Marx Kant into eRep: A Continuation

Day 2,830, 16:43 • Published in Belgium Spain • by Chihiroh


This article lies in continuation of Konrad’s article : Marx Kant into eRep…But Hegel Can, which was well received overall. In his article, Konrad successfully argues that the writings of Marx cannot be translated into eRepublik because the game lacks the essential materialistic aspect of RL. He concludes that Marx cannot be translated into eMarx further than its Hegelian premise, and that if one would really want to use RL political philosophy in eRep, one might be more successful with another system such as Social Contract Theory. Despite Konrad’s clear presentation, he was met with a response from an antagonist who is clearly unaware of the fact that he bases himself on the same theoretical basis Konrad had just debunked. This is why I write this article; Konrad has started the project of pointing out the flaws in the impossible bridge some people think to have built mentally between Marx and a silly 21th century browser game. Here I will continue where he stopped, and will point out how many things go wrong if one persists in stepping from Marx to eMarx while ignoring the critical pitfalls Konrad demonstrated. I will argue that the project of the self-labelled Marxists in eBelgium fails and does a U-turn so drastically that a real Marxist would prefer the « eBelgian Elite » over what the pseudoMarxists strive for. Please note that while Konrad’s article is relevant for any movement in eRep that calls itself Marxist, I will focus on eBelgium. The consequence is that this article is only relevant to other countries insofar the « Marxist » parties have the same political aims as those in eBelgium.

As a quick summary, the « Marxist opposition » in eBe demands an unregulated Immigration policy and the end of any additional political developments out of the eRepublik domain (read : end forum-based government).

1. The « eBelgian elite » is not at all an elite in Marxian terms.

My first point is quite simple. While the « eBelgian Elite » can certainly be called like this in a few other definitions of the word « elite », it is not comparable to the elites Marx wrote about in his works. Marxian elites are those who decide on the relations of production and the organizational structure (in RL it is by owning the means of production). This power in eRepublik is almost entirely in the hands of the eRepublik admins. Plato decides how much money you’re getting, what you need to do to get X amount, how much your medal is worth, when you will be able to build that factory, … The structure is set by Plato with very little flexibility left, and the players are just there to fill in and be the content. In Marx’ words, Plato controls the infrastructure from which the superstructure originates. The forum is an example of such superstructure, and can be seen as the attempt of the players to use any flexibility left in Plato’s design to its full potential to the service of their community’s needs. This is why the « eBelgian Elite » is certainly not the elite Marx had in mind in his books, and this can be clearly seen in practice : the « elite » in eBelgium outnumbers the so called « proletariat », instead of the 1% versus 99% which is often depicted in RL.

2. Not all eCitizens are equal.

Equality is certainly one of Marx’ most important drive. The idea that no one can be morally superior to another, that everybody deserves the same treatment and privileges and thus that equality of outcome is the final goal. While I’m certainly not intending to criticize this for RL aspects, it becomes irrelevant once you play into the three modules of this browser game. Here, eCitizens (which are not necessarily played by humans) start out equally in all modules. The military module is relatively anciennity-based, while the economic module would almost be meritocratic if it wasn’t for the meddling of the military module (BH gold) and, of course, the VISA-factor. However, the political module is probably the most critical to anyone who would read this very article until here. That is because one of the few still entertaining aspects of eRepublik is community. Community is kept alive by activity, which requires effort and is quite heavily shaped by the simplistic democracy simulation that is the Political Module. Yet it is the unfair truth that someone heavily implicated in eRep community affairs, giving his time and effort, will always have as much say (1 vote) as a voting account or a multi. While equality is a strong element of justice in RL, it is certainly not in this case and I challenge anyone to successfully argue how voting accounts being able to overpower active players is ever fair. This point is important to remember for my last point.

3. The True Consequences of Unregulated Immigration.

In point 1, I already indirectly demonstrated that no intellectually honest Marxist would prefer the non-existence of forum-based government over its existence. Now I will demonstrate that their second demand in fact more akin to Mussolini than Che. It is self-evident that unregulated immigration as an eBelgium-only measure is unsound in all aspects. It would only drastically our risk of being invaded and turned into a satellite country of some bigger nation through Immigration. The only other way to argue that Unregulated Immigration is the good and Marxist political aim is through a positive result to the country variant of a Kantian Universality test : « Would a world where every country adopts Unregulated Immigration be better than the one we have now ? ».
It is this part that I want to look at more closely.

Country populations in countries would probably fluctuate more heavily. eBelgium would probably result in having a higher population because of how few we currently are, we could expect Unregulated Immigration to have a sort of osmosis effect. The more, the merrier? Think again. Ironically enough, such a world would mean the creation of an eInternational « Immigration free market », one where every actor (CMs) would use their pass according to their own social or political interests. And that’s one thing the Marxist tradition from Marx all the way to Piketty is clear on : a free-for-all organisational structure (=the Immigration free market) leads to a concentration of power, with more and more power being in the hands of fewer and fewer individuals. That’s the way Marx explained how capitalism led to a class conflict between the wealthy 1% and the proletariat in the first place. That’s where point 2 also comes into play. An active player and a voting account sadly have an equal say in the Political Module, and the former being far less easily found than the latter in this game for obvious reasons, it would mean that the eWorld would tend to be ruled by individuals who can gather voting accounts or multies to hold them in power, thus actually confirming that Marxist hypothesis!

The result would be a more Totalitarian eWorld and one killing activity. It is clearly worse than our actual eWorld and thus fails the Universality Test. I would also note that in this light you could compare the forum to RL labour unions in a certain aspect : a forum is a collectivized effort of active players to get an advantage in a system which, deregulated, would give multilords or voting account gatherers the upper hand. What is clear is that an intellectually honest Marxist would find the label of « Totalitarianism » to be a more appropriate label for the eBelgian movement calling themselves « Marxist » at this moment. And he would certainly side with the eBelgian Elite for being closer to a just distribution of power, at least until a better alternative system comes up (which what DEMOS and The Force strive for obviously isn’t). It is in that irony that I will close the circle and come back to this comment. Acting like a Che or striving towards an equivalent of the events he mentioned in eRep would certainly place him in an « eMarxist » alignment, but that isn’t the case. Those who call themselves Leninist anarchists in eBe actually strive towards something that would make the eWorld more totalitarian, and Stalin or Mao are probably better candidates to draw comparisons with their current actions.



This article contains 1372 words. (Hi Konnie 😃 )

Congratz to everybody who made it this far, as a reward I’ll give you this. Perhaps some of you will guess what series I’ve been watching lately. 🙂

Take care,

Chihiroh