system designed for that. It isn't designed at all. It's what emerges naturally when people are permitted free choice. That's as true for fish markets in socialist India, as it is for sales of black market blue jeans in the USSR, as it is for toilet paper in Venezuela, as it is for iPods in the West.
2) There has never been a socialist revolution that hasn't ended in brutal repression of political dissidents, violation of civil liberties, and mass executions. More often than not, racist systems are erected, even genocides sometimes.
3) While Israel isn't an apartheid state, its occupied territories were taken while it was Socialist. Under the free market Likud government, the occupation ended.
You wrote about Orwell above, so it bears mentioning that there was a very large group of idealistic communists who genuinely believed, but once they saw the ugly truth, turned into some of the most committed, eloquent, and brilliant antagonists of Communism.
For some, it was the massacres of the Kulaks. For some, it was the Great Purge. Molotov-Rippentrop produced a very long list of anti-Communists (including Orwell). The soviet crackdowns on Czechoslovakia and Hungary lead to the last, albeit the largest, wave of disillusioned communists. By that point, everyone who was going to be driven off by atrocity had been.
>>43578582
Soviet Satellites were not the same as colonies because states got developed for their troubles. Those baltic countries did get absorbed, however they were also released from Russia which got them centuries ago when they fought the Swedish Empire. Shitty but the UK have less claim over the Falklands so there's no moral high ground for retaking things that used to belong to you.
>That's why the Warsaw Pact formed after NATO
> After it formed, the WP was created as a PR ploy to formalize the Soviet Empire
Yet it didn't happen until West Germany (rightfully) rearmed themselves, so clearly it wasn't all about a sequel to the Russian Empire as opposed to the very real threat of war in Europe.
Don't forget the crackdown in Hungary. But in either case this doesn't really prove the idea that Socialism is going to cause resource wars just as readily as Capitalism did.
Meanwhile, Suez Canal Crisis was caused exclusively by corporate property and unwanted cost towards free enterprise.
>>43573201
Wizards. Magic can be used to create anything if a sufficient quantity of it is used. Everyone is inherently magical, but not everyone learns magic. Economy is based on mana distribution and expediture.
>>43578080
Warning: while Graeber (and anthropological "alternative economics" views) are plausible-sounding enough for a roleplaying game, his views are pretty much orthodox marxism, recast in anthropology terms. No legitimate economist-- even leftists and socialists-- considers any of it to hold water.
Empirical support is pretty much non-existent, which works in an descriptive/interpretive field like anthropology, but as serious social science it's questionable.
With that said, it's perfectly serviceable for gaming and pretty much exactly what OP wants.
(I say this because in my own economics research I've occasionally tried to collaborate with anthropologists and it's tough to do because they don't consider economics a valid field of scientific inquiry. So I've had occasion to read up on it. Their critique is grounded in Marxist theory and I'll leave it to a real anthropologist to explain it. In practical terms, it means the ones I've talked to refuse to collaborate unless you agree to use your research as a platform for activism, even if the study you want to do is non-political.)
>>43577762
>Soviets didn't expand their territory
Anon, they didn't just maintained what the Czar had already conquered, they also did resettle Russians into their sattelite states in order to marginalize the locals after they had killed local political leadership in purges.
So yeah, they totes engaged in all forms of colonization, they just happened to be a continental Empire like the US.
>>43578973
I have yet to read a travel writer who visited the USSR/recent post Soviet countries without people trying to buy their Western made jeans, its kind of sad.
>>43578997
>Falklands
Its a rock in the Atlantic, it belongs to whoever got there first and felt like keeping it. And one of the two countries that actively claims it did not even exist when that happened.
>>43578646
Ahh! Someone with some sense. Did I mention I'm an academic?
Here's the pitch for grad school in economics. First, develop your mathematical skills. Math up to linear algebra and differential equations. Stats up to regression at least. Econ means doing math for the rest of your life. You have to love it.
Economics and business programs actively talent scout for engineers rather than their own undergrads. We're not looking for eloquent rhetoricians, we want math-heavy analysts. Think of economics as the physics of the social sciences. Especially micro. Macro remains a mess.
If you're a devotee of Hayek, then George Mason University's doctoral program is a great fit-- and is one of the best in the world. Any serious non-activist program will suffice, though. Empirical facts trump ideology; even hard-core liberal and conservative economists delight in heterodoxy.
In an economics phd program, they tend to admit three times as many people as will graduate-- then let them get weeded out by coursework. Which is brutal. Once you're past your qualification exams, you're usually ok. In other fields, they're more selective about who they admit, but it's easier to finish once you're in. Econ and business schools are some of the only PhDs that pay a decent salary and where you have a good chance to get a tenure-track professor job fresh out of school.
tl;dr: don't worry, it's essentially NOTHING like this thread.
>>43578973
>capitalism isn't a system designed for that.
Yet Socialism is designed to do the opposite of that according to the people who imply socialism is inherently anti rights. Its almost as if political context matters more than economic policy.
>There has never been a socialist revolution that hasn't ended in brutal repression of political dissidents, violation of civil liberties, and mass executions
Check the definition of revolution, it doesn't mean reform it means dismantling and reforming society. Every revolution causes chaos and is hostile to enemies. Except you don't hear about it when its violence to remove Communists like in Indonesia or when South Vietnam was purging DEMOCRATIC opponents and literally destroying Buddhism in the country.
>More often than not, racist systems are erected
I'd love to hear them, because other than Cambodia racism was definitely not a backbone of communist governments. I'm guessing you're referring to the oppression of circassians under Stalin's rule in which case that's not a racist system as much as a racist policy. Keep in mind the British have destroyed entire ethnicities by force less than 2 centuries previously but that doesn't count I guess.
>While Israel isn't an apartheid state
Its a system where a race is enshrined as being the proper inheritors of the state and laws are based on a person's race, like Palestinians not gaining Israeli citizenship if they marry an Israeli; and segregated the native population in unrecognized substates. If that isn't Apartheid than I guess I'm not surprised since you seem incapable of associating anything bad with Capitalism when you can assign it to Socialism.
>occupied territories were taken while it was Socialist
Like this. Israel being in the wrong is directly attributable to socialism and only that.
>everyone who was going to be driven off by atrocity had been.
Which is why capitalism is championed by people like you who can justify genocide if its for profit.
>>43579256
>don't hear about it
Literally every single time someone asks what went wrong in Vietnam on /k/ someone will bring it up.
But in general people know almost nothing about the Vietnam War or the actual situation in South Vietnam in general, its not some deliberate omission.
>>43574962
Are you hooking them in to the grid or no? If no, then you have a replicator, and you've just sidestepped the EC system and can fab whatever you have enough power to create. You've distanced yourself from local scarcity of replicated / replicatable goods.
If yes, you have just declared a career as an engineer for planetary power infrastructure. You earn additional energy credits, because your work is important. And you did it because you wanted to, not because the alternative was privation. Welcome to productivity post-scarcity.
>>43579305
Have you really fallen back on saying people who like the ability to freely buy and sell things to others are fine with genocide?
>>43578720
So you're seeing my facts and raising me your phony propaganda and conjectural predictions of the future. Got it.
Fascism stems from socialism. It's in their rhetoric, their writings, the logic of their ideology, and the historical record. Go re-read Mussolini's writings. All the nazis in germany considered themselves socialists-- NOT international socialists under the control of comintern, but recognizably still socialist. The spanish civil war was a proxy battle between nationalist socialists (ironically, supported by Germany) and internationalist socialists (supported by Russia). It was a battle for the heart and soul of socialism, not two opposites colliding.
Hearing a socialists trying to explain how different fascism and socialism are is like listening to catholics and protestants of an older era, each jumping up and down furiously insisting that the other is TOTALLY different. Or an evangelical christian going on about how Mormonism has absolutely nothing to do with christianity. It's a clear, obvious off-shoot. That's why in practical terms their policy prescriptions are so similar.
Now, you may claim that fascism is an illegitimate heresy that undermines the core principles of True Socialism (and it does, some of them). Or that fascism is worse (it is, to the extent that they're different at all). But one clearly grew from the other.
>>43579421
Why do you find it so hard to believe nationalist groups in different countries could work together?
There is nothing 'ironic' about Nazi Germany aiding the fascists in the Spanish Civil War.
>>43579330
People learn South Vietnam was a democratic nation that could have turned into a nice happy place if only the mean old communists didn't ruin it.
Or if you think that's not on purpose, I'll show you something that is.
This famous picture of a monk self-immolating was shared as protest over the war, maybe some would go as far as to say protesting American involvement. It paints a picture of someone who wants peace between nations, but its wrong.
He burned himself to death because of Diem's policies, which to be fair was how it was portrayed by some at the time. Yet by and large, if you learn about it today its always in the context of Anti War instead of a protest against oppressive practices.
>>43579398
If you believe that Imperialism was a good thing, you are approving of genocide. People can be capitalist without approving of genocide, but those people are still critical of their past and current policies.
But since I'm talking to people who literally attribute all bad things in the 20th century to Socialism, do you expect me to believe that you don't justify the deaths capitalism caused?
>>43579421
>each jumping up and down furiously insisting that the other is TOTALLY different.
One side gave special privileges to religious and noble elements and the other executed them. Wow, I can't tell the difference between those two they're so alike.
>Mormonism has absolutely nothing to do with christianity. It's a clear, obvious off-shoot. That's why in practical terms their policy prescriptions are so similar.
Their policies are fucking drastically different nigger. In addition to knowing jack shit about socialists you're also fucking wrong about mormons.
There was never a Catholic army in America that earned their religion several extermination orders, they never fought the US army, and they didn't have assassination fraternities or island fortresses.
You guys are kinda making me miss when we were all just making fun of the resource based economics guy. Can we go back to the halcyon days of this morning? At this point you're both kind of straw manning each other and nobody's really getting anywhere.
>>43579453
>Nazi Germany aiding the fascists in the Spanish Civil War.
The Spanish actually weren't fascist. They were hard right conservatives and didn't even pretend to be socialists like the Nazis.
Its a common misconception, but its important to know Nazis weren't expressly right or left wing, though they obviously were closer to the right since the Night of the Long Knives killed off the leftists like the mostly homosexual high command of the SA.
>>43578737
>Its more depressing to read someone's opinion that is wrapped in layers of revisionism than someone who never learned it to begin with.
That's how I feel right now.
>You clearly bothered to learn something about him only to throw it away for this retarded 'secretly agreed with the majority' narrative that went against the very idea of his work.
Except that I'm quoting what he openly said. He considered himself a man of the Left, and used their rhetoric and some of their ideological assumptions. BUT. Your quote criticizes the Nazis for using a relativistic, political conception of truth. And rightly so.
But the critique applies equally well to Socialist practices in the USSR at the time as well. Stalin, not Hitler, was the one who after eliminating a political enemy would then make him an "unperson", literally airbrushing the man out of the historical record. That's up to and including revising history textbooks and historical photos. Stalin, not Hitler, initiated the slogan "2+2=5".
Your quote came from a paper he wrote in 1942. At the time, Germany had started a surprise attack on the USSR and the Soviets were new allies. It's not a surprise that Orwell concentrated his rhetoric on the main enemy. 1984, published AFTER the defeat of fascism in Europe, was a warning about both forms of despotism.
And so your quote supports my point. Thanks for including it. Here's another: "All government is evil, [...] the punishment always does more harm than the crime and the people can be trusted to behave decently if you will only let them alone."
Hardly the sentiment of a socialist eager to hand government vast powers to defend people from their own free choices. And if he'd written 1984 to warn the world about the evils of fascism, why wasn't it INGFASC? Why publish the book AFTER all fascist regimes had been defeated?
I suspect it's not that you're uneducated. It's that you've raised on propaganda and accepted it uncritically. Very Orwell of you!
>>43579421
>Fascism stems from socialism. It's in their rhetoric, their writings, the logic of their ideology, and the historical record.
You realize that the social activists that inspired Lenin were nationalist romanticists who believed that the specific magic powers of the Russian Volk would allow the nation to leap directly from Feudalism into Communism, right?
That's anything but by-the-book Socialism.
>Most of the Nazi program would be very familiar to modern socialists: nationalization of industries, worker ownership of the means of production
Wow, I love it when they do the "talking out of their asses"-trick, because none of that happened. Even the stuff that was robbed from Jews was quickly handed back into private ownership.
>>43579707
>Except that I'm quoting what he openly said
No, you paraphrased.
>1984, published AFTER the defeat of fascism in Europe, was a warning about both forms of despotism.
Already moved your goalpost. If he was warning against despotism in two very different entities that shared it he probably didn't also mean the economic system neither actually followed.
>hardly the sentiment of a socialist eager to hand government vast powers to defend people from their own free choices
>oh look! He said something that means he can't fit in my incorrect view of what socialism is, he must not be a socialist!
Or you're a fucking idiot who doesn't know what socialism is and so can't judge it.Socialism isn't submission to the state, which is why a lot of people see it as a gateway to anarchy; which happens to include George Orwell who said so pretty clearly. But you should know that since you love quotes so much despite making your first one in that post.
>And if he'd written 1984 to warn the world about the evils of fascism, why wasn't it INGFASC?
Because the fucking point of the fucking story was fucking socialism was used as a fucking talkingpoint despite bastardizing it into something that didn't fucking resemble it. 1984 is about how people like you are dumb for taking something at face value. Its almost as if it referred to another event that claimed to be socialist despite killing millions of them.
>Why publish the book AFTER all fascist regimes had been defeated?
>why make stories based on the recent past?
>why make a point based on problems that still exist today?
Why post after literally fucking implying people don't have points or stories worth telling if they're based on the past.
>It's that you've raised on propaganda and accepted it uncritically
Yet here you are telling me what the most common opinion is based on accepting the status quo taught to you by public school. Anti edgelords, hear one you hear them all.
>>43579080
His views are rather non-ortodox marxist as he focuses on the cultural rather than material aspects of production. I agree with him being ignorant of mainstream economics. Do you consider Modern Monetary Theory to be legitimate, his account of money and monetary history is rather close to theirs. With regard to empirical support, it is better on the micro level for the cultures he has studied intensely. His sweeping generalisations are exactly that, but it is not unheard of in popular science such as "Debt...".
Fuck all humanists who does not see economics as a valid field of scientific inquiry. They are precisely as annoying as the economists they berate.
>>43580059
My understanding of MMT is that it's a fairly fringe heterodox school of thought at the moment, but it's been gaining supporters in recent years.
>>43575839
Capitalism is the worst economic system except for all the other ones that have been tried.
>>43579256
>>43579305
Those laws only apply to palestinians who are in the occupied territories. In Israel, they're full citizens with full rights, plus the option not to join the military if they don't want to. Until the invasion of Iraq, the only Arabs in the middle east who had a vote were Israeli citizens.
It's almost as if the distinction is political rather than ethnic.
>>43579398
Yes, yes he is.
>>43580226
>they're full citizens with full rights
Israel is the gift that keeps on giving because: no they're not.
>http://www.adalah.org/en/law/index
Here's an entire database of discriminatory laws.
Also
>Those laws only apply to palestinians who are in the occupied territories
"Its ok, those unequal laws are only applied to the Ghettos of people we demand to be stateless"
>>43574962
Waco.
OP here. I can't say I'm surprised that arguing happened, but "aggressive, more-or-less intelligent debate" is a much more pleasant outcome than what could have happened. Thanks for the thoughtful answers to the question for fantasy worlds, and for the frothy mix of economic perspectives that's getting me thinking for the real world. I've got an audiobook of "Debt: The First 5000 Years" to read, and a homebrew to hash out the loot system for.
And for the record, I guess I'm a socialist in the basic "workers own the means of production" sense, but have not done enough reading or sifting through the various splinter groups to figure out what kind. Gotta construct a system that doesn't screw over 90% of the population (feudalism?), doesn't require humans to act like they're not humans (communism?), but is stable, i.e. the individual powers don't have an intense interest in changing it (free-market decaying into cronyism?). And, ho boy, that's hard.
>>43580726
Glad you liked it. I was said frothy socialist here but I hope even if you disagree with me or others to research your ideology and broadly. Socialism has lots of ideas I don't like that have been added, like Mao is a bad source of inspiration for anything but starving the Chinese, but what the naysayers always leave out is there is a continuum of ideas that are held up and discarded.
Ideologies have many sources and its up to you to clarify them and identify what are actual core concepts. Despotism isn't in any form of socialism, even Stalin had the politburo 'vote' on his policies in order to keep up the facade of a people's republic.
Finally, I'll warn you about propaganda that hides in socialist and 'alternative politics' groups. They're there and they will sound very logical until you hear what they have to say about North Korea, Russia, or China. Don't fall for the anti American/anti western trap if you go down the path of socialism.
Also if you missed it I posted something more constructive previously:
>>43578300
It's been brought up here and there in this thread, but I thought I'd ask for a little more detail - since mercantile economics was the dominant theory in the era that most D&D games emulate, do any of our econanons have links to any good resources about it? I'd like the economy in my next game to be a little more coherent than "Some farmers and a king or something."
>>43580726
I'd suggest the book "The Road to Serfdom". Friedrich Hayek, like many conservative and libertarian intellectuals, was initially a democratic socialist. In the early 20's, he abandoned it for classical liberalism. An Austrian, he escaped to London a few years before the Nazis took over Germany.
The thing is, you can find explanations and defenses of free markets (another nobel prize winning economist, Milton Friedman wrote Free to Choose, and Capitalism and Freedom, which are good examples), IMO free markets need little defense because they're not a system you impose, they're what appears automatically so long as people are free to make choices about their own lives.
Hayek also explores the ideas you talk about at the end; that is, the way free markets decay through gradually expanding government power.
Friedman also goes into an important point: that there is no essential distinction between political, social, and economic liberties.
Examples help here: Freedom of speech and assembly are political freedoms, but require physical assets and resources (a printing press or a meeting hall). Abortion is a social freedom, but requires marshalling economic assets (doctors and a clinic). Economic liberties can be impinged upon selectively, to punish people who make socially or politically frowned-up decisions (shutting down businesses belonging to political dissenters, or ordering banks to cancel the accounts of porn stars and their companies-- both of these have happend in the past five years).
Anyway, it's good that you are looking to read up on this stuff. Don't get caught in the trap of only reading books by one side, or you'll have your own private set of excuses and propaganda points. I've read Marx, Lenin, Marcuse, Wells, and Rawls. I need to read William James soon, but sadly haven't.
>>43575987
>tiny communities
The Rep system in Eclipse Phase is all about extending this to a larger community.
>>43580032
>Because the fucking point of the fucking story was fucking socialism was used as a fucking talkingpoint despite bastardizing it into something that didn't fucking resemble it. 1984 is about how people like you are dumb for taking something at face value. Its almost as if it referred to another event that claimed to be socialist despite killing millions of them.
So I stripped the word "fucking" out of your post, and not terribly much was left in the way of actual arguments.
Whether or not I'm an idiot is apparently a point of contention. However, as an argument it's tautological: I don't see the brilliance of socialism because I'm an idiot, and you know I'm an idiot because I don't see the brilliance of socialism.
If your views didn't have such a colossal body count, plus hundreds of millions more drafted into slavery, it would be hard to take your arguments seriously at all. And that's not counting your fascist cousins.
Then you get into what socialism supposedly "really" is. And this is a losing game. Socialist regimes are always loudly cheered, staunchly defended, and then utterly disowned once the people overthrow them. The Left is often fond of dismissing the historical record by saying, "Socialism has never been tried", which is really just a recasting of the old no true scotsman fallacy.
Socialism is *absolutely* a submission to the state. The coordination function in a socialist system is central planning. How is this plan implemented? Such a plan is unlikely to conform perfectly with what people would have chosen of their own accord (which is what happens in a free market). So they must somehow be coerced into compliance. That requires a use of force, which is monopolized by the state. To the extent that people acquiesce voluntarily, you have submission to the state. To the extent you don't, the state punishes you until you do. Socialism is necessarily submission to the state, because it is a rejection of free choice.
Given what happened at St George's Hill, I think any community with an alternative economic system is going to assume the well armed strangers are there to burn their houses down and steal their land, and respond accordingly.
>>43583702
Which gets us back to 1984 and your own desperate attempts to extricate yourself from your claims about Orwell.
IngSoc was absolutely a metaphor for the Soviet system. 2+2=5 was a soviet, not fascist, slogan. Emmanuel Goldstein was a parallel to Trotsky; Hitler has no equivalent rival. Having a political dissenter become an unperson was a soviet, not a fascist, tactic (the fascists were equally brutal and quick to kill, but lacked the sophistication to erase people from history the way the communists did). "Two minute hates" were adapted from a communist party tradition. Big Brother himself has a lot in common with Stalin: looming, implacable, largely silent, and comparatively little in common with the shrill and passionate Hitler.
I know I keep repeating these points, but since you've no good answer to them they bear repeating. Instead you're getting increasingly hysterical, insisting we take socialism as you'd have it, not as it represents itself in theory or as it's always turned out, every single time, in history.
I love this line in particular because it captures a lot of how you've been attempting to argue:
>Because the fucking point of the fucking story was fucking socialism was used as a fucking talkingpoint despite bastardizing it into something that didn't fucking resemble it. 1984 is about how people like you are dumb for taking something at face value. Its almost as if it referred to another event that claimed to be socialist despite killing millions of them.
You're starting from the premise that socialism isn't like 1984 (anyone who's lived under it would beg to differ). Based on that, you say 1984 isn't about socialism because it can't be, it just can't! That's the core of your argument, carried mostly by emotion and repeated use of the word "fucking". Essentially, IngSoc isn't socialism because socialism isn't IngSoc. Orwell would smile wryly at your thinking and say "See what I mean?"
>>43583670
Yes, in fact I suggested it upthread (well, a similar system based on D20 modern's wealth attribute). EP's system is also good for this.
There are strong theoretical problems with it (most notably, how you get the signalling/coordination effect of the price system without actual prices), but if you frame it as social capital and deferred reciprocity (anthropology), it should be more than good enough for gaming purposes.
"Post-scarcity" is a bit of a misnomer because it reflects a misunderstanding of what scarcity is in economic terms. But it's an interesting area that creates a lot of novel ideas for gaming.
>>43575966
>muh TVP/RBE;
Don't believe that bullshit, man. It's the communism of old, except wrapped in shiny, eco-friendly clothes, and bypassing the whole "revolution of the proles" and "the working class actually being hard-working altruistic folks" for robots and lazy bums.
And before you ad hominem, i am both born and raised in a former commie country and an IT guy, so i am intimately familiar with their propaganda(lots of the same crap Ceausescu had in mind i see in Fresco's little project), and as an IT guy, trust me, i could do so much to benefit me and fuck you over under completely legit pretexes like debugging and dev-ops, then wipe the logs.
And it's gonna turn in a repressive, totalitarian system like Warsaw Pact Eastern Europe(or 1984 you talk about, because Orwell got shockingly much right about how it happened) because the whole thing has no fail-safes in case something goes wrong. Only this time the surveillance tech will be insanely developed, and "sensors integrated into all areas of life" means you have nowhere to escape or protest(not that you'd have any sort of leverage in this sort of system, because guess what, everything you have, from your housing to your private good to the good you'd put in your mouth, belongs to the system... i mean is the "common heritage of the people of Earth", and i can deny you access to it in a hyper-computerised system simply by revoking your electronic privileges on the grid)
>>43576668
>>43576835
> Dont do the thing!
> We're gonna do the thing.
4chan every time.
>>43584116
There are several economic systems in GURPS Transhuman Space. It's worth reading the game itself; I won't go into it here.
The general principle is that we're at TL8. At TL9 you see the first primitive AIs, genemod humans, and bioengineered implants. Bioroids are "biological androids" similar to replicants from the bladerunner movie: they're essentially creatures assembled entirely out of implant organs.
Anyway, the idea is that you have a post-scarcity society, right? Well, kind of. The laws of economics still hold, though only for those at the top of the hierarchy. There simply isn't enough work for everyone; only the best and brightest can compete with AIs and custom-made bioroids. Everyone else lives comfortably on public assistance.
In THS, the US went into a long period of decline due to this; its work-oriented culture couldn't handle 70% unemployment. The EU solved its fiscal problems and, with China, lead the world for a century; now it's in decline.
So you have three* classes of people. In fitting with the rest of the thread and OP's preference, I'm using socialist lingo:
A "capitalist" class consisting of people with large accumulations of wealth living off their investments. They can afford biomods and immortality treatments, so they're the elite.
A "working class" of knowledge workers, what we'd consider white collar or scientific work. Entrepreneurs and freelancers who hope to strike it rich and enter the capitalist class. They have the money to buy biomods and upgrades, but don't have enough of a nest egg to live without working.
A "dole class" that lives off public assistance. They either can't or won't take an intensely competitive job and so have few if any assets. Life is comfortable and fun: free food, luxuries, participation in the arts and hobbies, etc. Carefree, but eventually you'll die of old age. Like being an undergrad forever.
Continued...
>>43584404
* Where THS goes an extra mile with the world-building is that arguably there IS a fourth class. These are the AIs and bioroids who do all the work that produces the vast wealth that lets humans live in the other three classes. At TL10, robots and non-sapient AIs are useful enough that bioroids are being phased out and AIs have citizenship and a ton of leisure time if they want it, too. But in much of the world, they're an invisible non-human oppressed helot class.
The gameworld works so well because if you WANT to do a political game, you can spin it pretty much any way you prefer. There's room for a strict marxist interpretation of THS, or a classical economics view of it. Plus ideologues of all stripes (including new ones) that espouse different viewpoints. In other words, it's not twisting your arm to take a particular side.
I have a lot of beefs with EP, but after the psi and magic, the big one is that it spends a lot of time axe-grinding. And so do its players. With THS, you can take the politics in many ways, or be nonpolitical and not notice that they're even there.
Definitely worth a read.
OP see >>43573201
>>43574140
>>43573237
Thread could have ended here.
>>43583702
>If your views didn't have such a colossal body count, plus hundreds of millions more drafted into slavery
Once again, that's a point entirely based on your lack of education. You're also happy to ignore the fact ACTUAL slavery was a product of Imperialism, and all of the examples of those states inflicting famine upon their own people. Once again, you treat all deaths in socialist nations as intentional while the ones in Imperial ones are incidental.
>The Left is often fond of dismissing the historical record
And the right ignores the fact we've destroyed more socialist regimes than have collapsed on their own. Never been tried is wrong, more like never survived.
>Socialism is *absolutely* a submission to the state
You are a faggot. Like you come here and make arguments entirely based on your incorrect understanding of the subject. Your arguments are based on totalitarian government and central planning, neither of which are even secondary aspects of socialism.
This entire argument is you coming in here, and making up a definition of socialism, and then declaring it to be evil. Though once again you manage to blame socialists for a crime that Imperialists perfected. If you think social engineering means socialists are required to use force, and are at a moral loss for doing so; then what of Imperialism? As bad as China had it, they did it to them selves in order to industrialize; a process the west undertook over centuries with their own side effects.Imperialism was the extraction of resources for the benefit of only the colonizer.
>>43583853
>Which gets us back to 1984 and your own desperate attempts to extricate yourself from your claims about Orwell
No, that leads you there. The only desperation here is someone who claims Orwell was a self hating socialist who secretly wanted to identify as a liberal. You've literally moved the goalposts back to "1984 was only about the Soviet Union" after you already had to retreat and say it was both.
>>43583853
>itself in theory or as it's always turned out, every single time, in history.
I'd like to hear how Ghadaffi's Libya and Najibullah's are similar to Czechoslovakia and China.
Or more accurately, why you think that horseshit is true.
>>43584805
>Najibullah's Afghanistan
Its going to be fun to hear an apologist try to disown the Mujaheddin or justify their existence.
>>43584679
You know, I had to scroll up and make sure. But nope, those magical moving goalposts are once again desperate sophistry. I've been arguing from the beginning that 1984 was primarily about Socialism, which is indistinguishable in practical terms from fascism. That is, the primary metaphor is to the USSR (see all those examples I posted that you haven't and can't refute).
>that's a point entirely based on your lack of education
So you're back to tautologies. Before it was that I'm stupid because I said something you don't want to believe, something you know is false because I'm stupid. Other than substituting "uneducated" for "stupid", I don't see how your argument holds any more water than it did then.
Central planning is an essential, perhaps THE essential quality of socialism. Any academic-- including any marxist academic-- will agree with this. To not agree is to accept a world where people make their own personal economic decisions independently: a free market. The moment you accept infringement on free choice, you have resorted to coercion. The moment you discard the "distributed computing" of individuals operating independently, you need some other coordinating mechanism to harmonize production. That means* a central planning function to replace it. The coercion and planning functions have to be unified... in a state. You could call it something else, I suppose, but it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck.
Anyway, these are easy arguments to make because they've all been made before. By the end of your undergraduate program, you should have read some of them. I can tell you are an undergrad because you clearly have never seen these arguments and don't know how to respond to them beyond trying to change the subject to those imperialists you hate so much. And, of course, the name-calling. Still no sound arguments, I'm afraid. As the shrillness is increasing, I'm guessing we won't be seeing any, but I'm eager to be surprised.
>>43584805
>>43584825
Huh? I'm not even clear on what you're asking. Try to type more clearly and in one post. Which of these is supposed to be your case of glorious socialist success? Or are you going to argue that they were capitalists?
I can't see what you're asking or how this could possibly go somewhere that helps you. Or have you given up and want to change the subject?
>>43576775
What do you think democratic government is if not society's strong arm?
>>43577081
>Nobody listened to her
Ask the Seppo right wing how many sleep with her works under their pillow.
