Freedonia - A Guide to Big Gov't and Small Dollars

A large, conveniently placed piece of land, filled with somewhat hardworking people, Freedonia is a hippie paradise. The two major parties, in expression of the total freedom of speech bequeathed to all, are the Liberal Party, and the Liberal Coalition. Surely a voice for all men can be found here!

Unfortunately for them, they elected that which represents best themselves: me.

Im the king of laziness and hedonism, ruler of all which is relaxing and hip. I am the embodiment of the “liberal” ideal. I will create a paradise and show those conservatives and capitalists how the lefty’s do it.

Here is the situation on turn 1:

Some observations:

  • manageable debt
  • almost all of the liberals are socialists (inaccurate I realize but a good generalization for our purposes)
  • large middle income bracket
  • organized crime exists, and prostitution is legal

So what to do about this?

I looked all over and couldn’t find a policy which would allow for Shakespearean rule. We shall have to go about it another way. If we cannot kill the lawyers, we shall try to take away their business, the only way a hippie knows how - make everything legal.

OK check.

Now I max out spending on COMMUNITY police, and vote in the pro liberal UN representative. Throughout the game I vote in anything that looks like it favors the liberals.

The Global economic cycle is at a high right now too, which buffers any damage to my debt while I set things up. My focus is NOT to save the economy. its to see if “extreme liberal” ideas can work in a game like this, especially with regards to law and order.

By turn 4, I’m running a deficit of 5 billion dollars. I completely kill off the conventional police budget. When asked at the end of the turn, I choose to allow gay marriges. A long day finished, I roll one up, then go to sleep. Its 2PM.

I kill off road building as soon as Im able to as well. I increase spending on bus subsidies while Im at it. The goal here is to derease pollution and appeal to the environmentalists, which I assume all are liberal.

Spending on EI benefits is maxed out. Crime takes a hit as a result: there is less motivation to steal on a full belly. Housing spending is already high, so I leave it as is because the political capital necessary to raise it is not worth the extra fraction of benefit with which would be received. The drop in conventional police has not helped at all. Crime skyrockets, or at least seems to.

Now, I let things roll. I need political capital. I minimize gambling in order to combat organized crime. Its still legal though, just with limits. As soon as im able, I destroy the military, killing off the budget to the lowest levels availible. its election season now; and I just fired alot of people who know how to shoot really really accurately. They let themselves be known:

I figure the election is more important, and I should still be ok for the win:

I also have majority membership. The election is a lock.

I trounced them liberals good with my liberal ways… but there are some serious questions here.

  1. How did we do in terms of crime?
  2. why didnt the economy tank from all the gov’t spending on healthcare and EI benefits?

To which the short answer is:

  1. not as good as we thought, but that’s not the point, and
  2. it almost did

These questions get to the heart of “liberal” thought. The short answer predicates around the idea that if you remove an environment that promotes a behavior, then that behavior will not be displayed, and that money is only a good means when put towards a good end. In this case, all of the spending on welfare, housing and education removed the reason to go out and steal to pay the rent or buy food; the gov’t was already paying for both and school was helping them to think clearly. Only those with a pre-existing leaning towards crime were left to do what they were built to do, which can be managed through humane means. As for organized crime specficially, the fact that I took away a primary money supply (legalizing drugs) put a damper on their business. Tough limits on gambling helped too.

But that’s the argument for the first question. Check out the following:

This is exactly what the right complains about when it comes to liberal tactics. Look at this mess:

-GDP has dropped HEAVILY
-Violent crime has actually increased
-The decrease in GDP is greater than the decrease in poverty

Well, yeah. But thats only if you think about it like the Conservative. You’re thinking too much about money and not about quality of life. Lets keep poverty and change up the rest. Look at this:

You’ll have to forgive the scale of the technology backwater chart; nothing I can do about it. But it does give an idea where things were headed in the long run. With that problem cleared, the GDP would get a solid boost, eliminating a large part of the argument from the conservatives. Money from that could then be used to combat violent crime, which would further help quality of life.

Now ill grant that the GDP fell in a big way, but the price in industrial pride seems to be more than compensated for by the increase in what must be the overall happiness of the people. Everything about their lives has improved except the dollars in their pockets. Its also worth noting again that the GDP would recover in a significant way, though probably not to what it could be if focus was placed on it directly. No wonder I won the election without really trying!

The strategy is essentially that you can get the nation, lazier than average (tons of social programs lower the motivation for entrepreneurship) and with a heavier tax burden than most nations (high taxes on the employed to pay for the rent/food of the people who are unemployed)to somehow grow past the pot years (legalized drugs) and settle down to become a scientist (high education spending) whose inventions will somehow become an export to other nations or better still, enhance the feedback loop of giving to the government to redistribute to the rest who haven’t bothered to try as hard as the scientist who closed the loop in the first place. All the while hoping that you don’t get attacked (no army left) while looking like a fantastic country full of happy, relaxed people without any defenses at all making awesome money as scientists or roaming around naked in a field somewhere.

Great idea, if it weren’t for the countries who chose to develop weapons and money instead. The next post I do will focus on them.

-SheepRock

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Thanks for this post! I got clobbered on my first and only attempt at Freedonia. Shockingly enough I went far enough in debt to get bounced out of office.

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Glad to help!

Let me know how you make out!

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Well, I’ll look at your conservatopia now!