The Economist ~ Politics of change

Day 2,200, 10:06 • Published in United Kingdom United Kingdom • by Spite313



Dear friends,


For nearly a year now the UK has been bombarded with promises of change. Change of course brings the promise of a resettlement of the order, giving the chance for new players to rise to the top in an ossified political system. But the problem is that all of the people shouting loudest for change only want to change the players at the top, not the system itself, whatever they might say.


True change is impossible to bring from a top down perspective. Anyone claiming to run for CP to bring change is lying- it’s possible to improve a system, and do better at it, but genuine change never comes from a single person. To claim that is just egoism, and the kind of people who make that claim are also the kind of people history tends to forget. True change comes from the bottom up, a popular/cultural change in the society or group which filters upward, rotting the foundations from beneath any hierarchy.


Now this might sound very revolutionary, but it’s not except in the most literal sense. There is a revolution going on right now in the UK, but it’s not the kind of violent overthrow of the old order most people associate with the word. Instead it’s a painless revolution, a kind of awakening of responsibility and duty amongst the general population which is quietly making government irrelevant.



Most Presidents make big promises when they run for election, this month Invalidation has done the opposite. I am going to be accused of bias, but I have to say this is the best, most honest manifesto I have read from any candidate in the past two years. It calmly and quietly lays down the facts of our current situation, asks for people to trust him, and promises absolutely nothing except to try and get people to do the government’s job themselves.


The cultural shift that is currently attacking the foundations of the UK is a shift towards self-reliance, self-determination and small government, and it is perfect. It is clear that the new world is no longer a world where socialist or cooperative models of society are even viable, never mind desirable. Whereas once it was possible for the government to levy huge 25% taxes and employ a quarter of the population, now it simply isn’t. Without organisations, without contracts, with the kind of income governments receive - it isn’t possible to run that kind of society, and we’ve known it for years now.




But the big revolution that came with the disbanding of the UK Army and the end of UK national companies never reached the political sphere. We had a military and economic privatisation, but political power remained concentrated in the hands of professional politicians. Why? Because people wanted it to be that way. It’s often easier to allow others to make the decisions and take responsibility, but it was a sad case of head buried in the sand. The game has changed, and the UK has took all this time to acknowledge it.


Now we live in the time of the citizen-soldier, the merchant prince and the political activist. If you want something done, the person you need to harass is yourself. If you need supplies, work out how to get them, don’t expect someone else to do it. If you want to raise support for a war, or quest for bonuses- get out there and do it. That is the time we live in. We have a private NHS, a privately written new player guide, private MUs, and the government has been reduced to chief representative of the UK community abroad, and intermittent signer of MPPs. That’s a good thing.


People often ask me why I don’t marry my real world economic, political and military beliefs to eRepublik. The answer to that seems obvious to me, but I should explain- it’s because this isn’t real life. It is a game, and like all games a full understanding of the rules is the way to win. I’m sure blasting your way across the battlefield in a FPS game you don’t pause to wonder whether Herr Von Kampf sniping at you from the bushes has a family, and similarly when I write that we should disband government in eRepublik I don’t wonder whether it would be sad if my grandmother died because there was no NHS in the real world. It’s not the same- don’t extend your RL beliefs and prejudices into a game. Role play is fine, so long as it doesn’t make you lose.


As a final addendum to this, I’ll be voting Invalidation/Alice not because he agrees with me but because regardless of whether he agrees with me or not I will still be free to do as I like. He understands the culture the UK has stepped into, and although he might not be the first to do so, he’s the first to put it so clearly in a manifesto. From now on, if something isn’t done, or needs doing better, the only person you can blame is yourself.



Iain