Capitalistic Nature of this Game

You don't even know the correct name of the system! It's National Proletarianism, not 'National Proletariat'. I will also add that if you want to write your own book, you should probably read mine first.

I will also point out that you are very biased. You don't seem to even recognize any of the good things that could come out of my system. All you are going to do is show the negative and say how it's 'so terribly bad and gastly', compared to capitalism, which you will show as being the best system in the world. I've been in the propaganda business, I know exactly how it works. I have written a book. You will write propaganda.

I don't mean for any of this to offend you, Maclean, but I can't see you as somebody who will approach this with an open mind. I'm not asking anyone to believe what is written in my manifesto, I am only asking that it not just be swiped off the desk by some self-righteous, closed-minded capitalist who believes that capitalism is the only valid system and refuses to accept that anything else could ever exist.
One thing that we all should agree on (or at least I would hope) is that nobody can say whether National Proletarianism will work or not until experiments are done and the system is tested in the most accurate manner possible. Test the system, and then we'll know. Until National Proletarianism is tested and shown either to work or not work, it is and should remain controversial.

Sunday, July 8, 2012 - 10:26 pm
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Specialization of work? The difference of a person making 10 or 12 widgets per hour... irrelevent?

I hope you too answer this question still for me. I hate captilisim too. =) If for nothing else answer my questions because they can lead to preventable solutions with your system.

I still don't think your system adequately rewards creativity and efficiency shouldn't take a back seat to conviencence, or anything for that matter.

But... I'm not nitpicking these are important questions. I'm only returning to this thread because I find it interesting. So I hope you don't have ill favor of my comments and criticism. Because they are only so I can either be given an explanation or to bring insight to your situation.

Umm.. also you too seem to throw around the "you don't want to understand stuff, because your a capitilist" I feel you suffer from this as well, plutocracy, utilitarianism, motivation linkage, materialism, Plato's gaurdian class, seem like foreign concepts to you. I'm not saying that to be mean either. I say it because motivation by citizens drive society forward and there are a lot of uncertainities in a social system. The only reference we have is the past, and that isn't even a good indication of how your system would work in practice. Because in all likeliness your system would not be able to produce the luxuries we've grown accustomed to. Definetely a more stable economy, but stable bordering the third world. That is why you need to understand the principle driving forces of society and frankly those without extensive philosophical study won't be able to make those calls. Reading Marx, Bentham, Kant, Plato, Aristotle, Mill, are the most important ones, but aquinas, locke, rousieou (however you spell it), or confucious to get more argumentative reasoning and justification of liberties and authrority, In short you are most likely underqualified. But I too am underqualified to make that assessment. I do highly suggest that you read some stuff.

I am taking a philosophy course in summer school at my college. It's actually called Critical Thinking, but philosophy is, for the most part, just thinking critically about things.
I have read the Communist Manifesto. I know of Plato and Aristotle, and have also read some of their works. I am, in fact, a former communist. But then I realized that communism isn't without its own problems. And sure, national proletarianism isn't perfect either, but I have my beliefs and I have my arguments and reasons for those beliefs.

National Proletarianism would reward inventors very well. I don't know where you guys got the idea that it would neglect creativity; it wouldn't. If you invent something that the community can't live without, the community won't want you to just stop there...they will encourage you to keep going, and to take your new technology as far is it will go. Good inventors will live like kings in a national proletarian state, and many of them will probably be elected to the Supreme Proletariat. By absolutely no means, would my system neglect to reward creativity. I don't know why you think that.

If you know Plato, you've read the republic?

The three forces that guide people are desires/spirit/wisdom. That's not exactly proven but seems pretty right to me. Now what happens when you reward people with desires? They become fixated on them. Rewarding productivity will lead to people becoming addicted (addiction leads to corruption/Rosseiou) to it, making them more productive, however they will not grow as human beings. The people will be sheep that flock to whatever occupation shows the largest effort->reward payement ratio. And though I hate to say it the free market regulates salaries to an extent (not fairly, or accurate in any way). How does your system control labor so you have the proper specialization of labor? or do you just leave them as smarter monkey's.

Well, that is where National Proletarianism tries to achieve the same effect as communism, but through different means. The difference is that true communism is powered almost completely by a desire to serve one's community and to work together. Marxist theory assumes that in time, human greed can be worked out of the equation. This is where National Proletarianism is different. National Proletarianism is powered by the same force that powers capitalism; the only difference is the way in which this force is harnessed.

In capitalism, human greed is harnessed by the ruling class and the bourgeoisie when they exploit the working class, known as the proletariat. By lying to the workers and promising them that the hardest workers will become rich, these workers will work all their lives, and the ruling class never does deliver on the promise. If you don't understand what I mean, think back to when you were growing up; how many times were you told that if you worked very hard, you would become rich? We are almost brainwashed into believing this, but I can tell you right now that it's a lie. If you are a working class citizen, you will most likely never get to wear a white-collar shirt in your entire life. How many people who start in the working class actually end up in the ruling class? With very few exceptions, none. So the rich just keep living like kings who contribute very little to the world, while the poor workers are forced to compete with, and fight each other over jobs like animals. That is how capitalism harnesses human greed. It uses the greed of the workers to feed the greed of the rich.

National Proletarianism harnesses the same exact force, human greed. Unlike communism, which assumes that we can work greed out of human nature, National Proletarianism assumes that humans are greedy bastards, and always will be. It is different from capitalism because instead of using the workers' greed to further the agenda of a ruling class, their greed is used to make life better for their community, and ultimately for themselves. National Proletarianism gives the workers the same promise that capitalism gives them, that if you work hard, you will enjoy a very successful and happy life. However, unlike capitalism, National Proletarianism actually delivers on that promise because of the way that the workers' greed is harnessed. Nobody is forced to compete for a job. If the local government runs out of jobs to give people, they can order the construction of new facilities. Guess what? Construction requires labor -> tada! Instant jobs! Once the construction is finished, they are gonna need workers to run these facilities -> Poof! Even more jobs! The type of facility that would be constructed would be based on fields where there is a labor surplus. If there are extra workers in the medical profession, the facility might be a clinic or a hospital. If there is a surplus of teachers, the facility might be a school of some sort (depending on what level of education the teachers specialize in, it might be an elementary school, a high school, or a college/university). If there are extra inventors, the facility might be a laboratory. You get the idea. Just like capitalism, the workers have a choice in what they want their profession to be. However, unlike capitalism, all jobs (with the exception of soldier), would be treated equally.
For example, let's say that there is a medical doctor and a builder, and each of them does their job equally well. If this was in the context of capitalism, you would know immediately that the doctor will always be richer than the builder. However, if this was in the context of National Proletarianism, the builder and the doctor would both get the same reward.
But doesn't the doctor require a lot of schooling, you ask? Of course he must be well educated, but if you recall from our discussion on education, so does a builder!
Why are soldiers the exception to this rule? Well, it is explained in the manifesto. A soldier has the most dangerous job that anyone could have, especially if there is a war to fight. What if there isn't a war to fight? Well, the army is the police. It's also the fire department. This is intended to correct another problem that I found with capitalism: the police, fire department, army, and other emergency services are all their own separate organizations, each with their own command structures. The problem only became apparent on 9/11, when the firefighters went into the towers to rescue people. The police received information that the towers were collapsing, but because the police and the fire department had separate command structures, the police were failed to communicate the information to the firefighters who were still inside. As a result, 340 firefighters died. Since 9/11, the US has gotten better about this, implementing the Unified Command Structure and the Incident Command System, but my idea in integrating both the police and fire department into the army just avoids the problem altogether; the soldiers that defend the citizens from invaders will be the same soldiers that defend the citizens from fires, hazardous materials, and dangerous criminals. So the army's mission is not only to defend its citizens from foreign invaders, but to defend the people from any physical threat at all. Makes sense?

I don't call myself an expert on Plato or his works. I said that I have read *some* of his works, but The Republic is not one of them (it's on my to-do list though). I have read Crito, as well as Allegory of the Cave.

Actually I give you credit for this response. Great job! I still wouldn't prefer it and it has faults as does the alternatives, we have a different value structure, it doesn't mean that you didn't do a fantastic job on that post.

Hmmm... interesting. Fun fact up until mid roman times battlefield professions always doubled as civil justice people. I can't think of any exceptions. I always liked that, in todays world it leaves shortages in times of war, but in peace it gives them something to do and be productive.

But I can't think of any situation where an excavater would need as much training a doctor. Carpenter is simple compared to an electrician. Nuclear Technician compared to the dog walker. Its a step in the right direction compared to straight communism. Look up the american communist something on wikipedia it should be a quick read though, you might like their approach better than this. Despite it being just a more liberal approach to marxian communism.

Well, for most things, a builder would not need as much training as a doctor. However, this is just a matter of quality. If education is free, we might as well teach those students to be the best builders in the world. Teach them to build structures so strong that no natural disaster will ever bring them down. If you are gonna be a builder, they will ensure that you are one of the best, a master of the craft.

And thank you for your complement on my post. I rather like it, myself.

You're kind of assuming that everyone has the same learning ability in this last bit of the topic.

Not necessarily. We all have talent in different fields, so that's why individuals would be allowed to choose what career they want (just like capitalism). People tend to be good at things that they enjoy doing, and I would assume (or at least I would hope) that you wouldn't choose a career path unless you enjoyed the kind of work involved.

So since the GM would need an idea of how to go about implementing a moneyless economy (such as National Proletarianism), this post will describe my idea of how to implement it in this game.

For starters, a player would have a choice of whether to play the capitalistic model or the moneyless (National Proletarian) model. The capitalist model will, of course, be playing the game as it is right now. The National Proletarian model would be different in the following ways:

-There would be no financial data (such as country cash or tax rate or anything involving money) on your country page. Instead, your country's economy will revolve around its Supply Index. If your country is doing well, your supply index should be relatively high, and your country's newspaper would show few shortages. That would be a good sign that your economy is strong.
-CEO's would, of course, automatically be forbidden.
-All of the goods produced in your factories would be automatically transferred to your country stock, for use by either the citizens or by other factories that need them. When your factories run low on any given supply, the product they need would automatically be transferred to the factory that needs it. If the product isn't available, then it's a sign that you need to open more factories that produce that good.
-Things like hospitals and schools would not be built by corporations. In order to build hospitals, your country would use construction to build the hospital, it would need the materials and supplies (both to construct the hospital [building materials, bricks, wood, etc...], and to run the hospital [medical materials, pharmaceutical products, medical supplies, etc...]), and finally, it would need workers to both construct and run the hospitals. The same would be true of schools.
-Just like in the capitalist model, your population would consume a variety of goods, which would be deducted from your country stock.
-You would not need to nationalize private corps that are already in your country when you switch from the capitalist model. Instead, you would be given the ability to use your military to forcefully preempt these private corporations. Instead of costing you money, it would be a battle as if you were attacking an enemy state corp; the CEO would likely hire mercenaries to protect their property, so you would have to win the battle in order to seize control of the factory.

I will explain the positives and negatives of using this model over the capitalist model later, as I must go to class now. Obviously, the National Proletarian model seems very over-powered, so after class, I will describe the checks and balances that I propose to make it fair.

Really? And the GC to register your country every month?

Well GC's will always be needed for that. But GC's are never used by your country, itself. GC's are linked to your account, not your country. So GC's will not be a problem.

Checks and balances:
-Countries using the national proletarian model would be forbidden to use the international market or direct trade offers. As a result, it would force you to produce all of the goods, yourself. This includes weapons.
-It would also forbid use of the stock market.

So clearly this is a trade off. In exchange for the economic stability and strong military advantage of national proletarianism, you sacrifice the instant access to goods that the capitalist model gives you with the international market (which is fair). Think about it, you would need to make everything yourself. This could be a grave disadvantage if you do not have a large population base to draw from.

The military advantage would manifest itself in the form of having no limit to spending space, as there is no money to worry about. So the more factories that you have producing weapons, the more weapons you will have available to you. Furthermore, the corporations that produce weapons in such a country would not be costing your country anything in terms of losing money. In the capitalist model, weapon corps (and especially strategic weapons) are extremely unprofitable. However, the National Proletarian model would get around this problem because these corps would not be concerned about making money. As long as you have the raw materials needed to keep this corp producing, it will keep producing until you close it. All weapons that the corp produced would be automatically transferred to your country stock. So the military advantage is that you would be able to maintain extremely large weapon stockpiles, and the only thing it would cost you is the amount of ammo, gasoline, and military supplies it uses. This would lead to the ability to amass a huge army in a short period of time.

The economic stability comes from the way it would be set up. Without having to worry about a cash meter, you will never go into debt, and as long as you keep your supply index at a decent level, you should never run into issues.

However, these advantages would come at a very high cost. Start with your inability to use the international market. If you are fighting a war and you run out of ammo, you won't be able to buy more, you would have to wait until next month when your factories produce more of it, and a lot could happen in a month's time during war. You could not engage in direct trade with another country or CEO, so there would be no hope of obtaining ammo through those means either.
Also, the game levels would have to change for countries that use this system. For one, there is no cash level. Instead, your game level would rely heavily on your supply index. I suggest that the requirements for game level advancement also become higher for countries that use this model.

Also, instead of joining common markets, national proletarian states would have communes. In a commune, the countries pool a set percentage of their resources for use by all the other members of the commune in order to supplement their supply indices.

Countries that use this model would be allowed to join federations, and even be allowed to join federations that have capitalist countries in them. However, they would not be allowed to join common markets. Similarly, capitalist countries would not be allowed to join communes, nor would enterprises for that matter.

Finally, after you change the economic system that the country uses, the game should not allow you to change it again for at least 1 real life month, to avoid abuse of this feature.

This is my proposal on how to implement a moneyless economy on this game. GM, you rely on people buying GC's in order to fund your servers, and this moneyless system would not be a problem with that, as the players would still need GC's in order to buy boosters, use the space market, and to extend their memberships. Your business would not suffer, and it would also provide us all with a new way to have fun. You would probably get more players, and more players equals more money for you. Everybody wins!

im looking forward to macleans book as he seems to be the only one with any sense and marhsall this was a while back when i said i would fight to the death against your system and you told me i could just leave...that is insulting i love my country im not just going to leave my country in my opinion is a piece of shit right now but it has a good history and i still love its founding ideals im not just going to run away like a bitch

Well the obvious roblem with this thread is it is in the wrong section. This could be a conversation piece sure.

BUT THERE IS NO WAY THIS IS EVER GOING TO BE ADDED!!!!

Why add a nonexistant government type when there are underrepresented current one's?

Plus as I mentioned before your system can't work in this game, no country can satisfy it's demend for product. It needs to feed its pop then those corps need supplies, and those do, and those do... and so on. Without a concept of mini corps this can't be implemented. Sorry but facts are facts. No one to run the needs of the corp, and having practiced government forms not utilized alone destroys this.

There are also plenty of other things that SC wouldn't go for. Creation of merc groups? no way! CEO's developing provate armies? don't think so.

I love the fact that you are willing to challenge the status quo but be realistic, this is not a suggestion for sc this is a suggestion for rl.

And Gunther you say I make no sense?

hmmm...why bother with the government type in this game if it really has not affect on the bottomline?

Drew: I don't care what the system is called in the game. Call it whatever you want, but we should still have the option for a moneyless system, regardless of what its name is in the game. Call it the Communist system, and it would still be accurate to call it that. I will also point out that my system is gaining popularity, slowly but surely.

Here's a bit of irony for you: my Manifesto has won me a corporate scholarship. Can you believe it? Those capitalists actually PAID me for writing about how much I hate capitalism! I guess Comrade Lenin was right: capitalists will happily sell you the instruments of their own suicide.

Gunther: Oh, yes. Your capitalistic stubbornness has a very long history. Capitalism has existed for as long as civilization has existed. Even the European monarchies were capitalistic. And you ask, "Well how can that be? They had no freedom!"
You're right, they had no freedom. But even in a monarchy, you have a ruling class that is exploiting a working class. Seems like capitalism to me. The only difference between the monarchies and capitalism today, is who's in the ruling class. Back then, it was the kings and the nobility. Now, it's the corporate executives and corrupt politicians. But the system is still basically the same.
Let me ask you something, Gunther. You stated that you love your country. What if America was founded on communism instead of capitalism? Suppose, for one moment, that America was communist and had always been communist from the moment of its birth. And by this, I mean true Marxism, with a classless society and a nearly non-existent government. I know this has never actually existed, but suppose that it did, and that America was founded on Marxism. If you had grown up in Communist America, would you not still love this country? It is, after all, still America.

i love my country no matter what (so i dont see what your trying to point out)...perhaps i would want to change it because i hated my government but my country i love and i think everyone in the world does and who knows if i would like communism or not if i grew up in an actual communist society i probably would... life experiances are a powerful thing but ive been around for awhile and my education and other life experiances have already put me firmly against communism i think competition in the market or anything you do is a beautiful thing and it pushes people to be great unlike your system from what i understand....capatilism is not perfect and never will be the way i see it is the government needs to create an environment in which people with enough ambition and other skills can succeed it will never be an even start but there should be an opportunity for everyone to be a corporate executive or corrupt politician (hopefully not corrupt) or the so called "ruling class" this is better then communism because history tells us that the ruling class in communism were the ones who killed destroyed and subjugated the most effectively....not to mention capitalism always provided more for the proletariat then communism the "champion" of the proletariat


by the way i dont ask how can that be when you tell me european monarchies were capitalistic it was definitly capitalism just without social freedoms that allowed for social mobility and advancement pretty shitty example of capitalism but modern governments were just in there infancy and it took a long time for the world to improve

this has brought up an interesting topic a moneyless system in SC that is impossible how would you acquire enough goods for your country without purchasing some.....what if you were trading on the world market would you exchange products relative to their current market price would you use gold? technically you can produce an infinite ammount of gold to buy things that would give countrys and CEOS a direct involvement in the currency system and is bound to cause problems like inflation.......now ik your system is against trading because it exploits atleast one party which is completely false ex im missing two kidneys and will soon die you are missisng two lungs and will soon die we trade "gasp" and we both live sounds pretty beneficial to both partys which is usually how trade is conducted obviously there is alot of exploitation but the good far outweighs the bad.........but anyways since you are against trading you would have to produce all the products you need with a limited population which is hard enough considering corporations produce a fixed ammount of goods and use a specific ammount of population you would over produce some goods and wouldnt be able to produce other goods at all (with the current system) but it would be very interesting if the game could implement a rudimentary system which allows you to control how big your corporation is (how many people it employs and how many goods it produces) perhaps the bigger the more efficient (thats what its generally like in the real world in most cases i think) (assembly line VS cottage industry) but being able to choose between several different levels of how big the corp is would make it more interesting you could build one big oil corp instead of 3 and you could build one small clothes corp that supplies all your countrys needs without over producing interesting concept i think sounds like a big project to implement but something to put on the ajenda perhaps i dont see any problems with it besides more work for the gm

You would still love your country if it was a communist state. So if the country had not always been communist, and it changes from capitalism...let's say that there is a revolution today that overthrows the government and the ruling class, and the new provisional government institutes Marxism. Even after the revolution, perhaps the government has changed, but it would still be America. It would still be the same landmass, with the same people, just a different form of economy and government. Would you not still love your country? It is, after all, still your country right? You were still born there and raised there. Would you not love your country even if it changed?

i love my country so i would fight the detestable form of government that had been imposed on it

here are some qoutes that i feel explain my reasoning
“Loyalty to country ALWAYS. Loyalty to government, when it deserves it.� Mark Twain

“In the face of impossible odds, people who love this country can change it.� Barack Obama

“A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government.� Edward Abbey

“Patriotism is supporting your country all the time and your government when it deserves it.� Mark Twain

“I love America more than any other country in the world and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually.� James Baldwin

“The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.� Thomas Paine

“The greatest patriotism is to tell your country when it is behaving dishonorably, foolishly, viciously.� Julian Barnes


“Here is your country. Cherish these natural wonders, cherish the natural resources, cherish the history and romance as a sacred heritage, for your children and your children's children. Do not let selfish men or greedy interests skin your country of its beauty, its riches or its romance.�
Theodore Roosevelt


“But you know as well as I, patriotism is a word; and one that generally comes to mean either my country, right or wrong, which is infamous, or my country is always right, which is imbecile.�
Patrick O'Brien


“The notion that a radical is one who hates his country is naïve and usually idiotic. He is, more likely, one who likes his country more than the rest of us, and is thus more disturbed than the rest of us when he sees it debauched. He is not a bad citizen turning to crime; he is a good citizen driven to despair.�
H.L Mencken


“There are two kinds of patriotism -- monarchical patriotism and republican patriotism. In the one case the government and the king may rightfully furnish you their notions of patriotism; in the other, neither the government nor the entire nation is privileged to dictate to any individual what the form of his patriotism shall be. The gospel of the monarchical patriotism is: "The King can do no wrong." We have adopted it with all its servility, with an unimportant change in the wording: "Our country, right or wrong!" We have thrown away the most valuable asset we had:-- the individual's right to oppose both flag and country when he (just he, by himself) believed them to be in the wrong. We have thrown it away; and with it all that was really respectable about that grotesque and laughable word, Patriotism.�
Mark twain


“I love my country, not my government.�
Jesse Ventura


as you can see my sentiment is not an uncommon one

again i dont see what your trying to prove its quite a simple idea

just going back a little to this qoute in your manifesto under the section titled socialism

"Socialism sounds reasonable, but one problem remains, at least, that is
visible to me: it is inefficient."

would your system not be just as inefficient if not more considering the lack of currency you never explained why your system would be more efficient you said the only difference was you didnt have currency and some vaguely explained differences in how healthcare would operate