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This essay should be read bearing in mind that it was written with the deliberate intention of doing harm to eRepublik, spectacular society, and capitalism in general. In many ways it is a revision of my earlier essay The Nation of the Commodity: Bourgeois-Nationalist Ideology, the primary error of which was the failure to transcend the boundaries of eRepublik enough to properly put eRep in the context of capitalist ideology and the society of the spectacle in order to understand fully the nature of the "game". The lesson is a simple yet important one: live always without constraints!

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It's worse than you think. I might go as far as to describe eRepublik as the most capitalist game in human history - if it weren't for the fact it is not a game. It is a weapon. An ideological tool of capital, wielded by capitalists, for capital.

Let's lay down the basics. If we are going to identify eRep as something inherently capitalist, what are the fundamental indicators of capitalism? These can be summarised as three main features; capital, accumulation, and ownership. The best way of understanding capital is, as Karl Marx argued, as a (stored up) power to consume and produce. It is important in the context of eRepublik to understand that capital is more than money, commodities and property, but a certain type of power. However we define capital, the capitalist is in favour of accumulating it. Capitalism, by its own internal logic, is about the accumulation of capital. This would be impossible without ownership. Whenever we talk of property we do so in terms of it belonging to persons, be it private property (individual wealth) or public property (collective wealth). Capital - property and power to consume and produce - is something that is collected, hopefully multiplied, and the aim of capitalism is precisely to collect and to multiply capital.

So where do these features manifest themselves in eRepublik? The answer is virtually everywhere in its framework. Every aspect within the direct manipulable control of the admin, as well as beyond that, manifests the features of capitalism and to a spectacular degree. Before actively identifying capitalism in eRep however, we must first take a step back and explain why capitalism is; why do do capitalists accumulate capital?

This 'why' is fetishism. By fetishism what is meant is the domination by “tangible” and intangible things of the behaviour of individuals and by extension society as a whole. Things, people and social relations become objectified (commodified) to the individual who is concerned only with their value in terms of actual monetary/exchange value and power. It is a sort of quasi-religious, irrational obsession with having and accumulating more, with having money and power and accumulating more money and more power. It is accumulation for accumulation's sake.

So where is capital, accumulation and ownership in eRepublik? There are some very obvious places. In the realm of private property we can immediately see capital in money, commodities and companies, accumulation in working and enterprise, and ownership in the fact that all money, commodities and companies are owned by persons. There is also personal skill and rank, newspaper subscriptions, experience points etc. But these features extend far beyond these obvious examples in relation to the individual. We see them in the form of the nation-state, conquest, the party, congress and political office, even, I claim, in forums; in forms of collective ownership. All national citizens/subjects, regions, party members, congressmen, newspaper subscribers, workers and forum users undergo a process of commodification i.e. they become commodities (or a power) to accumulate. In short, every aspect of direct gameplay relates explicitly to the accumulation of capital through ownership. Though capital may appear to be shared, sometimes even by entire nation-states, it always controlled, and therefore owned, by an elite, a ruling bourgeois and capitalist class. We can see the dominance not only of capitalist ideology, but capitalist practice.

However, this is only a part of the story. For this framework, this capitalist system of accumulation was invented, created and produced by a capitalist system of accumulation. eRepublik does not simply exist. It did not appear from nowhere and it does not maintain, manage and develop itself - no matter how much we (consciously or otherwise) ignore this fact. eRep is a product. It was made and exists because of labour. When we look at it we see a webpage with a user interface, with images and graphics and a network of modules that run on formulae, all of which is stored on a server (what we do not see is the labour - the ideological and fetishised reasons for this are very interesting but unfortunately not especially relevant - I just wanted to mention it anyway). This is a product of many components and laborious production processes. This product also has value. It generates an income (in the case of eRepublik, besides speculation of shares, this is petty much entirely through selling fairly useless data it calls "Gold"). Other massively multiplayer browser games also have value. The value of each, however, is not determined by their usefulness. If eRep is worth fifty times more than some other project, it is not because it provides fifty times more use or serves fifty times more people. If it is worth fifty times more, it is because it costs a combination of more to create, run and holds more potential for profit.

The biggest cost is undoubtedly labour time. When a software designer creates a smoother running, more user friendly interface for eRep, he makes it more accessible to a wider audience and consequently adds value. When a graphic designer creates an eRepublik that is easier on the eye, she adds value. Games designers want software and software designers want games. Value appears as the thing that makes a social relation between them possible. In this way, the work of the games designer is made interchangeable with the work of the software designer, not as the creation of a specific useful thing, but as a process of value creation. This value is a stored up power to consume and produce; capital.

It is not this value that matters to the capitalist, the man who owns eRepublik (the CEO of eRepublik is a man called Alexis Bonte), however, it is surplus value. Since workers do not have capital to exploit to generate an income; they seek employment, that is to say, they sell their labour. eRepublik has workers, designers etc. who are compensated for their labour, that is to say, it is bought off them for the value given it by the market and the bosses, with money. Their ability to work is like the any other commodity in that its value is based on the value of all the things that go into making it. They have to be paid enough for all the food, clothes, rent, phone service, education and training, healthcare, fuel, booze and sleeping pills they need to keep showing up every morning able to work. Their ability to work is not like other commodities in that it creates new value.

The user interface and the war module each have a value determined by the work necessary to make them. They are the combined product of workers in a computer factory, a software development office, a college and countless other workers in probably hundreds of other workplaces. The work of all these people is stored up in the final product, eRepublik, as value. They are labour turned into a thing - dead labour. The crucial aspect of this social relation is that their ability to work is not used up like a raw material or a machine, transferring its value directly to the product. Their living labour creates enough value to replace their wages and then some. They're paid a wage and expected to work for a specific amount of time. As they produce eRep they use up bits of dead labour. They transfer their value to it and at the same time add more value by doing work. Their living labour adds mow value to the eRep they produce during that time than they are paid in wages. This is surplus value and it belongs to the boss - it's how he makes his money, how he accumulates more capital. It is where profit comes from; the deliberate exploitation of workers by compensating them less than the full value of their labour. This process results in the commodification of the labour force itself and the alienation of the worker.



Likewise, the consumer is commodified to the capitalist. In order to accumulate more capital he must accumulate more consumers, more users, each representing more capital. Even the grand elites in eRepublik, the Emericks and Dios, are just objects to the real boss, the real elite; commodities to be bought and sold. This is one way in which eRepublik relates to RL (a very complex relationship I'll discuss in more depth later).

Capitalism is more than just capital accumulation however, it is an ideology. Capitalist forms of social relations create, and are recreated by, a worldview. More accurately this worldview is a delusion, that is to say; ideology. There are two main different forms of capital accumulation in eRep. One's capitalist ideology is represented differently depending on which form of accumulation you place the most emphasis. I do not wish to stress the distinction between the two too greatly, for very often the boundaries are blurred and individuals move very quickly between the two if they are ever identifiable as one or the other at all, but the distinction certainly exists.

There are those that are more individualistic. These players are primarily concerned with explicitly advancing themselves, accumulating a greater wealth, higher points, ranks, and offices of all descriptions, and they believe others should be primarily concerned with themselves first and foremost. Though I may not being using it in exactly the same way, I will borrow Phoenix Quinn's label of 'Chimpanzee' for this ideologue (See Analysis of Classes in eRepublik).

The other is the 'Gorilla'. These players are perhaps the more superstitious of the two. The master they serve first (according to Gorilla rhetoric and mythology at least) is the nation. They claim to be interested in advancing all citizens/subjects of the nation through conquest and growth i.e. accumulation of regions, citizen numbers etc. Often they are military types and commonly self-described "socialists", and even in their more radical moments, "communists", for sometimes all these so-called "communists" really represent is a national socialism in very much the Nazi sense of the term. In eRep these "socialists" (better understood as being proponents of 'spectacular socialism', that is to say, a representation of socialism) are in a sense more capitalist than some of the "capitalists" (i.e. the Chimpanzees), for they are more heavily invested in and fanatic about accumulation and doing more for the RL bosses' accumulation than any others - not in words or even their own understanding, but very much in their own actions.



It is in this sense that there is more progressive and revolutionary potential in the Chimpanzee. The more self-interested Chimps, I would argue, have a greater concern and demand for personal satisfaction than their patriotic Gorilla counterparts. And it is satisfaction and fun that is the radical, subversive demand to undermining capitalist eRepublik, a system based on the reification of fun.

By now it should be clear that eRep is intensely capitalist indeed. But it is, as I alluded to towards the beginning of this essay, worse than you think. We begin to understand the true ideological significance of eRep when we examine it's relation to RL ("Real Life"). Out of all the common phrases specific to the internet, and especially eRepublik, none is so less actually defined than RL. In its popular usage it refers to anything not on the internet (and in eRep even to anything not on eRep - Facebook, for instance, would be an example of something that might be described as "RL" on eRep). But it strikes me as dumbfounding that we should call this "Real Life". What exactly makes eRepublik so different from work, television and other forms of media? Why is it those are considered real and eRep unreal?

This is no doubt partly due to the alternative nature of eRep - the pseudonyms, "role-playing" etc. - but this only indicates difference, not strictly anything less real. I argue that there are more similarities between eRepublik and RL than differences, and that what is really different is actual real life. eRepublik is an extension of a fake world, the world we call RL. As far as I can tell, all RL refers to is the Society of the Spectacle. In eRep we do not really experience life, and the same is true in the Society of the Spectacle. All experiences of life, emotion, pleasure, all basic fundamental human desire, an authentic experience of life, are denied us, and we are sold back its representation. This representation is the Spectacle and eRepublik is a part of it.



But, "hold on," you say, "eRep is just a game." In what way is it a game? You can't win and it doesn't end. Perhaps a more pertinent question would be in what way is RL not a game? eRep is not detached from RL - they have a mutual relationship for they are in fact the same thing! Maintaining the illusory distinction momentarily though, RL very clearly influences eRep, through its very production and ideology etc., but eRep also influences RL (and by extension actual material reality)! It is a biopolitics by which capitalist ideology dominates our existence, infiltrating every aspect of our lives; our "work" time and our "free" time. What do you imagine the implications are of spending our "free" time participating in such an addictive and capitalist spectacle loaded with such powerful ideology, "playing" eRepublik?

eRep is the reinforcement of capitalism through ideology targeted at the most susceptible, as well as dangerous to capitalism. eRep is a weapon. It seeks to deny you of life through a means created by dead labour, for eRep only exists because of the exploitation of the workers who make it. It is a product not only of capitalist ideology, but capitalist social relations. What the distinction between RL and eRep really represents is a distinction between everyday capitalist alienation and a more advanced form of alienation.

Though eRep has continued to change since its conception, it has always obeyed certain spectacular laws of a virtual capitalism. It is ridden with ideology. Never has such an unoriginal idea been produced in an arena of such limitless potential. RL is a representation, a copy of actual real life. And eRep is a copy of that copy, a representation of a representation; it is the Society of the Spectacle ripped in its entirety from the physical material world. It is, in short, the pinnacle of alienation. We do not experience or enjoy eRep (any enjoyment is an accessory to the system of accumulation, not a result of it) in its current form - we consume it. We consume it in the same way we consume religion and television. It is the opiate of the broadband masses. It's X Factor on crack.

But what is the solution? How do we destroy this Spectacle? How do we smash the capitalism out of eRepublik? Can we indeed even do that? Or must we destroy eRepublik itself? Is a radical gameplay possible? Is there room for actual real life in eRep?

Previously, I advocated a sort of revolutionary self-eRepublik, the invention of your own game within eRep. I believe I was mistaken to think such a thing is possible. At the very least I was far too optimistic. How can we experience satisfaction in an environment so void of physical experience, human interaction and communication, and apparent potential. I fear I have become a sort of eBaudrillard, exhausted with trying to reclaim life and have instead turned to suicide as an ally. Can I only hope for collapses and implosions, none of which could be organised and predicted?

But, no, I do see some very faint glimmerings of hope. On the margins, where human interaction is at its greatest. On some forums and IRCs I see things which are not commodified, indeed not even capitalist! There is humour and emotion, maybe even love. Even within the main eRepublik framework there is the newspaper module, an oasis of sometimes thinking expression. Could this oasis, this pool contain the primordial soup of life from which full blown resistance might spring? Even my own death is not absolute, for my character still technically lives albeit only posting and commenting on articles. There is still space for autonomy and subversive fires by which to keep warm within eRep! But I wonder how much harm we might be doing in maintaining any presence in such an exploitative, alienating hell such as this.

My advice remains the same; jump. Find the actual real life that I know is elsewhere. At the very least make your visits here brief and infrequent and only for fun and old friends - and persuading others to take the great leap of course! Never work. Never fight. Only talk.