Nationalisation 2

Democracy 4 Alpha Feedback
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I know this is a new mechanic for D4, so there’s a lot more to work through than other aspects.

To start, I’m not sure that a State Industry should necessarily completely kill the private sector. Particularly if it’s an open market (e.g. Energy, or Telecoms). If the government subsidises theirs massively, that will undercut the private sector, killing it in the process. However, if they are merely breaking even, or even trying to make a profit, private companies will be able to compete, and have their own versions. This is of course excluding trains and water which are natural monopolies; 100% nationalising these will make competition impossible.

I think that if State Energy income is <0, Private Energy should be reduced but not canceled completely. It should exponentially die out as State investment increases though. For really high State industry values, I’d even add an effect on Corporate Exodus due to the anti-competitive behaviour such subsidies engender.

The cost and income of implementation should be contingent not only on GDP but also the size of the state version. I.e. If GDP = 0.8, the player would get more income for a State industry = 1 than if the industry was = 0.5. Same goes for setting up a state run sector. The implementation cost should depend on how big the player wants the industry to be, not just GDP. FWIW, I’d also include Health and Schools here. Privatising Healthcare wouldn’t just see a load of hospitals being empty instantly, but be taken over by private firms, who may then decide to close them depending on GDP.

That kind of my point more generally actually, the state industries should act more like State Healthcare and Schools than they currently do.

I’d also include a short decaying drop in unemployment when setting up new state industries to account for the new buildings and infrastructure that would be needed to be built.

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  1. State Corporations with Private Sector
    This sounds legit. There would be some examples of this and would be quite widespread if government contractors are considered as parts of private sectors here. However, I want to address that profitable state companies, ones with very low slider scale in other words, are already quite nice to have (unless the labour law is fairly pro-union) because privatization income isn’t that satisfying and it’s not worth spending that much budget for them. From the game design perspective, either state enterprises or the pro-union labour law needs some buffs to keep in line with the benefits of lowering the slider of these corporations.

  2. Privatization Income & Slider
    I see your points but I want to bring two counterarguments. One is that more profitable state companies are also more attractive for potential buyers. Why would they prefer ones that will need a restructuring or a rate hike? If spending more money to these companies meant making more capital investment, you may be right. But their descriptions and effects imply that you are just hiring more, paying more wages, and charging less rates. In that case, buyers’ financial burdens and liabilities could easily exceed potential profits. The other is that players will be heavily incentivized to increase the slider at the last minute and inflate the privatization income. It’s not like you are pissing off somebody for spending a bit more money for a while and you are going to recover that from a lucrative selling price. Why would I say no to that?

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A few counterpoints, even if state expenditure is really high in a field, that expenditure could be outsourced to the private sector (i.e. state pays, private provides), or the private sector is allowed to compete with universal healthcare (such as with some proposals for medicare overhaul). Universal healthcare in India is present, but it’s not free (it is either free or low cost) and has long queues. So people look for private healthcare. And I’m sure that other examples are also present.

This is not to say that your point has no merit, it may work in some cases, or many, these are just counterexamples.

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I’ve been pondering your second point for a while, and it brings up an interesting question: does increasing state funding of a sector suggest a) better quality/more widespread service, or b) just buying out and undercutting private companies?

I’ve always interpreted it as increasing the size of the industry (e.g. higher state telecom means widespread fast internet). This would mean that private companies could still compete, just using state funded infrastructure.

Your comment makes me think that isn’t how it is moddled; higher state sector just buys out and undercuts private businesses, which is why private sector falls to zero.

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It is modelled in one place, state airlines, state airlines don’t undercut the private sector in game.

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Actually my above question is a good one. Hey @cliffski , sorry for pinging, it’s rare on my part. Why is “state airlines” the only nationalization which doesn’t affect the private sector? This is actually pretty realistic, and should probably be present in other models too. Countries with Universal and Free healthcare still have a private health sector for example (if it is allowed to compete).

:woman_shrugging:

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