01-01-2009, 06:19 AM | #231 | |
Join Date: Oct 2004
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Re: Reality Rosa: A world where Communism works
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01-01-2009, 09:27 PM | #232 | |
Join Date: Mar 2008
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Re: Reality Rosa: A world where Communism works
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And I've seen moderately leftist people say that Cuba was in a strong economic position pre-Castro, with sugar and tourism, so high health and literacy outcomes may be less Communist success than spending of former social capital. So I dunno. |
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01-01-2009, 11:39 PM | #233 |
Join Date: Apr 2005
Location: Schleswig, Germany
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Re: Reality Rosa: A world where Communism works
It ought to be fun to explore the ideologic arguments of this thread from an inplay perspective in an Infinite Worlds campaign. Although it is a bit unlikely that there are still any cold warriors around Homeline in 2027, there may be people who are convinced that any kind of communist timeline is impossible and who care about it, given the existence of Ezcally, Reich-5, Centrum und Merlin. As usual, Infinity Unlimited will ignore such disputes and try to extract whatever special economic or social techniques the natives of ROSA might possess.
The PCs may be assigned to accompany an expedition into ROSA sponsored by some foundation harboring old grudges which intends to prove that ROSA is only possible due to extratemporal meddling, like that of Centrum. Or they may be assigned to investigate into extremist groups which intend to attack the timeline. These extremists might be from all sides of the political spectrum - anti-communist, rival leftist, Nazi, religious. Others might like to learn how the planned economy of that timeline actually works - and provide those techniques to some Homeline corporation / nation or outtime nation - like Centrum or Reich-5. Meanwhile, the PCs have ample opportunity to get to know the timeline from within. Of course, duty in a timeline will not get you into a position where youŽll learn its macroeconomic secrets, but itŽll allow you to judge whether it is a (relatively) good place to live in.
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No unconsenting english phrases were harmed during the writing of this post. |
01-02-2009, 03:09 AM | #234 | |
Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: Finland
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Re: Reality Rosa: A world where Communism works
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Basic needs of people are totally predictable and pretty much static. People don't start suddenly needing more or less food and shelter when some mystic/complex/unpredictable market forces shift. But again - those market forces that you say are complex to predict only exist in free market economy. I'd say bigger problem with large scale planned economies would be stagnation, decay, wasting resources because of carelessness etc than predicting what people might want. Nobody will want device X if nobody knows about it. So there's really no need to try to predict how many people will want one. |
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01-02-2009, 07:22 AM | #235 |
Join Date: Mar 2008
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Re: Reality Rosa: A world where Communism works
People want food and shelter. But what kind of food and shelter? Houses or apartments, how big and where? How many kosher, halal, vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free, lactose-free or spicy products, and can you track changes in those preferences or needs? You can build generic housing and provide generic food, or even somewhat varied food, but it'd be hard to match the dynamism and variability of a market where people can start up a Vietnamese restaurant in Arkansas. You can fold some of this into stagnation, wasted potential, but not getting what people want happens as well. The market is full of at least hundreds of thousands of entrepreneurs trying to figure out (or, admittedly, create) new wants, new 'needs', new niches. Would central planners come up with a dozen varieties of toothpaste? Probably not. Do we need such? Maybe not, but at least some of the variety of flavor probably makes people happier, and easier to get kids to brush their teeth. And gels apparently work better with sonic toothbrushes, which just work better period. And that's just one example of competitive innovation at work.
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01-02-2009, 09:28 AM | #236 | |
Join Date: Dec 2007
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Re: Reality Rosa: A world where Communism works
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01-02-2009, 02:48 PM | #237 | |
Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: Finland
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Re: Reality Rosa: A world where Communism works
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The "central planning" could control (maybe a bit too) easily how much workforce is available to private sector and some other factors. However - they still could not exactly predict what people will want from the free market - but they would not need to - as the whole point is hawing "innovation" - ie results they cannot predict. |
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