Socio-economic systems in conworld

[Squall]

I am creating a conworld. It has 20 countries so far and they are different.
In the conworld, tribal and industrial countries coexist. Monarchy and democracy coexist. No one cares if about the adoption of a different system in another country, so it is not a cause of conflits if the other country feudal, socialist or capitalist.

Here is the description of the systems used in the conworld in developing concountries, which have limited resources.
From the left to the right.

STALINISM/SOVIET
The dictator, the hereditary monarch, controls everything as a god and requires cult of personality. The country is a big private property.

The state chooses the dwelling place, the job, the food and the needs of each person. Some forms of slavery are present.

People of the government are part of the nobility and have lots of privileges and they support the system. In order to prevent the rise of a new class, wars are performed for wasting resources of commoners.

With the control and centralization of the economy, the dictator can export all food of a rebel province and consequently cause famine intentionally to perform genocide and no one will notice the genocide.

Everyone is monitored so that the state knows if they are obeying their assignment and are not planning any revolt. State propaganda is everywhere and there are no freedom of speech. The education and the language have propaganda and teach that the system is great and the dictator is a father. The dictator is the god of the religion. News are manipulated, old books are burned and new books are written with lies and propaganda. The secret police arrest any suspicious people and apply brain washing and torture.

The ultimate step for the future is to replace the human government with a computer. That will make the society static and unable to change.


SOCIALISM
The means of production are property of the state and the currency does not exist. All workers and their family gets for free food, clothing, healthcare, education, a home to live, water, electric power, telecommunications, social security and some useful goods. There are no private cars, they use buses for free or bicycle.

In order to be able to produce for everyone, if one refuses to work, the state stops providing all goods and they will only have their house, where they can make a small farm for subsistence.

Birth control is important. The maximum number of children that a couple can have is three. Houses are given only to couples in the first marriage. The state does not help people that have children without marriage. If someone is unable to raise their own children, the children are sent to an orphanage. If these same people generate another unneeded child, they are sterilized.

In order to avoid shortage of things like water, there is a limit of consumption. If someone wastes too much water, they will be unable to get more water while it is not safe to use part of the water of people that did not use their quota entirely.

There are many goods that people have choose, such as specific beautiful clothing. The people chooses what they want, if there is stock, they receive it, otherwise, the goods are produced and they will receive it some days later. If the number of requests is huge, the time for waiting is very long. However, if the technological development is good enough, the production will be fast enough for everyone.

It uses direct democracy to decide the behavior of the government and to avoid tyranny and inequality. The democratic mechanism is used for many things, that includes deciding when and where to open a new factory or produce a new type of goods and deciding resources spent for culture and the choice of the cultural subject. New ideas need enough votes (or likes) to be recognised.

Innovation and new forms of technology come from universities and are gradually applied in the industry for improving the efficiency.

The system has many problems although. There are undetected parasites, who do not work, but they are registered as workers and get all benefits. There is corruption in the system and managers can have illegally benefits like multiple houses illegally, additional limit of electric power, more goods from the factory and bypass the quota of a good. However, because corruption is illegal, it is possible to get back parts of the loss, unlike the loss caused by surplus value, which is not possible in this system. There are too much data to handle and bureaucracy, so the decisions are slow and the management is inefficient.

The system requires a strong computational network to make the management easier, avoid many forms of corruption, count the goods and facilitate discussions and voting in different questions in the direct democracy.


MARKET SOCIALISM
The state controls the economy, but the currency and the market are present. The state provides free healthcare and free education for everyone. It also provides basic food and small shelters for people who are unable to obtain those things.

The state controls natural resources and the infrastructure. It also owns many companies that are part of the market. Most properties and business, such as lands, are lend to workers, who will produce goods and sell according to the market.

Large companies are owned by the state. Middle-sized companies are collectivized and controlled by workers and have an inner democratic administration. The profit is paid equally to each employee and the excessive surplus value is taken by the state in order to limit the accumulation of wealth. In small business, each one is owner of their own mean of production, which is distributed equally. The government encourages the small business in which the workers are members of the same family.

The economy is decentralized into small self-sufficient local cells. Small villages are community-based and independent from the national government because they use self-administration and cooperativism. They may specialize themselves in few segments of the industry and trade goods with other villages.

There is only a bank of the state, but it does not provide loans. Loans are obtained from guilds and credit unions, which are maintained by its members, lend money only for members, do not require interests and do not have profit.


SOCIAL DEMOCRACY
It is a capitalist system, but there is a strong presence of the state to limit the problems of the capitalism.

The system has high taxes, but the state provides basic needs, including free healthcare, free education and social security. It has farms for an additional production of food to be consumed in times of crises. It has many urban areas with small houses to house homeless.

Although the state has a big presence in the economy, it believes that the free market is the base of the economy, but it has lots of flaws. The state avoids intervention in private business and observes the economy and acts when needed with a goal. It has green laws, balanced laborist laws and goods-quality laws.

The state combat market failures. Consumerism is discouraged and GDP is not a goal. Monopolies are authoritarianly split into smaller business. Goods that create useless culture are excessively taxed. Crimes of companies and cartels are punished by stealing the ownership of the involved companies. Holdings are forbidden. The social security helps workers when bankrupt occurs while they do not get a new job. The accumulation of huge wealth has a ceiling and the state takes the excess.

The state controls services that cannot have concurrency, such as infrastructure and natural resources. The temporary private concession is seen as a form of hiring a group of workers. Private researches can sell innovations to the state.

The state owns many companies, which are also ordinary companies in the free market, whose profit is spent with the society. However, state companies are not helped in bankrupt.

The controllers of mass media are periodically replaced with other groups and they cannot have link with the state.


POPULISM
This is the consequence when huge enterprises take the control of the state. It is a system of demagogue government, which helps both the poor and the rich, because it sustains parasites and keeps monopolies. The same form of government is always elected, even though the face may be different, because the richest elite supports their electoral campaign with lots of money. The mass media is also an oligopoly.

It has high taxes, but the state provides basic needs, including healthcare, education and social security. The state helps people in extreme poverty by giving them money to survive instead of job and better education. Those people become parasites expensive for the state and helps to re-elect the same candidates.

Big monopolies support the government. The state performs lots of intervention to create lots of unneeded laws with the excuse of protecting consumers and workers. However, the requirements are expensive for small business. Consequently, it is difficult to keep small business and only big companies survive and keep their monopoly. The state protects current big companies from foreigners competitors and save bleeding big companies from bankrupt to avoid mass unemployment. New concurrency may be combated with dumping, but if the old company gets financial problems, the state will save it while the new company is not large enough to be saved.

Elected candidates provide unfair advantages to companies that helped to elect them, including laws, subsidies, contracts and investments. The level of corruption is high, candidates can create a useless project and hire the company that helped them and the cost is overpriced.


MINARCHISM/LIBERTARIANISM
The state is absent from everything and its only role is to enforce the safety and manage what cannot be privatized, such as streets. The number of laws is minimal. The state avoids violence and preserves private properties. Freedom is the most important thing. The state continues stopped during economical crisis and waits for natural recovery.

It does not need a political system, because the administration is very static and the state has no influence. Invocation of democratic processes for needed changes are rare. The national government is an ordinary bureau. There are elections only for city mayor, because there are many public subjects, such as streets. Interurban projects, such as roads, are managed by deals between cities.

Because of the absence of the state, the economy is a perfect form of liberalism. There are no laborist laws and no laws regarding the quality of goods. They believe that quick changes, such as mass dismissals, lead to poverty in short-term, but the recovery in long-term is automatically natural. The people have problems with social security, because they do not have discipline for accumulating money.

Education is not common, because many people do not want to pay for it directly. College, which leads to good jobs, is only for the rich class, because it is so expensive that only rich families are able to pay.

There is big social inequality, but there are no beggars. There are homeless workers instead, who live like vassals. Some businessmen have a big room in their factory with many mattresses. They invite beggars to work for free in exchange of food, clean clothing and a place to sleep.

Some sectors of the economy has private monopolies, because of cartels, trusts, dumping against the concurrency and the creation of a culture that makes the company a part of the life and trustworthy. With too much power, monopolies are usually almost eternal.

There is a culture of competition and consequently envy and the wish for the failure of other people.

The society suffers with the excess of advertisement, which leads to consumerism, which is terrible for the environment and prevents smaller work time.

There are two opposing political ideas regarding law and interventionism.
The left side advocates that loan and patent laws must be absent, because it is a form of interventionism. However, they support green laws, because it is life preservation and part of the role of regarding the security.
The right side advocates that loan and patent laws must be present, because its absence prevents investments and development. However, they are against green laws, because it is a form of interventionism.


NEOLIBERAL CONSERVADORISM
Everything follows the law of the money. The state is controlled by the money.

When the government is not Fascist, the democracy is a façade. Although anyone can vote, it is very difficult to be a candidate without money. The mass media is an oligopoly of big companies that support the system. Famous people that have opposing ideas are treated by the mass media as supporters of stalinist revolution, human rights violation and dictatorship. People are taught to support these ideas and that opposing ideas are terrible. Labor strikes and public protests are forbidden.

The system is nationalist and ideas against the system is against the nation. The nationalism is like a religion and make the people accept their purpose e in the country, obey and work hard for the growth of the country, the growth of the economy.

In elections, ideology is not part of the debate. It is a battle between enterprises, so the candidates represent different sets of enterprises.

The law supports capitalist practices: debts are inheritable, patent trolls are legal, a company can create rules for their goods including fines, etc. However, laborist laws and goods-quality laws do not exist. The economy is strongly based on advertisement and consumerism.

They prefer rapid development, and it does not matter if it will sacrifice people, even though welfare is not provided. The most important thing is to increase the GDP and inequality does not matter. Hence, the state provides free education toward the market for making good workers, so arts and social studies are excluded. There is a hidden policy to keep some rate of unemployment in order to keep the workforce cheaper and make workers sacrifice themselves to keep the job. The solution for high inflation is to increase the unemployment, but the consequence of rapid development is inflation.

Services that cannot have concurrency and natural resources are also private property. Electric power is a private monopoly. Roads are private and one has to pay for using it.

The taxes are low, so the state has huge debts. When the state cannot pay a creditor, the state pays it with actions that gives it unfair advantages. When something is lacking in the society, the state builds a state company. When the state company's debts get huge, it is privatized.


CAPITALIST ARISTOCRACY
Everything is a form of private property. The life controlled by the aristocracy.

Cities have a proprietor, who can do anything with it. Everything in a city requires the payment of rent to the proprietor, including housing. If a nobleman goes bankrupt, the ownership of his city is transferred to his creditor. Big cities can be divided for multiple owners and walls are built to separate each area.

Their motivation to improve a city for its inhabitants is to make it more pleasing to the owner's eyes and more profitable. The life quality does not matter. The cities have some of the best city planning of the world, because they can demolish any buildings and replan the entire infrastructure. However, most inhabitants live in cheap small houses.

Most proprietors do not tolerate beggars in their city. They usually offer a job and pay with food and housing. Those who refuse to work are expelled from the city.

Rural areas are huge feudal properties.

There is a central governor who is elected by owners of cities and landowners. The role of the governor is to keep an army to avoid war between different cities and to suppress rebellions in cities whose owner has lost the control. The governor also manages the currency to make it compatible to different areas.

There are three social classes: the nobility (also known as bourgeoisie), the qualified workforce and the poor workforce. The people of the poor workforce are like vassals and must work a lot to be able to eat. Some contracts make them slaves. The qualified workforce is people who the nobleman trusts to do difficult jobs. That includes managers, physicians and engineers. They have better remuneration and some laborist rights, but they are exploited in order not to live like the poor workforce.

[Ahzoh]

Most of these are accurate, especially with regards to what socialism really is (and not that Soviet State-Capitalist nonsense). Although it is important to understand that in socialism the state does not own the means of production, but the people do. Otherwise it's state-capitalism.

Have you also looked into the socioeconomic systems of Mutualism, Anarcho-Syndicalism, Anarcho-Capitalism, and Anarcho-Communism?

One could also entertain the idea that scarcity is an artificially-maintained concept.

[Squall]

Most of these are accurate, especially with regards to what socialism really is (and not that Soviet State-Capitalist nonsense). Although it is important to understand that in socialism the state does not own the means of production, but the people do. Otherwise it's state-capitalism.

I am not a sociologist, but I consider Socialism as system of equality, direct democracy and lack of currency. It uses an authority to enforce democratic decisions rather than oppressing people. Private ownership of business is not democratic.

Have you also looked into the socioeconomic systems of Mutualism, Anarcho-Syndicalism, Anarcho-Capitalism, and Anarcho-Communism?

I changed many things and combined close systems. Mutualism and Distributism are similar. I recover the surplus value with maximum wage instead predefined price.

Anarcho-Capitalism is like Minarchism.

The concept of Anarchist Communism is still vague to me. Although it is easy in small societies where everyone knows each other, it is difficult to manage millions of people without a state. I don't understand how it works in cities of 100 thousand inhabitants and how to keep the balance of power and the colaboration between multiple villages.

One could also entertain the idea that scarcity is an artificially-maintained concept.

That is the reason why I consider the life expectancy as one of the most important indicators of the quality of a country. Good life expectancy means presence of food, housing, healthcare and peace. GDP is useless. Education is not the final goal, it is the path. Peace is the lack of tyranny, violence and war.

Scarcity is a reality in Africa and Middle ages, because of the lack of food and healthcare, which cause high death rate. If the people has food, housing, healthcare, peace and leisure, then there is no poverty. Leisure doesn't require resources. A tribal civilization has it without having luxurious car and television.

In the conworld, the artificial scarcity parameter includes the lack of cellphone and television.

[Ahzoh]

Most of these are accurate, especially with regards to what socialism really is (and not that Soviet State-Capitalist nonsense). Although it is important to understand that in socialism the state does not own the means of production, but the people do. Otherwise it's state-capitalism.

I am not a sociologist, but I consider Socialism as system of equality, direct democracy and lack of currency. It uses an authority to enforce democratic decisions rather than oppressing people. Private ownership of business is not democratic.

I wish more people understood this.

The concept of Anarchist Communism is still vague to me. Although it is easy in small societies where everyone knows each other, it is difficult to manage millions of people without a state. I don't understand how it works in cities of 100 thousand inhabitants and how to keep the balance of power and the collaboration between multiple villages.

The Kurds seem to manage themselves without a state. A stateless society can have a government, but it does not arise out of coercion, nor maintain itself using coercion, nor does it have a monopoly on force.

Scarcity is a reality in Africa and Middle ages, because of the lack of food and healthcare, which cause high death rate. If the people has food, housing, healthcare, peace and leisure, then there is no poverty.

What I mean is that, in our real world, we have millions of unsold houses that are empty, but millions of homeless. We have the technology and skill to feed every individual on the planet sustainably, but we have 8 million who die of starvation everyday.
Scarcity is a concept that is being artificially maintained.

[Axiem]

No one cares if about the adoption of a different system in another country, so it is not a cause of conflits if the other country feudal, socialist or capitalist.

I am curious: why not? As in, what prevents people from caring?

[Ahzoh]

No one cares if about the adoption of a different system in another country, so it is not a cause of conflits if the other country feudal, socialist or capitalist.

I am curious: why not? As in, what prevents people from caring?

The people are probably not imperialist jerks.

[sangi39]

No one cares if about the adoption of a different system in another country, so it is not a cause of conflits if the other country feudal, socialist or capitalist.

I am curious: why not? As in, what prevents people from caring?

The people are probably not imperialist jerks.

I don't think you have to be an imperialist jerk to not care about a country trying out a new socio-economic and political system. Trying something new, like a nationwide political experiment, comes with risks that could potentially damage the country. If that country is a particularly strong trading partner for some other country, that other country might start to worry about the economic effects a change in politics in the first country might have on it due to, say, a drop in or ceasing of trade.

It might not go to war over the change in politics, but it might worry like hell if an economically stable trading partner decides to abandon its government entirely. I don't think that's imperialism. I think that's just regular old concern. Sure, selfish concern, but still.

[Squall]

I will create more concountries and add more systems: Anarcho-Communism, Messed-admnistration Socialism, Modern tribalism.

I am curious: why not? As in, what prevents people from caring?

In the international culture, the inner affairs of a country are part of the foreign culture. They think that it is weird or stupid, but it is not a reason for attacking the country or stopping trading with them. A war would worsen the country that "needs to be saved". The causes of wars in the conworld are religion, lands or natural resources.

Many socialist concountries have never been capitalist. So many countries have coexisted for a long time with different systems. The fear of other system does not exist becuase there are both successful and failed forms of all systems.

but it might worry like hell if an economically stable trading partner decides to abandon its government entirely. I don't think that's imperialism. I think that's just regular old concern. Sure, selfish concern, but still.

A protectionist capitalist country may be worse for trading than an open socialist country.

The people are probably not imperialist jerks.

In the real world, Western developed countries would be likely to attack or stop trading with a new socialist country. However, they disagree with human rights violation in Islamic countries, but they do not attack or forbid trade with them.

[Ahzoh]

The people are probably not imperialist jerks.

In the real world, Western developed countries would be likely to attack or stop trading with a new socialist country. However, they disagree with human rights violation in Islamic countries, but they do not attack or forbid trade with them.

Yea, socialist countries are a threat to capitalist countries but Muslim countries are not socialist so the West never needs to fear.
But this is where the imperialism comes in. They have free reign to economically dominate the non-West countries, though if they get too uppity they'll invade them.

[elemtilas]

The people are probably not imperialist jerks.

In the real world, Western developed countries would be likely to attack or stop trading with a new socialist country. However, they disagree with human rights violation in Islamic countries, but they do not attack or forbid trade with them.

Yea, socialist countries are a threat to capitalist countries but Muslim countries are not socialist so the West never needs to fear.

Different set of worries, that.

But this is where the imperialism comes in. They have free reign to economically dominate the non-West countries, though if they get too uppity they'll invade them.

Western countries are highly unlikely to attack & wage war on a country just because they dabble in the socialism. Otherwise, the US would have been busy waging war with half of Europe and Canada to boot.

Nor would western countries stop trading with them. Only the US, so far as I know, has kept up the inane embargo against Cuba. We happily trade with all sorts of even worse countries. So, yeah.

[Ahzoh]

But this is where the imperialism comes in. They have free reign to economically dominate the non-West countries, though if they get too uppity they'll invade them.

Western countries are highly unlikely to attack & wage war on a country just because they dabble in the socialism. Otherwise, the US would have been busy waging war with half of Europe and Canada to boot.

Canada and Half of Europe are not dabbling in socialism, they are still full blown capitalist societies with SOME socialistic policies, but that's not socialism nor dabbling in it.

In any case, even if there has been no direct war, there has been economic, propagandic and proxy wars between capitalism and socialism (communism and socialism are often conflated with the former seen as some end goal). Vietnam was a war against communism, and so was the Korean war. Placing sanctions and embargoes could also be a form of war.

But my talk of countries getting uppity was with the countries that the West economically dominate, like all those invasions and meddling for oil. Or that one time Saudi Arabia decided to jack up the prices of oil and the US promptly invaded them (I can't remember if this really happened or not).

Suffice to say, imperialism and colonialism are alive in well, just in different forms. Thus, it is a major, if not number one, factor in why socialist countries do not exist.

[elemtilas]

But this is where the imperialism comes in. They have free reign to economically dominate the non-West countries, though if they get too uppity they'll invade them.

Western countries are highly unlikely to attack & wage war on a country just because they dabble in the socialism. Otherwise, the US would have been busy waging war with half of Europe and Canada to boot.

Canada and Half of Europe are not dabbling in socialism, they are still full blown capitalist societies with SOME socialistic policies, but that's not socialism nor dabbling in it.

The point is: western countries don't actually / generally invade and wage war on other countries that flirt with socialism (or whatever) or fundamentally shift their economic foundation. Doesn't work too well --- there's just no moral imperative or high ground here. Of course, there are a few instances, Cuba being one. Look at how well that turned out for the US!

But my talk of countries getting uppity was with the countries that the West economically dominate, like all those invasions and meddling for oil.

Here you hit the nail on the head. Oil. The main reason why states and smaller polities have waged war ever since the beginnings of civilisation is resources. Water. Food. Arable land. Oil. This is true regardless of their economic system.

Or that one time Saudi Arabia decided to jack up the prices of oil and the US promptly invaded them (I can't remember if this really happened or not).

It did not, by the way. Too much oil, and generally too friendly!

Suffice to say, imperialism and colonialism are alive in well, just in different forms. Thus, it is a major, if not number one, factor in why socialist countries do not exist.

Imperialism and colonialism are indeed alive and well. And not many places are free and guiltless of this, either. The US of course plays the game. So does Russia, so does China. Other places play a smaller version of the game, but the idea is the same: control over your region. You mentioned Islam before, we shouldn't forget ideological-religious imperialism.

[Squall]

Canada and Europe are not socialist. They are successful by applying the combination of free market plus welfare state. It is a form of Social Democracy. International trade is very important for them.

Suffice to say, imperialism and colonialism are alive in well, just in different forms. Thus, it is a major, if not number one, factor in why socialist countries do not exist.

Could you give more examples? I will make relations between concountries.

Apple and Nike have factories in developing countries, where the higher education is not universal and the workforce is cheap. It is good for the country when it has taxes for exporting those goods.
However, if the target is the local market, there will be a form of exploitation in long term because the liquid profit will go to the original country. Therefore, this rapid development leads to a form of subordination.
It is good to receive a foreign multinational corporation when the local country has corporations in other countries. It balances the entrance and the exit of capital. But developing countries rarely have big multinational corporations.

[Ahzoh]

Canada and Europe are not socialist. They are successful by applying the combination of free market plus welfare state. It is a form of Social Democracy. International trade is very important for them.

Suffice to say, imperialism and colonialism are alive in well, just in different forms. Thus, it is a major, if not number one, factor in why socialist countries do not exist.

Could you give more examples? I will make relations between concountries.

Apple and Nike have factories in developing countries, where the higher education is not universal and the workforce is cheap. It is good for the country when it has taxes for exporting those goods.
However, if the target is the local market, there will be a form of exploitation in long term because the liquid profit will go to the original country. Therefore, this rapid development leads to a form of subordination.
It is good to receive a foreign multinational corporation when the local country has corporations in other countries. It balances the entrance and the exit of capital. But developing countries rarely have big multinational corporations.

Countries invading the middle-east for oil (imperialism), Bolivia experienced/is experiencing a situation where they can only get international aid if they allow their water to be privatized (a form of colonialism), China is making a lot of investments in African countries, but those investments only use up the countries's resources and only serves the Chinese and not those countries (another form of colonialism). Just to name a few.