GURPS Realm Management: New Economy Types

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Anthony

On the original government type, I'm not sure what you're trying to describe (arguably a conventional free market involves voting for what will be produced, it's just that the voting is done with dollars). I don't have Realm Management yet so don't know the specific terms it uses, but it sounds like you're after a planned economy where the government type is a direct democracy.

It's really not like elections structurally. Imagine a society where each "election" has any number of voters who want to participate; where they get to "vote" by assigning a number; and where one person gets to say whether the assigned number counts as Yes or No (yes, I'll sell you a fish for $10; no, I won't sell you a fish for $9), and often enough to change what counts as Yes or No as the election proceeds (if a lot of people vote $20, then a $10 vote for a fish may turn into a No). And then imagine there there is no central elective process, but anyone can initiate an election when and where they like.

The existence of a single central voting process, as a bottleneck for decision making, makes the system significantly different, and its implications need to be considered.

Yes, I know that "economic democracy" and "voting with your dollars" are common metaphors. But "auction" is a better metaphor than "vote." (For that matter, it might be interesting to model a political system as an auction where laws are made for the highest bidder—though it might sound cynical!)

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by whswhs

(For that matter, it might be interesting to model a political system as an auction where laws are made for the highest bidder—though it might sound cynical!)

It would be interesting to try and come up with a voting scheme that incorporates "how much do you actually care?", though that's not precisely an auction unless you allow group bids.

[Michele]

Originally Posted by ericthered

I'm wondering what the "Boring" Economy that has no drawbacks or benefits is...

Probably Capitalism, managed with a skill high enough to make boom-bust episodes a very rare critical failure.

[Michele]

Originally Posted by Anthony

On the original government type, I'm not sure what you're trying to describe (arguably a conventional free market involves voting for what will be produced, it's just that the voting is done with dollars). I don't have Realm Management yet so don't know the specific terms it uses, but it sounds like you're after a planned economy where the government type is a direct democracy.

It's not a government type, it's an economy type - under the GURPS Realm Management concept. Keep in mind that with that system, you have both a government type and an economy type, and clearly some of the former go down better with some of the latter. In this case, having at hand Realm Management, I'd say that your suggestion should be to couple a Participatory economy with the Athenian Democracy government.

That said, our main real-world example really was a one-off case, especially during the early years of Tito's long rule. So a weird solution under the rules is not inappropriate. I'd say that both the government and the economy were hybrids, actually (which GURPS Realm Management allows, too):

Tribal/Autocracy government with Socialist/Participatory economy.

[maximara]

The system I came up with for United Dragon States of America combined Single Transferable Vote and Shortest-Splitline.

These would in all odds helped prevent the mess that was the election of 1824 and the nonsense that exists with the first past the post and the gerrymander districts into Rorschach tests that exists in IRL.