Communism/Capitalism

[JakiusCeasar]

... Basically that's what I'm try to say.

You

a) Find a building you want on your island
b)Set up a lot where the building can be built
c)set a price, or reward it to someone
d)Wait for someone to buy it, and then building will begin

And when the building is completed, who will set:

• If a production building
  • wages of the workers
  • working conditions & firing of workers
• If a service building
  • wages of the workers
  • services offered
  • prices charged
  • firing of workers
• If a housing building
  • the rental rate
  • evictions
• Then the core governmental buildings
  • Will you allow contracting out functions, such as prisons
• Who may bulldoze buildings you don't own

I may be "picky" but does Sim City have individual people/units as does Tropico?

 

The little digital brain inside the owner of the building's head! Suppy and demand, profits, intellegence, all factors will work to set these things. Sim city has a simplied stystem of people and jobs.

[Coconut Kid]

The prices and wages (firing of workers ...) are depending on the law of supply and demand. The mathematics behind this are perhaps not easy, but it could be done with an somewhat simplified, theoretical approach.

There are already some capitalistic elements in Tropico. The hotels have "automatic" pricing and there's some competition. Hotels in a more beautiful environment close to other entertainment structures or infrastructure (docks, airports) get more tourists. So the artificial intelligence of the program can handle these things.

The player is less in control, but on the other side, a free market don't always react in a way to satisfy collective needs but rather individual needs (for example profit for entrepreneurs and farms ...), so there must be new options to gain control and new aims for scenarios, it could be a new experience of gameplay.

There is no "LAW" of supply and demand, and there is no "FREE". The phrases are the result of a figment of the imagination of a voodoo priest of economics. The automatic hotel pricing is an algorithm devised by the folks who knew how many tourists were coming and all the rest of the variables. It's a 'short cut' for the player so s\he won't go insane fiddling with the rates.

The game world is not and can not be, the real world.

[Coconut Kid]

Original Poster

Although you can play Tropico in various different ways, I don't think there is enough differentiation between running the island in a communist manner, or a capitalist manner.  ...  However, everything on Tropico is state-owned, because all profits go to you -- so it could always be called state-socialist.  ...

Let us remember that this is a game and NOT an instructional simulation. It had to make its own financial way in the open (not free) market as an amusement - in competition with other games of many kinds. A primary question in designing a game is how to keep the buyer\player busy and happy without becoming frustrated.

According to all the suggestions\demands for a non-state owned economic sector, the private activity would be capitalist and run by a background program (part of the game engine). Just a little realistic thought about this would indicate that such a "game" just won't sell without naked women cavorting on the beach to amuse the player while the program runs.

State owned capitalism is not unknown the real world because with a non-democratic government the property and money owners may be also the persons in control of the government. When you start devising an economic simulation (or game), you need to examine carefully the assumptions you make from politically slanted textbooks.

For example, why are democratically run political systems symbiotic with free market economic systems as claimed by the capitalists - especially in the U.S.? In a political democracy, each natural person has one vote. However, in free market economic systems, each natural person and each of a variety of artificial persons all have purchasing or voting power according to a wealth (usually money) system which allocates power in a very complicated way. Logically, these two systems are diametrically at odds with each other. Typically, the undemocratic wealth based economic system overcomes and destroys the democratic political system.

The Golden Rule triumphs -- who has the Gold, rules. Shake off your assumptions and play the game to satisfy either the communist faction or the capitalist faction. That should be sufficient to satisfy your political prejudices about the economic system.

[Coconut Kid]

I found some interesting theoretic reading from a German think tank, who wants to transform authoritarian forms of government and centrally planned economic systems toward democracy and a market economy worldwide.  ...

Time has passed, but the organization is still there ( Bertelsmann Stiftung | Carl-Bertelsmann-Str. 256 | 33311 Gütersloh ):
http://www.bertelsmann-transformation-index.de/en/

The basic prospect of the organization is:  Neither inevitable nor a consequence of good fortune, the transition from authoritarian forms of government and centrally planned economic systems toward democracy and a market economy must be politically led and managed. The project "Shaping Change - Strategies of Development and Transformation" aims to help improve political management processes and optimize outside support by identifying and facilitating the transfer of best practices among a broad spectrum of countries in transition... »

To believe as this organization does means that one must equate authoritarian forms of government with centrally planned economic systems. These two systems must always be linked and may never be found in any other combination. One must also equate democracy as a form of government linked with a market economy as the essential combination accepted by Western, Christian Civilization. That means that the organization has reached conclusions about the logic that shows that these two systems are diametrically at odds with each other. Typically, the undemocratic wealth based market system overcomes and destroys the democratic political system.

One has to conclude that the organization could not accept that a democratic political system could truly, honestly establish a centrally planned economic system. That is to say, they could not believe that a political system could choose cooperation over competition as the primary focus of a society.