Suggestion: Saltier Socialists

[AvianOverlord]

Conveniently, I actually talked about this earlier:

@AvianOverlord

• New Simulation: Business Consolidation. At low levels, your country has numerous small and regional businesses. At high levels, your country’s economy is dominated by massive conglomerates. Provides a modest boost to productivity when high, but has an inverse relationship with membership in “Self-Employed”. Increased by regulations (big businesses can handle the added cost more easily), subsides to various industries (def. tech subsides), a high GDP, and nationalization. Decreased by grants to small business, anti-trust laws, and high corporation and capital gains taxes.
• New Negative Situation: Monopolies. Triggered by a high level of business consolidation. Hurts wages, productivity, and equality. Increases corruption and self-employed income, even as it decreases its membership. Probably should have other effects I’m not thinking of. Defeat it through price controls, anti-trust laws, nationalization, or simply beating consolidation back down.
• Nationalization should have a faster effect on monopolies than on consolidation. This way if you drop nationalization without the measures to constrain monopolies, you’ll get an effect similar to the oligarchs of post communist Eastern Europe.
• Almost forgot: Consolidation should be the main driver of the “Fake news” situation. You can trace a direct line from the rise of massive media conglomerates and the decline of local news to the current polarized media environment.