Sustainability in civilization developement

To Gazdeluxe11:
You said:
Generally, the person who resorts to such nonsense first has the weaker case.

I was NOT the first one in this forum to "resort to such nonsense"- that distinction goes to naf4ever, who said I had written "5 pages of crap". Get your facts straight. You and your fellow technology-worshippers are seeing the natural world and human nature through rose-coloured glasses. The references I mentioned may seem to have a "sky is falling" feeling to them, but did you ever consider that they have this alarming character because of the realities and facts they contain, and not because the authors have a priori set out to be sensationalist scaremongers?
Look at who these referenced authorities are- mostly they are concerned and respected academics and scientists; the academics are from every part of the political spectrum. Even Dick Cheney and Michael Moore (see "Dude, Where's My Country" at the "Oil's well that ends well" chapter), two starkly different political personalities, agree that Peak Oil means big trouble for industrial civilization. Trouble so severe in fact that technology probably won't be able to overcome it, because there is not enough incentive to develope and apply this technology to any economically effective degree at the appropriate time. The "appropriate time" is either sometime in the past 3 decades or RIGHT NOW at they very latest.
In response to Trade-peror: Marx said capitalism couldn't last, but he said this was basically because the capitalists would oppress the workers so much that they would revolt. However, I and those like myself say that capitalism can not stand the test of time because a capitalist system will plunder natural resources at an unsustainable (and accelerating) rate, and thus eventually run out of fuel for the endless growth it so desparately needs. Capitalism will not survive ultimately because it defies natural laws in that it is based on the idea that it is possible to vigourously grow forever without ever reaching maturity or ageing.
Finally, Gazedeluxe11, I have tried as much as is reasonable to make my point, but those who have pre-emptively decided they won't listen aren't going to come around on my say-so. As covenant said, it is far too tempting and seductive for people to bury their heads in the sand and live in complacent denial, asserting on faith that "technology will save us", rather than to take the Red Pill and wake up to the unpleasent reality. Particularly for the affluent, it is much nicer to believe that everything is OK and therefore that there is no need to change our way of life, nor any danger of external circumstances forcing us to change our ways. Yes, it is nice to believe that humanity can always escape from the consequences of its immense collective greed, foolishness and recklessness via "technology", but in the end the consequences of this dangerous behaviour will catch up with humanity. As you sow, so you shall reap. For more on this theme, see the story "The Train" by Kevin Moore at http://www.oilcrash.com/articles/train.htm

*shrug*, i guess we'll have to agree to disagree.

however, some interesting civ4 ideas. Should things besides units be dependant on resources? City improvements? Could / should your cities fall into disorder if you lose a resource (even a non-luxury one) because their cars dont work anymore?

-john

@gazdeluxe11:

Your points are interesting and generally reflective of reality, although a more general implementation of idea 3 could probably be possible. In terms of gameplay, however, some of the other ideas also need to clarify a few issues. For example, idea 1, which seems to be true (particularly with recent, more modern history), would be difficult and awkward to implement into Civ, besides possibly exacerbating the "snowball effect" that many other threads are trying to limit. Then idea 2 states that "primitive agrarian societies" grow even more quickly. Issues with this concept include how industrialized and agrarian societies should be distinguished (merely attaining a certain technology seems too sudden for such significant social change), and how "primitive" should be determined. Overall, however, it seems like population would grow uncontrollably. Since Civ does not well portray the historically devastating effects of disease, warfare, and famine on civilian populations, this spiraling population model would be unrealistic for most of history (though not for more recent history, unfortunately).

Therefore, some limitations should probably be implemented. Besides emphasizing the effects of disease, famine, and warfare on civilian populations, idea 3 might be generalized to mean that people's "mood" or "outlook" on the world has an effect. We could then have cultural position, economic conditions, war, and other factors play a role that can be negative as well as positive for population growth. Perhaps resource availability could play a role as well--and have such a role be dependent upon, say, the level of education a civ has achieved (informed citizens might be more likely to know of resource situations and plan accordingly).

Anyway, just a few random questions and ideas. Any responses are encouraged!

Gatsby said:

The short answer is that humans are not as "highly intelligent" as they think.
Like any other organism they proliferate relentlessly until overpopulation and resource exhaustion precipitate a "die-off" of the organism which tends to be drastic, rapid and brutal.They (humans) are genetically programmed to do this. Examples range from the fermentation of yeast in wine to the collapse of civilizations such as the Maya, Easter Island, and even Rome.

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On the contrary, when Rome fell it had negative population growth. This is the same thing we see in modern "developed" countries. Negative population growth appears to be correlated with the fall of civilizations and positive growth with their rise. The current Civ models this very well. If your people don't reproduce, you fall behind in the game. This is as it is in real-life. When Europe was at the peak of its power, it had very high population growth. This is one reason the Europen countries were able to take over the world (ie, they were planting settlers all over the place!).

Secondly, the dominant schools of economic thought all assume that economic and population growth can continue indefinitely at colossal rates, despite the fact that the Earth only has finite energy resources.
In the real world, population growth and economic growth have skyrocketed in the modern age and will continue to do so in the coming years despite massive and inevitable food and energy shortages.

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You ignore the fact that what the resources are can change. For example, 100 years ago Uranium was useless because the technology didn't allow us to make use of it. Likewise, 300 years ago oil was almost useless. 500 years ago someone might have been saying that civilization was going to collapse because we were depleting the forests, which provided us with wood for energy.

So yeah, resources can deplete but you are completely ignoring that the only constant is change and what is a "reosurce" also changes.

Yes, oil will deplete and this will have negative economic consequences but this will not bring about the end of civilization as there are plenty of energy alternatives, such as nuclear energy.

Also it is not entirely true that natural resources are fixed. Oil can be synthesized. Oil is produced by natural processes as well. There are renewable sources of energy, including the use of plants to produce alcohol for fuels.

Gatsby said:

The whole structure of the capitalist global economy is entrenched, stacked against such a Revolution, and indeed such a technology would hail a Revolution.

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You underestimate the capitalist system. It has it's problems but you are under-estimating it. Oil will begin to go scarce soon, true. What does this mean? It means that oil prices will gradually rise. When oil gets more expensive, capitalists will begin to see it as profitable to develop other more expensive sources of energy or technology. And then these things will come about. At high enough prices, even synthetic oil becomes profitable. Yes, the economy will be hurt by the scarcity of oil, BUT there will be alternatives. So it will not by itself cause the end of civilization. It will hurt civilization, it may be as bad as bringing about another Great Depression, but even this would be far from the fall of civilization. There are plenty of other things that are far more likely to end civilization than the energy problem.

And guess what? Those skyrocketing oil prices will sure as hell make people conserve oil! No more SUVs and maybe even only tiny cars. People will have an incentive to CONSERVE. Yes, the capitalist system may not be optimal when it comes to conserving with a very long-term view, but in the shorter-run it can get darn efficient at conserving scarce resources, indeed far more efficiently than any other system.

This also applies to your doom scenario regarding fertilizers. Fertilizers are chemicals, plain and simple. Those chemicals can all be synthesized. Oil is used to make them because it is more economical. If we run out of oil, it doesn't follow we won't be able to make these fertilizers anymore. All it means is that the price of fertilizers may rise a little bit. It's not the end of the world.

Dear NP300,
I have already made my case about industrialism, oil, capitalism and the real world, and I have made it very well, with an abundance of quality references. So I am not much inclined to continue arguing with people who only want to hide from reality anyway. So far people have mainly been saying technology would save us, and I'm surprised it took this long for someone (yourself) to say 'the market will save us'.

How capitalism works in textbooks and theory (Comparative Advantage, Pareto Optimality etc) is not quite the same as how it works in reality (war-profiteering, pollution, political influences, economic imperialism, for example). Tell me, what is so practical about an economic system that can only survive in the long term by terrible military conflict? (WW2 is just one of many examples- also look at foreign intervention since 1945 by that bastion of free market capitalism, the USA). What is practical about a system which dismisses environmental damage as an "externality"? The economy is a subsystem of the eco-system, yet capitalism would have us believe vice-versa.

You said: If your people don't reproduce, you fall behind in the game. This is as it is in real-life
You seem to be implying that larger population nations do better, but the reverse is often true. Look at the Venetians or the Dutch during their imperial glory days- they weren't huge nations. Look at Europe today-doing well with declining birth rates. Look at Iceland- a population of a few hundred thousand and it is one of the most advanced countries in the world. Now look at China, Brazil, Egypt, and India- this countries have almostalways had large populations, yet they are not at the top of the global pecking order.

Proponents claim capitalism can solve the Economic Problem of scarcity, but in reality it will ultimately end up excacerbating that problem, not solving it; in the 19th century the people of England were mostly poor, then imperialism and later globalisation came along, and so nations like England could export there poverty to much larger masses of people in the 3rd world. Meanwhile, the USA got rich largely by breaking treaties with native Americans, using slave labour, and later by foreign government tampering. Perhaps slavery could be incorporated into Civ4; it would quickly increase wealth, but it could cause happiness and foreign relations to suffer.

Civ4 will need to do justice to the advantages of resource imperialism- perhaps you could earn treasure every few turns from certain resources, just like in some of the C3C scenarios. Also, a new government form needs to be incorporated into Civ4 to reflect the modern phenomen of corperations dominating supposedly democratic governments- look at Dubya's crew, they're a bunch of oil and arms businessmen. It could be called "Corporatocracy" or "Corporate Republic" (after CCTP).

To Trade-peror: you have made some good suggestions, especially the one about citizen education levels: being able to put money into "national conservation programs" in Civ4 could be a good idea. You said : Then idea 2 states that "primitive agrarian societies" grow even more quick. This is not necessarily true. Population growth tends to follow a "s" curve shape: slow at first, then really fast, then it flattens out and reaches an equilibrium
assuming sufficient resources, and that the equilibrium is sustainable. The Civ4 population growth mechanism need to ensure that this is how population grows in the game. Most population analysts expect the world human population to peak at c.9 billion and stay there assuming sufficient resource avaliability.

Adding Corporate Republic to Civ4:
Civilopedia - "C" is for "Corporate Republic"-Historical :
Now, there is a difference between Fascism and a "Corporate Republic". In a Fascist government like Mussolini's Italy, Franco's Spain, or Hilters' 3rd Reich, a centralised authoritarian government works in close co-operation with major corporations, whilst in a "Corporate Republic" such as the present-
day USA, the corporations effectively ARE the government.

"Corporate Republics" tend to arise gradually from democracies, gradually usurping them, until all that is left is the "husk" of a democracy, a facade of elections etc which keeps the populace complacent and under the inaccurate perception that The People still have dominance of the government. Although the form of representative democracy is maintained, and even though The People still wield a noticeable degree of control over the government, the dominant share of power in the political process is nonetheless wielded (increasingly) by corporate entities, usually "behind the scenes". Not quite a representative democracy nor a fascist system, the Corporate Republic is like a hybrid of these two forms of government.

Corporate Republics are what happens when the idea of a "free market" spills over into, and starts to be applied to, the political process.Corporations buy their way into political power in order to advance their business interests, resulting in the creation of a market for "special interests" in which elected politicians take money from corporations and, in return, serve to look after the interests of those corporations first, and the interests of The People second.

In a Corporate Republic, the main source of power for the people is the fact that "The Customer is King", and not so much the elections. The political landscape of a Corporate Republic is dominated by, at most, a few major parties which are more similar than they first appear to be, especially in that they are heavily under the influence of corporations both directly (corporate businessmen become politicians to advance their business interests eg Dubya, Cheney) and indirectly (corporate domination of mainstream media, corporate campaign contributions etc).

In Corporate Republics, the corporate mainstream media subversively and indirectly tries to persuade the people that they have no real say in the electoral process, eg if they don't vote for major parties, they waste their vote, while consumerism, pop-media, and relaxed voting rules persuade the masses to become disinterested in the political process. The result is, amongst other things, a low voter turnout, such as in the USA where voter turn-out is around 30% on average.

The best historical example of a Corporate Republic is the USA. In c.1886, the Santa Clara court case of California(?) gave corporations the status of personhood under the law. This meant corporations could become "super-citizens", and although corporations had no vote, they were still able to influence the political process far more than any individual could ever hope to.
After the Santa Clara decision, the USA began its inexorable transition toward a Corporate Republic government. Other Western democracies also have some elements of a Corporate Republic , but none of them quite to the degree seen in the USA.

PS I know "Corporate Republic" is not (yet) an officially recognised form of government in the real world, but this gives the creators of Civ4 the opportunity to be amongst the pioneers in giving long-overdue official recognition to this new, modern form of government. "Corporate Republics" are already a reality, they are not at all science fiction or fantasy. There may not be many fully-flegded corporate republics in reality, but remember there have only been a handful of Fascist governments in history, and the most powerful nation in history (the USA) just so happens to basically be a Corporate Republic. Who knows, if Corporate Republic is in Civ4, it might create some controversy, which will be good for Civ4's publicity.
For more info of Corporate Dominance in the USA, see William Rivers Pitts' article "Freedom, Incorporated" at http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/062104A.shtml

Corporate Republic- Gameplay

*+75% worker rate (comptetitive labour market)
* +25% or +50% pollution output (lax environmental laws are good for profits). However, excessive pollution should also cause unhappiness and foreign relations problems in Civ4 (people don't like to live in their own OR other people's filth).
* Increased chance of resource depletion/exhaustion (free market-style resource use).
* +25% revenue from treasure units (see a previous post)
*+1 production to all shield producing squares AND +1 trade to all road squares
* A new level of corruption- call it "Outsourced" or "Globalized" maybe- which is like communal corruption but somewhat higher.
* Increasing tax rates beyond a certain point actually REDUCES tax revenue ("Reaganomics". Also, not only are corporations good at avoiding paying taxes, a Corporate Republic puts more emphasis on "market solutions" to public goods problems, so there is less of a percieved need for taxes.)
* Less war-weariness than democracy. (The corporations who own the mainstream media often have an interest in promoting certain military conflicts, and CNN-style reporting makes sanitised "armchair warfare" a possibility, so the public is shielded from the full horrors of the war).
* On the espionage screen, Corporate Republics alone can "Create Subsidiaries" in foreign cities, which drain about 25% of the gold generated by that city each turn. This "subsidiary" will last 20 turns, or until war breaks out or there is a trade embargo between the Corporate Republic and the victim nation. Doing this to cities from non-corporate republic nations incurs a slight diplomatic penalty. All subsidiaries are automatically dissolved and no new ones can be built if you decide to abandon the Corporate Republic form of government.

gazdeluxe11 said:

*THE SKY IS FALLING - THE OIL IS RUNNING OUT* variety. My point is not that the oil is running out, but rather that man will find a way to deal with it in a relatively short amount of time.

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Maybe because it is, and to get people to listen you have to make a stink, but of course no one is supposed to make a stink, but act porper and dignified even if everyone is heading straight for a cliff. If you were in a car and the car was heading straight for a cliff, I bet you would make quiet a stink with the driver, or maybe no, he would say, no there is not cliff, your being paranoid, Be proper dont make a stink. And I agree that many of the people are over the top (and many are terrible writers), but because they are passionate does not make the basic facts incorrect. Look at the overall message and do not use a flamboyant personality as an excuse to dismiss what is being said. Dont you think if they are right, you owe it to yourself, your family and friends to think about it, what it means. If we are really on the brink of a steady decline in oil, and this world is dependent on oil, what does that mean? It is going to be the couragous persons that ask this that are going to shape the world tomorrow.

gazdeluxe11 said:

*"Well technology has been growing exponentially for decades and people have not got any better, infact most technologies have just allowed the corruption to explode with it." Yeah, you're right, our lives havent gotten any better because of technology. All technology does is increase corruption. Oh wait, today ill leave my interesting summer job programming computers, get in my car, drive home at 65 mph while listening to a compact disc, turn on satillite TV, maybe play a computer game (civ?). In a week ill be flying in an airplane for less than two days pay. Oh, and I dont have to worry about catching and dying of Polio, Smallpox, Hepititas, Tuberculosis, Gangrene... they can do a whole lot more to help me if i have heart disase, diabetes or cancer... and that laser surgery i had done on my eyes a few years ago so that i could see without thick glasses probably didnt improve my life at all either. My buddy's life isnt much better either now that has been prescribed migrine medication that keeps him from having an excruciating headache every three days. Your right, technology hasnt improved our lives at all, only increased corruption!

Get real..

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Actually I am being quiet real but I obviously was not clear in my point... And you took that sentence out of context from the rest of my post... And your reaction is obviously emotional thinking that I am wishing headaches on your friend. I am quiet happy that your friend is feeling better, technology has its place but do not think for one moment technology is going to save us from ourselves. Technology does not equal corruption anymore than a gun equals death, it just makes it easier for a person to act out his wishes. The real question is who is the person using it. Did you know that between the HUD(Housing and Urban Development) and the DoD, there is over 3.3 trillion dollars gone missing when they were audited for 98-99. 3.3 TRILLION DOLLARS. You think they could have pulled that off without modern day technology. And if you look at all the products you mentioned, every single one of those is dependent on oil. Do you think technology will be able to replace every single one of those products, without a hickup, a serious depression, economic instablilty, mass starvation (which is happening in tons of places on the planet today) in the next fifty years. And one of the articles I posted got into some numbers of how dependent the agriculture buisness is to feed 6 billion people, which it is failing to do. How about AIDs. In africa millions have died from aids each year. Do you see these great corporations with all this technology over there trying to help those people in for anything but a publicity stunt. I should Get Real. You have offered no facts, only opinion. Do you realize that, You have offered nothing but opinion and I need to get real.

And if you want to continue this we should obviously start up a new thread in the off topic section... Name it the same, and if I see it I will know you want to otherwise happy civing...

Gatsby said:

Corporate Republic- Gameplay

*+75% worker rate (comptetitive labour market)
* +25% or +50% pollution output (lax environmental laws are good for profits). However, excessive pollution should also cause unhappiness and foreign relations problems in Civ4 (people don't like to live in their own OR other people's filth).
* Increased chance of resource depletion/exhaustion (free market-style resource use).
* +25% revenue from treasure units (see a previous post)
*+1 production to all shield producing squares AND +1 trade to all road squares
* A new level of corruption- call it "Outsourced" or "Globalized" maybe- which is like communal corruption but somewhat higher.
* Increasing tax rates beyond a certain point actually REDUCES tax revenue ("Reaganomics". Also, not only are corporations good at avoiding paying taxes, a Corporate Republic puts more emphasis on "market solutions" to public goods problems, so there is less of a percieved need for taxes.)
* Less war-weariness than democracy. (The corporations who own the mainstream media often have an interest in promoting certain military conflicts, and CNN-style reporting makes sanitised "armchair warfare" a possibility, so the public is shielded from the full horrors of the war).
* On the espionage screen, Corporate Republics alone can "Create Subsidiaries" in foreign cities, which drain about 25% of the gold generated by that city each turn. This "subsidiary" will last 20 turns, or until war breaks out or there is a trade embargo between the Corporate Republic and the victim nation. Doing this to cities from non-corporate republic nations incurs a slight diplomatic penalty. All subsidiaries are automatically dissolved and no new ones can be built if you decide to abandon the Corporate Republic form of government.

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"By MSN Money staff and news services
Think about this as you sign that check to Uncle Sam next week: More than 60% of all U.S. companies paid no federal tax at all during the boom years of 1996 to 2000, the General Accounting Office reports.
In 2000 alone, 94% of all U.S. corporations paid less than 5% of their total income in corporate taxes, the GAO said in a report released Friday. Among the largest corporations -- the 1% of all corporations that owns 93% of all corporate assets -- 82% paid less than 5% of their income in taxes.
And it wasn’t just American companies avoiding a bill. About 70% of foreign-owned companies doing business in the United States paid no federal tax in the late 1990s, the GAO said. The GAO report covered 2.1 million returns by U.S. companies and 69,000 foreign-owned companies."


so acutally the government would need to increase worker taxes to try to make this up, which is impossible so really your would start to lose tons of money after so many turns in this form of government. Mabye after the intial 10 turns, corruption would increase at 3% each turn. So it would be great to move to this for say twenty or thirty turns but after that you would want to switch out.

Dear Covenant:
Your idea about increasing corruption each turn in Corporate Republic sounds promising, but remember that Corporate Republics are big on privatisation. For example, in the USA public schools are often short of public funding, so they turn to corporations for money. In return the schools give corporations advertising space on school-buildings and textbooks (see "Freedom, Incorporated and "Stupid White Men" by Michael Moore). So to reflect this privatisation drive, perhaps Corporate Republics could have their total maintainence costs per turn halved.

Now in order to keep on the sustainability topic of this thread, I'll say a little more about Capitalism and sustainability:
The Economic Problem, which is the whole reason for the field of Economics, is the problem of Scarcity. Scarcity arises because there are limited resources and people have unlimited WANTS (desires). Economists naively think that economics alone can solve this Problem. Capitalism, although it constantly seeks an "efficient" (ie profit-maximising) allocation of limited resources, does NOTHING to limit peoples' wants. Quite the opposite in fact: it encourages aggressive marketing and advertising to INTENSIFY and INCREASE people's wants, and together with competitiveness and the profit motive, this drives resources exploitation to ever higher and more intense (and unsustainable) levels.

When the English colonists first came to the modern USA, they were astounded at how care-free and non-materialistic the Native Americans were. Then the Native Americans saw the English flaunting their gadgets and shiny gizmos, and got sucked in to wanting these things that they had no desire for before the English came. Capitalism plays, indeed depends, on the latent greed which lies within each person.

In order to solve the Economic Problem, Economics (resource allocation) alone won't do the trick, no matter what economic system it is: look at the failure of communism. One of the key places Marx got it wrong was where he said "Religion is the Opiate of the Masses". To solve the economic problem, you need a combination of science (better ways to get and use resources), religion (restrain peoples' desires), economics(a respectable and fair distribtion of resources) and philosophy (a connective tissue for the previous three, which also enhances these other 3 endeavours). Any one of these alone can not solve the Problem (not even "technology" or "the market"), and a combination of only some of them won't do the trick either.
Unfortunately, few people seem to realise this.

PS When PC's and Email first came along, it was widely thought that they would lead to a "paperless office", but now offices on average tend to use more paper than ever before, largely BECAUSE of these technologies, not in spite of them. So much for technology leading to greater efficiency, then.

Covenant: Yes, i do think technology will be able to repalce every single one of those products eventually, if there are profits to be made in doing so. Will there be a recession? Perhaps. Will there be a return to the stone age like espoused on oilcrash.org and lifeafterthecrash.net?, not a chance. Life will probably get harder, but the market will induce people to develop technicly viable alternatives profitably as oil prices get more and more expensive, and everything will work out fine (as it always has over the course of human existance), especially for those living in America with education and money, for whom the "crash" will probably be the least painful.

but, as i said before, i would rather agree to disagree. feel free to post to get a last point in, i wont rebut. we obviously have two different, irreconcilable world views based on the facts at hand, and, as they say, time tells no lies.

onto civ4....

the idea of a government based on corporate corruption / infiltration of a democratic political system is a good one. Perhaps, however, this could be something unintentional that arises out of a democracy? If your empire is a democracy and is too big, with a lot of resources, you slide toward this form of government slowly every turn? Especially for civs with the religion trait, this government that gets worse every turn seems to be a bit unfair (quick revolutions and all).

just my thoughts,

-john

Dear Gazdeluxe11:
the idea of a government based on corporate corruption / infiltration of a democratic political system is a good one. Perhaps, however, this could be something unintentional that arises out of a democracy? If your empire is a democracy and is too big, with a lot of resources, you slide toward this form of government slowly every turn? Especially for civs with the religion trait, this government that gets worse every turn seems to be a bit unfair (quick revolutions and all).

Glad we finally agree on something. I too thought maybe democracies in the game could gradually morph into corporate republics, but the idea sounds difficult to implement. What you could have is the option to switch to only a Corporate repbulic, if you are already a democracy or republic, before
the period of anarchy commences, kind of like CCTP-such an anarchy would be less severe than changing to other governments, reflecting the fact that people don't really even notice the change occuring. As for increasing corruption over time, it could still work as part of "globalized" corruption, but
would be offset by halved maintainence costs, unique shield and trade bonuses, an intially fairly low level of corruption in each city, and the fast worker rate.

Now about Peak Oil:
Firstly, if you want a source which is more "subdued" in its presentation of peak oil, see www.peakoil.net. Secondly, not all of these sources are saying we will return to the stone-age: we will go "backward" technologically and economically, along with significantly reduced world population, but how far backwards depends on human tenacity and co-operation. We may find ourselves (after the last profitable oil field has been plundered) living much like people in the early part of the 20th century; more likely we will end up living in localised agrarian societies kind of like the Amish (but without the religion). Alot of our modern(largely fossil-fuel based) scientific knowledge may be retained, but high technology will be scarce at best, and all the high Particle Physics knowledge etc will be of little use or too difficult and expensive to apply.
Also, most people don't realise this, but capitalism, like communism, is also an experiment being carried out by human societies, and because of its inherent flaws, will probably also eventually fail: it will just take somewhat longer to fail than communism. But a failed experiment is not a complete waste-it still provides some lessons.
Notice that capitalism and industrialism have gone hand-in-hand in history; capitalism really took off around the time of the industrial revolution. If and when one dies, the other will very probably die as well.
Finally, don't think that the Americans or any other country will get away relatively unscathed; we live in a globalized economy in which the rich countries can only stay rich because the poor countries mostly stay poor and produce goods for the rich countries with resources which they should rightfully be using for ther own benefit. Besides, the idea of no more personal automobiles would be very frightening to most Americans.

PS When I speak of capitalism, I am talking about the dominant economic system today, which really got started with Smith and Ricardo and the advent of the modern field of economics

I think the introduction of civics, or a SMAC-style (even though I've never played it I've heard about it) set of sliders could replace the need for an actual new government.

I think it's important to recognize that no two democracies around the world are the same. Some people think Canada is a more democratic country. Some people think that America is a more democratic country. Some people would even argue that the Cuban revolution is democratic. And different parties within countries argue about what democracy is, at the root of the discussion.

More or less, you should be able to decide on one of two approaches.

One is laissez faire style capitalism, where you let corporations do whatever they want... because the attitude is they'll always do what is profitable. And in the long run, something will start to go wrong, so the corporations will adapt in order to stay profitable, and everyone will win.

The other is the attitude that liberals have saved capitalism a few times from itself. That you need a few checks and balances to make sure you don't put corner yourself into a dead end, or create so much turmoil in your country that it caves in on itself. Some people think you need even more checks and balances.

Setting a meter from 1 to 10, even 1 to 5... hell, 1 to 3 would be enough to simulate this aspect of economy better than it has in Civ games of the past.