maybe it’s my fault, since I changed the name list of the political parties.
But why if I want to play as a conservative, and I pick a conservative/right wing party, why at the beginning socialist are in love with me (and are a big part of my electorate, se grey bar) whereas conservatives and capitalists donàt like me?
Voters are influenced by policies no from party’s name.
I also find that this game seems to be trying to herd me into being a liberal socialist. Every time I want to play as Canada, the suggested name for me is “The Liberal Party” and the opposition “The Jehovah Party”. Also, as you noticed, you start out being liked by socialists and liberals more than capitalists and conservatives, implying that you ran a left wing campaign and won.
I do think that the game could use a bit of a prologue phase, even if it just asks a few questions, like what did you emphasize in your criticism of the current government and what did you promise if elected. It also needs to do more to make your popularity with various groups have more to do with what you have changed than what the current situation is.
All that being said though, the policies that are favorable to capitalists do tend to provide good returns financially. Small business grants and enterprise investment scheme have never disappointed me.
Actually the game doesn’t give you an option to run a socialist country at all. There are a few policies that are socialist (socialised housing, education, healthcare) but everything else is welfare capitalism. It might be very extreme welfare capitalism and sure you can make a social democracy but there’s no way in the vanilla game to produce a society that resembles any socialist model.
I absolutely agree. I’m waiting for complex nationalization policies. Also imperialist policies. I can’t really play as the USA if my military doesn’t have the option to fuck over scores of other countries.
Given the limitations of the game the only types of socialism that could be modded in would be centralised state socialist models, which aren’t very popular in modern socialist circles. But we can’t expect the game to do everything. Policies that would enable forms of socialism would be socialised transport, banking, food, legal advocacy and utilities along with regulation of businesses with mandatory co-operatives. Then you might have something approaching a market socialist model.
as phusa said, my concern is not about policies (and how citizens react to them), but the fact that you always start with lots of supports by socialsts and capitalist hating you. And it is much harder to get highly supported by the capitalists.
Too many ministers have socialist, unionist links and NONE republican (in Australia) and NONE capitalists !!! ???
AW
I think the trivial queries here are silly but I do feel myself that the game is very very much easier to be played socialistic. IE heavy spending.
Being a massochist I love trying to create a libertarian paradise, however… my only successful strategy for right wing trolling around is to go completely socialist and eliminate poverty etc, then completely switch to libertarian wetdream but as everyone is already happy their satisfaction only drops to say 65%(also silly) until theyre all converted to capitalists by policies.
Now I’m an incredibly left wing leaning guy, so I don’t say this out of political prejudice, but if this game is realistic in any way then all the policies of all the modern nations of the world are all completely false. As for libertarians? they’re martians. The latter statement not being to far from reality however.
I would like to see more business involvement in politics and the economy and such factors as the fact business has its claws into the press and in political funding, and therefore can convince most of the nations of the west that whats good for business and bankers, is good for the rest of you. This is a crucial element that is missing, and in my mind a big contributor of the unrealism of the game.
The capitalist power structure and irrationality of voting hasn’t been effectively simulated, only individual policies which people look at from a completely pragmatic view. Also, While I enjoy turning all of my country socialist or capitalist I think the power the leader has to ‘convert’ his citizens to an ideology is way to powerful, conversion should be reflected by propaganda(the press) and the success or general good benefit to the nation the policies provide, not a arbitrary labour law policy. A labour policy which infact works the reverse of how it would in reality, labour laws favoring business Are the reason socialists exist; to claw back some freedom for workers against power holding business owners, not a conversion tool for capitalists. It should make business more profitable and stable, not make it more popular, on the contrary.
Tl;Dr I think D3 propogates on the idea that people aren’t as gullible and susceptible to propaganda as the reality and that business and politics and the press are completely divorced, when they are exactly the power structure that exists in a capitalist society and guides policy and politics.
/rant
I hope my comments have been constructive and I don’t mean them to be harsh criticism of the game, I love positech and the democracy games.
Libertarians favour small government , in this game you are the government. There’s really not much else to point out.
^^
Lowering government spending and tax, is libertarian. Which you can do within the game. I don’t think you understand 
Maybe someone more knowledgeable can comment.
I know but in this game most of the things that affect libertarians one way or another are things they’re against.
Ahh I understand now, but what I was trying to say is that very fact, that it’s too easy to play socialistic. And while its entirely realistic to have most people hate having no healthcare or employment rights, it’s not SO unpopular due to the propaganda and power structures existing in capitalist societies, as we live in that society every day and no one gets assassinated!
The glory of capitalism is the very fact that it has convinced the mass populous that banker bonuses, laissez faire capitalism et al, Benefit them equitably.
True.
If someone was to include Mexico as a playable nation, it could prove a real challenge from a capitalistic/conservative/religious startpoint:
poverty, unemployment, bad social healthcare and school systems, organized crime, regressive tax policies, virtually no technology funding, high brain drain, extremely and unfair politicians’ wages, fiscal frauds, press and food monopolies, low wages, high interest rates and currency debasement, uncompetitive and abused energetic sector, ruthless and powerful union leaders with little social responsability, and of course, extreme corruption.
My main issue with the game is that, it almost makes capitalism look evil, and therefore makes it to where the more left wing groups target you for assassination as soon as you take a handout away like welfare, or healthcare. Capitalism should work on a large scale with minimal government regulation to weed out corperate greed and corruption. it seems too basic and like you’re just an observer who has no ability to control what happens or how to make the political minority like him without fully swinging to the other side of the isle. I’ve tried to make regulated capitalism/social equality work and even when everyone is successful and happy, I either get minorities killing me for taking away welfare, or liberals killing me for making them successful with something other than their parties views. Then if i attempt to go to the left side, Im in debt for a while, but when im able to get my economy left wing and my social issues down the middle and fair, my approval ratings go down with the capitalists. im getting too technical but my main point is, Right wing: Huge success then dead. Left Wing: Eventual success then hated by all. its unrealistic.
I understand completely why libertarians in the U.S. tend to get confused by this game. While it’s not an entirely accurate representation of the political economy of an average Western democracy, and it would be impossible to perfectly nail that, the game does nonetheless function in a way the real world does, which goes against libertarian assumptions. There is a reason why the Austrian school of economics don’t base their theories on empirical facts, purely because they don’t believe in empiricism as a valid way to approach economics. This allows them to propose laws that are completely contrary to real world events.
When I played the U.S., one of the first things that I did every turn was to gradually reduce military spending and raising taxes on businesses, capital gains, and the rich to the point that they won’t ‘brain drain’. And, surprise surprise, you can easily eliminate poverty, pollution, and most crime while maintaining a AAA credit rating and a budget surplus. And they vote you in with overwhelming majority because all the socialists, liberals, environmentalists love you.
Of course, real America wouldn’t work like that, purely because individual lawmakers are personally attached to the elites who run the financial industry, the military industrial complex, and maybe they themselves are rich.
Despite all the fun that I get from this game, one criticism that I do have is your inability to adjust income tax based on income levels, or an adjuster that decides how progressive/flat/regressive it is. While things like luxury taxes do allow you to tax the rich more, that does result in an entirely different picture.
Libertarian economics fits well into the mainstream New Keynesian school of macroeconomics.
Pollution can be solved by revenue-neutral Pigovian taxes and controls on pollution [I am a Green Capitalist (-:], because they are cost effective free-market ways to reduce pollution.
Crime can be solved by being tough on crime in a cost effective manner (Death penalty). I wish judical corporal punishment was available (GET OF MY THROAT LIBERALS!) because it would be cheaper and better then penitentiaries that are a little better than schools for crime when it comes to crime reduction, 20 lashes handed out to convicted burglars would be a good deterrent to potentional burglars.
We can feel good for protecting “human rights” by putting them in prison but the fact is that from behind bars, prisoners can’t be parents, hold jobs and maintain relationships. Their families suffer. And because of this, in the long run, we all suffer. A severe beating only causes physical pain. The American prison system is in the business of destroying souls while flogging would give prisoners the right to have productive lifes and is therefore more humane then prison. Putting lots of people in prisons does deters crime but it is expensive and inhumane. Flogging would be a more cheaper, effective and humane deterrent.
The federal politicians that favor high taxes on businesses, capital gains and high taxes on the rich are attatched to the elites and are themselves rich.
Agree with the adjuster idea.
No, Libertarianism isn’t accepted as a serious model by mainstream economic thought, even by the morbidly-liberal (classical liberal) neoclassical economists. Denying the role of the state in any aspect of the economy is ahistorical. And the reason why they don’t take into account historical facts can be explained by their lack of interest in empirical evidence.
That graph shows that lower prison lengths lead to more crime, which is probably true, but it doesn’t say anything about corporal punishment.
The federal government has been transitioning to a more regressive tax system since the late 1970s. The same is true of Britain and other parts of the industrial world. Greater means of tax evasion are also enacted through the creation of tax havens.
Only the more extreme libertarians are like that, moderate libertarians are okay with heavy government interferance at a macroeconomic level with monetary and fiscal policy.
Lower expected punishment leads to more crime and higher expected punishments means less crime, corporal punishment would have therefore likely have a similar effect of a big expected punishment without costing so much money.
The effective tax rate is very progressive for incomes up to 2 million dollars.
EDIT: If you include payroll and regressive taxes it will of course be less progressive but still very progressive.