The Idea of eCommunism.
Day 3,525, 13:10
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Published in United Kingdom 
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by
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by TimmyTango
The ideas expressed in this article do not express the ideas of the People's Communist Party. Thus ignore the official title within this heading.
Communism within eRepublik, hereby referred to as eCommunism, has always been a difficult topic to approach. What does it stand for? How will we enact eCommunism? I ask myself these questions time and time again when I come back from my long vacations to this guilty pleasure of a game, albeit a very short return. This article will set out my ideas of eCommunism, answering the very same questions asked above using thoughts of my own sprinkled with an old People's Communist Party Consitution found on the People's Communist Party wiki page.
What is eCommunism?
This is difficult question to answer, taking a step back to look at the limitations of eRepublik, I find myself doubting the viability of eCommunism within society. To my understanding from reading the PCP constitution, enacting our policies involve heavy state control over the economy (seizing the means of production) which simply put is not possible. People will post job offers, and people will accept an offer with whoever pays them the most. Now I am unsure of any thing that governments can do in this regard with taxes and what not, but I am fairly sure that we are limited in what can be done, can't go around nationalising and what not.
How will we enact eCommunism if eRepublik limits our ability to do so?
To me, this means that eCommunism is more about teamwork, if we cannot control the economy to the degree we need, enact state run communes producing weapons and food. Back when the PCP were in the top 5 political parties, we ran a successful commune for our members, producing our own goods to supply the Peoples Army MU, and sometimes even produced a surplus to sell on the market. (Hey, we live in a capitalist society, what can I say, money helps too.) The strongest will lose some, but the weakest will gain. Teamwork.
I'm keen on hearing any thoughts on the subject of eCommunism from all across the political spectrum. Also apologies if this made no sense, this article was a late night urge, currently 6am.
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eFascism is far better...
I did Nazi that coming..oh wait I did.
Horice 卐
National 'Socialism'...
We at The Real Spamicans advocate eNihilism...
Horice Ⓐ
such is life...
https://tinyurl.com/hhkqcyq
o7
eCommunism is unlikely and really your best aim should be eCommunism within the UK.
Starting from that point you would look to achieve state control over the (goods) market in order to eliminate the disadvantages you would face by running true UK state companies.
Imports to 99% would eliminate the foriegn citizen from the market and leave only the following;
A1. UK Citizens with companies based in UK regions.
A2. UK Citizens with companies based abroad.
B1. UK Citizens who buy products abroad and post them on the UK market.
The only way you can bar any of these from the market is to use 'trade embargo' to stop the A2 group from working in their own companies but this is a tad heavy handed and might be seen as a CB buy the targetted country.
Your real tool is therefore sticking the VAT levels up to 25%.
In an example where A1's & 2's are producing Q5 food for sale at £1.2. They now have to pay the government 30p per unit to do so rather then the current 1.2p or pass that cost onto the consumer. The second option isn't really viable as your state company is also selling at £1.2 and the 30p that the private company loses is 'internal investment' for the government company.
The B1's are affected as the foreign market they buy from now has to be 25% cheaper then the UK market if they wish to make any profit and if there is a state company effectivly placing a cap on the market then this is not likely to ever be the case.
The real question is how many state companies do you have, in which sectors and given that they have to be on a players account........who owns them?
It would seem that Q1 or Q5 food, Q1 housing and Q7 weapons would be the sectors you would want to cover and if you could sort out the ownership issues then you have to consider what is adequete renumeration for your UK worker.
You can either adopt the approach of;
1. Minimum (almost zero) wage and then hope you are organised enough to make up the shortfall between that level and what the capitalist world offers with your daily/weekly ration (basically we are running an MU here).
2. Good wage but with maximum work tax.
You would hope that the UK workers would either buy the state stuff from the market with what little remains or perhaps order it from a supplier.
The maximum work tax could then be used to provide a minimal subsistence level of food and allow the worker the freedom to either purchase more food or perhaps go for a house or even invest it in a government bond of somesort.
The first option being the more communist the second being a bit more socialist (also note the second option has a big effect on the B2 group.
Communes in eRep only benefit the person at the top. In fact, they are very similar to RL Uber style companies.
The only real way to help the exploited is to raise the minimum wage to something that is useful and reduce work taxes to a minimum
Could you expand on what benefits the person at the top get? The People's Army Commune was ran by Steeeev, and I don't think I ever saw him get any kind of benefit.
I really wouldn't take anything Sexagenarian says seriously.
The problem with ecommunism is the game doesn't allow governments to control companies any more, you can't really have a communist state without any national companies. The closest you can get is a government ran commune with enough infrastructure to offer people more than the private sector.
Just because you didn't see it doesn't mean it didn't happen.
No one does anything for nothing, especially how this game is structured
-Communes in eRep only benefit the person at the top.
-No one does anything for nothing
You seem to like broad and incorrect statements that have no basis in truth...
Timmy asked you a question, you going to answer?
"No-one does anything for nothing"
Some people, especially on games where there's nothing real being gained or lost, prefer the benefit of feeling like they're contributing to a cause over the benefits of acquiring more wealth. If our newer players gain the weapons and food they need to survive, and the "person at the top" gains the satisfaction of making their MU/country stronger, that seems like a win-win for the eUK to me.
I am in no way saying it didn't happen, although I am 99.9% sure that no exploitation of commune workers occurred, I am open to your explanation of what could have been happening so that we can see what kind of precautions could be taken to prevent such things.
As with the national companies Rory, that sounds like the best thing to do within the limitations of eRep. And although it may not allow governments to hold companies, could a manager not be picked to run the company? The only issue then is trust and organisation.
Yeah, there is no reason it couldn't work with enough people and organisation, you could also go full communism and raise work tax to a crazy level then donate it back to the people running the national companies. That would discourage anyone else from having privately owned companies 🙂
No.
eCommunism = PTO
The difference is ofc that the beneficiaries are not some small, greedy bunch of people who haven't paid into the system but instead is the entire eUK citizenry.
It's not a bad concept on paper but players are wary of being 'blacklisted' by "the other lot" and accusations of graft and incompetence become more prevalent. You alos are taking away a very big slice of the availble choices that a player can make on what is already a very basic game.
Much like in the real world, it wouldn't work in the eWorld. We barely have the numbers to run a free market in game, yet alone have the required amount to fully control and redistribute the economy.
On paper, they seem like nice cute cuddly ideas. But in reality, it does not raise the bar, it lowers it. We need the haves and the have nots. We need something to aspire to, we need competition. Why should a man such as yourself be limited to and having to rely on others in how much damage you are able to put out on a whim? It's a crazy fantasy notion, making the rich poorer, will not lead to the poor being richer.
A man is entitled to the fruits of his labour.
Did you miss the late '80s and early '90s? Or not old enough to remember them? If you'd lived through them, you'd realise that communism Really Doesn't Work. Even China has realised that capitalism isn't really too bad a thing, and only the real nutjobs like Kim Jong-Un still seem to think that communism is a Good Thing.
Much as anarchy in its purest form, communism in its purest form simply doesn't work because of human nature. Getting everyone to go in the same direction, think the same things, all be altruistic and working for the common good sounds like a utopia, but one bad apple and all that hard work can come crumbling down around you.
Good luck with your anachronistic ideas.
Still, TL😉R 8/10 needs more cats (and not communist ones, or I'll set Jeremy on you).
I made a distinction between eCommunism and Communism, though it's based on the real thing, it is very different seeing as the game is very capitalist in design.
Though I agree with you, that it wouldn't work because of peoples selfish nature, it's an idea ahead of its time, and it's something worth striving for.