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'eCommunism' is a very revealing term. Why the qualifying 'e' prefixing 'communism'? What distinction does this 'e' denote?

Etymologically the root of eCommunism is, no doubt, derived from the ideological construction of an alternate sphere within which eRepublik is perceived to exist. It is eCommunism because it is communism in eRepublik only. But we can glean much more from the word than just this. It is eCommunism because it isn't actually communism at all. What the 'e' really signifies is the image, the representation, the form without substance.

eCommunism represents on the one hand a genuine desire for liberation, and on the other, the denial of that liberation. Everyday we struggle with the alienations of capitalism. We work, we study, we do chores; all ultimately generate value and capital for others to accumulate. We spectate society. We live our lives as if watching from the sidelines with little control, little self-determination, almost unconscious of our own doing. It stinks. It's depressing. It's tiring. We survive only through consuming weak anesthetics, be that fast-food, alcohol, drugs both legal and illegal, television, religion, and ideology. It is a process essential to the functioning of capitalism, part of the process of the reproduction of capitalist social relations.



The only choice we are presented with is the choice between the spectacle of domination and the spectacle of opposition.

eCommunism appears like a section through the Spectacle and its spurious opposition. All the elements are there - primarily it is a show for passive consumption, offering release not in rebellion, but in dressing up in the image of rebellion. It takes the desire for real communism, contains it, and sells us back its image.

We have turned eRep into a shop window full of the images of revolution. We have turned revolution into fancy dress, a roleplay revolution, where appearance is a substitute for being. Consequently eCommunism has a pacifying affect. Capitalist social relations are reproduced. Whilst we play at being revolutionary activists, at being workers, soldiers, managers, politicians, and journalists within eRepublik, our roles within "real life" of activist, worker, soldier, manager, politician, and journalist are reproduced thereby reproducing the capitalist system as a whole. This is the function of all eRepublik, not just eCommunism.

By maintaining an imaginary boundary between eRep and "RL", by sustaining an isolated form of "communism", eCommunists are only maintaining and sustaining their own alienation.