Reality Rosa: A world where Communism works

[JAW]

Originally Posted by Cowd

The Red Army may be disbanded on paper, and its military technique outdated, but Rosa's global GDP, by Infinity's most conservative estimates, is 9 times greater than that of Homeline. Add to that the fact that its world organization is incomparably more efficient, and it's clear that within months of the Secret's discovery, the Communion would produce a force that could beat Homeline's combined armies with one hand tied to its back.

Well I don't think that the GDP of an well ran planned economy would be any higher than that of capitalism. But it doesn't really matter. What matters is that they would conserve strategic resources much better.

GDP is the "total market value of all final goods and services produced within the country (or world in this case) in a given period of time" (also -
"The major disadvantage of using GDP as an indicator of standard of living is that it is not, strictly speaking, a measure of standard of living.") http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gross_domestic_product. If someone drives to the mall in a big car gets an expensive haircut buys a big expensive television and watches hours of entertainment and commercials made by highly paid professionals form it - that drives the GDP up much more than someone taking the elevator/train of the arcology e is living and working in to go to the social/commercial floor/block (For getting an idea of what it could look like ... http://www.arcosanti.org/theory/arco...gingSpace.html, http://www.arcosanti.org/# ... and they're already plannig to build the "lean linear city" in China http://www.arcosanti.org/today/2005/...021985000.html (we'll maybe not exactly planning - it's hard to get any definiteve info about what the chinese are up to - but it seems they are interested.. http://74.6.239.67/search/cache?ei=U...icp=1&.intl=us) - and I suspect they get something like it done sooner than anything like that are done in "liberal capitalistic" countries - large planned economies do have an advantage in completing large scale planned projects that do not make short term profit like that.. althought a really big multinational company might be able to make an arcology city at some point too and make a lot of long term profit from it.. ), gets a free haircut from someone doing design haircuts as a hobby buys a big cheap energy efficient screen for his computer and spends hours watching free entertainment made by hobbyist and discussing about culture on the infonet. But in latter case no steel is tied up in the big car and no oil is burned getting it moving. So the governments of Reality Rosa can support bigger populations - and still end up with more strategic resources in stockpiles and unmined in the land and less polluted environment to boot. So they definitely would have advantage in long run. This is of course assuming their economy runs really smoothly and efficiently - and that's the picture I got form your writeup.

On minus side - their population is used to short work weeks (you did mention they had 3 days weekends and were considering to switching to 4 day ones) and fewer of them have skills in guns, driving etc.. So it surely would take much more than months for them to turn the population base and strategic resources to an effective warmachine. Sure with TL 9 in robotics etc they would not need that much skilled personnel in it but still "within months" is likely an exaggeration. I suspect the decision making processes would also waste some time - their factories etc are communally owned and somewhat democratically lead right? It would take some time to both convert them from building consumer goods to modernized weaponry and to make the decisions that they should do that if they were threatened - especially if the threat they would be under was not blatantly obvious.

[Xenarthral]

Originally Posted by Molokh

To me, the Infinity's organization looks like an ugly example of OneTrueWayIsm.

I'm not sure about Infinity's organization itself (I don't recall it being actually described as the best or only possible way) but some of the parallels are.

But isn't Rosa becoming one as well?
It seems to have moved from "a world where communism works" to "a world that demonstrates that communism is vastly superior".
Complete with conspiracy to keep this fact from the common people.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by Molokh

So-so. Have you ever thought that in the infinity of worlds, some all-knowing power sees our world as anvilicious regarding some group of issues? To me, the Infinity's organization looks like an ugly example of OneTrueWayIsm.

Let me get this straight. You see Infinity, with all of its conflicting agendas and questionable morality as OneTrueWayIsm, while Rosa, which is way superior because Marxism is the right way to run a society is a relief from that?

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

Let me get this straight. You see Infinity, with all of it's conflicting agendas and questionable morality as OneTrueWayIsm, while Rosa, which is way superior because Marxism is the right way to run a society is a relief from that?

The problem is that despite the conflicts inside the Infinity, it stays a monopolist and people take its side on Homeline.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by Molokh

The problem is that despite the conflicts inside the Infinity, it stays a monopolist and people take its side on Homeline.

Why wouldn't most people take its side? Homeline is profiting hugely from Infinity's operations and the public at large are presumably ignorant of its more skeevy aspects. Surely OneTrueWayism requires more than than a technological bottleneck.

[Pesterfield]

Surely OneTrueWayism requires more than than a technological bottleneck.

But they're willing to kill and kidnap to protect that bottleneck. Not to mention the reason they want it is so they'll be free to exploit other worlds without competition.

Keeping parachronics from some worlds, Reich-5, is certainly justified. But why can't others join the club?

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Pesterfield

Keeping parachronics from some worlds, Reich-5, is certainly justified. But why can't others join the club?

You got a candidate for some world that could be trusted with the ultimate way to deliver a nuclear bomb?

There really doesn't seem to be any way to stop an incoming conveyor and even if you don't want to wipe out any possible competitors there's always the temptation to play god.

Consider an extreme case. If you had discovered the world of Reign of Steel would anything except lack of knowledge of where to send the kamikaze conveyors keep you from blowing up the Zoneminds?

Okay, that's an easy one but where do you start drawing the line and where do you trust other people to draw their lines?

Nope, true time travel might be a little more disruptive but the numbers of people (most especially the number of large groups of people like nations and corporations) that I would trust with parachronics would be vanishingly small.

If I was stuck riding this tiger I'd be holding on for all I was worth.

[Cowd]

Originally Posted by JAW

words

Good points. Quite something else than INCENTIVES BOOTSTRAPS! HUMAN NATURE YOU PINKOS!

Well I don't think that the GDP of an well ran planned economy would be any higher than that of capitalism. But it doesn't really matter. What matters is that they would conserve strategic resources much better.

GDP is the "total market value of all final goods and services produced within the country (or world in this case) in a given period of time" (also -
"The major disadvantage of using GDP as an indicator of standard of living is that it is not, strictly speaking, a measure of standard of living.") http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gross_domestic_product. If someone drives to the mall in a big car gets an expensive haircut buys a big expensive television and watches hours of entertainment and commercials made by highly paid professionals form it - that drives the GDP up much more than someone taking the elevator/train of the arcology e is living and working in to go to the social/commercial floor/block (For getting an idea of what it could look like ... http://www.arcosanti.org/theory/arc...dgingSpace.html, http://www.arcosanti.org/# ... and they're already plannig to build the "lean linear city" in China http://www.arcosanti.org/today/2005...4021985000.html (we'll maybe not exactly planning - it's hard to get any definiteve info about what the chinese are up to - but it seems they are interested.. http://74.6.239.67/search/cache?ei=...&icp=1&.intl=us) - and I suspect they get something like it done sooner than anything like that are done in "liberal capitalistic" countries - large planned economies do have an advantage in completing large scale planned projects that do not make short term profit like that.. althought a really big multinational company might be able to make an arcology city at some point too and make a lot of long term profit from it.. ), gets a free haircut from someone doing design haircuts as a hobby buys a big cheap energy efficient screen for his computer and spends hours watching free entertainment made by hobbyist and discussing about culture on the infonet. But in latter case no steel is tied up in the big car and no oil is burned getting it moving. So the governments of Reality Rosa can support bigger populations - and still end up with more strategic resources in stockpiles and unmined in the land and less polluted environment to boot. So they definitely would have advantage in long run. This is of course assuming their economy runs really smoothly and efficiently - and that's the picture I got form your writeup.

Let's look at the real history of planned economy. It's fashionable to compare Russia to America as examples of planning vs market. But capitalism is not America. In 1914 America was already the world's most advanced and richest country, while Russia was the poorest country in Europe. In fact Russia should not be compared to the US but to Brazil. Furthermore you should have to drop several nukes on Brazil to simulate the effects of Russian history. After 1914 we got: WWI, where Russia suffered the most and America the least; Civil War and foreign intervention by nearly the whole world, which totally ruined the country with millions dying from starvation alone; the coming to power of history's perhaps most brutal and bureaucratic dictatorship, totally stifling all the creativity of the country; insane agricultural policies with more millions dying from famine; the Great Purges where the government literally killed off millions of the smartest people in the country; finally WWII in which Russia, once more, suffered almost as much as all the others put together while America actually boomed. After the War there was no Marshall Plan for Russia, they had to bootstrap themselves completely (what they plundered from Eastern Europe was only small change compared to the Nazis' destruction).

Despite all this, Russia rose in the meantime to become a world superpower, second only to America in economic might, able to put the first satelite and the first man into space. Krushchev's "We will bury you" speech was not idle boasting. At the time many Westerners really feared that the East Bloc would overtake the West economically. Only the Brezhnev stagnation, brought on by bureaucratic totalitarianism, not planned economy in itself, stopped this tendency.

I think all of this should suggest that planned economy has some very very big inherent productive advantages over market economy. Don't forget that there's never been a planned economy in a rich Western country. Only the world's most underdeveloped countries have tried it. And with few exceptions it's turned them from economic zeroes to heroes.

For this reason I postulate that a planned economy encompassing many advanced Western countries, without war, without famine, without dictatorship, without bureaucratic bungling and mismanagement, with free speech and democracy, with the abolition of unemployment, illiteracy and hunger, with every African, Asian and Latin American goat-herder offered either a job in the most modern robotic factories or a shot at university - would indeed be that much more productive than our world. Modern capitalism in fact represents industrialized Luddism, not productivity. Capitalist restoration ruined the Russian economy worse than Hitler. In the early 20th century America's richest people were the so called "captains of industry" - steel, oil, coal and manufacturing. Today most of them are spivs, speculators and real estate sharks - today you make money not from production but from destruction and parasitism. In Rosa instead of destroying Detroit's (and America's) manufacturing they instead turn the whole Midwest into a colossal car plant. And so on.

On minus side - their population is used to short work weeks (you did mention they had 3 days weekends and were considering to switching to 4 day ones) and fewer of them have skills in guns, driving etc.. So it surely would take much more than months for them to turn the population base and strategic resources to an effective warmachine. Sure with TL 9 in robotics etc they would not need that much skilled personnel in it but still "within months" is likely an exaggeration. I suspect the decision making processes would also waste some time - their factories etc are communally owned and somewhat democratically lead right? It would take some time to both convert them from building consumer goods to modernized weaponry and to make the decisions that they should do that if they were threatened - especially if the threat they would be under was not blatantly obvious.

Good points. This may indeed be the case.

[Xenarthral]

Originally Posted by Cowd

I think all of this should suggest that planned economy has some very very big inherent productive advantages over market economy. Don't forget that there's never been a planned economy in a rich Western country.

As I think I mentioned before it has been, sort of and on a different scale.
Very few businesses are market economies internally.

[JAW]

Originally Posted by Cowd

In Rosa instead of destroying Detroit's (and America's) manufacturing they instead turn the whole Midwest into a colossal car plant. And so on.

May I ask why? For what do they need that many cars?

Living in finland I have seen many soviet cars - they were not very good. We'll they were cheap and got you from place a to place b - usually. They made a lot of metal buckets too - we have lot of those around in Finland. Why? We'll the soviets decided they have to prove how superior socialism is by producing lot of stuff. Lot of stuff got produced they didn't need - so they sold some to Finland - to free market - we'll more or less. Why we bought the stuff - we'll I suppose they were cheap - and for obscure reasons only the "east trade veterans" understand - I suppose lot of vodka was involved...
Some of their products were actually good quality and became very popular - AK-47 being the most known of those..
Western powers were sure more worried about the AK-47:s than Lada:s or metal buckets.

So the soviet union really was economically like a big company competing in free market.

But in reality Rosa - they don't have capitalist countries they have to show their economic superiority to - or countries like Finland they can sell the extra stuff.

It could still happen there:
Hitler does not become the dictator of germany - instead he aplies to art/design school there - after flunking the one in austria - and gets in. He gets into respected position in academic politics convinces people that "peoples car" and autobahns are a good idea. America is still capitalistic then and they consider military aplications of cars and autobahns too - hitlers antisemitistic ideas don't get well received - but people are afraid of americansand british - a bit - and people find the idea of cars "cool" - and they want to visit soviet french - because the french have good vine and they want to go by car so they can impress the french chicks - and sell cars to the french so they can buy vine (yeah the frenchs are soviet too - but that doenst mean they give the good vine away to soviet germans for free.. we'll germans like beer anyway - but in reality rosa they like vine more than violence).. So the germans make a volkswagens and autobahns.

The russians follow suit - marx was from germany and the german soviets are real heroes of labor - the germans got cars - they should have some too - the russians make "peoples cars" that are not quite as good as the german ones but are OK and cheap.

Americans and british are still capitalistic they continue making better cars that only the rich can afford and cheap cars for those with less buying power - they cannot buy cheap japanese cars in reality rosa...

The russians have been fairly content to drive around in their second rate peoples cars - but then they notice their cars are not only worse than the german peoples car - but worse than the cars of average american family. So they drink a lot of vodka and sit in soviet meetings -- then someone with a huge hangover comes up with the idea decide to arrange a design competition for new peoples car. It's year 47 by the old calendar (call it your x in the new calendar) the winner is an experienced car factory assembly worker named Mikhail Kalashnikov. The new peoples car that goes to production is called Autosomething Kalashnikov-47 (or-x the calendar is different.) AK-X for short.

AK-X becomes popular worldwide - some german towns buy it for their peoples car. The Chinese buy it for state taxis (they cannot afford cars for every families - they simply have too much population for that). African agricultural communes buy it - it's designed for the russian roads that are not quite as smooth as german autobahns and can handle the climate of siberian winter and hottest summer in the coasts of the black sea - with little upgrade to cooling it works reliably in africa and middle east.

Now the american workers - who have been working hard capitalistic america to get the money to buy better car than their neighbors take a look at the AK-X and are convinced that communism is superior - the AK-X is better than their cars - and every russian family has one - they finally revolt and america becomes communistic too. But tjhe americans are not content on buying russian AK-Xs - nooo comrade. The american workers and companies have experience of producing many different types of cars surely they can make better peoples car for americans - and for the rest of the world - they are going to make a car that will outshine the AK-X - and even the new russian concept cars (that are not taken to mass production only because the russians haven't bothered to modify their car factories as AK-Xs are more than good enough..) they have seen in global soviet car shows. But to produce that for every american family and the global market too (well global market still exist in global communism of reality rosa - local soviets decide what to buy to make available for their people..) they need the mother of all car factories -- so there's the colossal midwest industrial complex - sure it produces other things than cars too - but the new american peoples car - and variations of it for special uses or for soviets with different tastes - is the main product..

But the problem is - everybody already has more than adequate car. And while cars can be recycled the AK-Xs are so hard to break and easy to repair that not many are out of service - and people like their AK-Xs they're like family members to them after serving reliably for 10 years. Or part of the village/communes in rural africa where they believe that the AK-Xs have spirits in them that would become angry if they replaced them with american cars.. (yeas the africans are well educated and have acces to global infonet by now - year 2008 by the old calendar in reality rosa) and the witch doctors and shamans of villages are called communes psyhiatrists and memetic engineers - but people there still like to believe in spirits..)

And the chinese have already builded their arcologies there - they don't need cars any more and germans are building arcologies too - altought it will make their autobahns largely useless they still think it's better idea.

So what do the USSA (United soviet states of America) do with their colossal car factories in the midwest??? The american comrades are resourceful ok - so they're sure to come up with something - but what?