Capto Iugulum Background Thread

[Shadowbound]

Not only am I not importing, I'm the largest exporter of agricultural goods in the world

Yeah, no.

You have roughly 335 million hectares of agricultural land.

Russia (200m) + Poland (18m) + Ukraine (42m) + Belarus (9m) + Latvia (1.6m) + Lithuana (2.7m) + Estonia (1.3m) + Khazakhstan (50m)

This translates to 827 million acres of land. Currently it takes roughly 3/4 of an acre to feed a person, using modern technology*. Going by the example of Kansas, as the OTL Soviet Union is a bad example given their agricultural policy made Jesus cry, modern productivity is four three times what it was in 1939. Being generous and presuming that Russian agricultural productivity is at levels of 1939 Kansas, you still can't feed your population.

And that's assuming all possible arable land in the Russian Empire is worked, when historically except for isolated cases (Japan) it's more reasonable to say 75%.

EDIT: Bad harvest in 1938, switched to 1939.

EDIT: Checking around finds that half an acre is a caloric intake of ~1200 a day (see David Pimentel). Bumped it up a little. The average American diet of 2600 calories a day requires 1.2 acres to sustain.

 

[Terrance888]

Actually, they DO export. They're perfectly fine if undesirables starve to death. They have ALOT of undesirables. Like Poles.

 

[TheLastJacobite]

@Crezth and Shadowbound

I don't have the raw numbers, I merely go with what EQ tells me, which is that I am the primary supplier of grain for most of Europe, parts of China, and a major exporter to Japan, parts of the Middle East and Africa. My production is higher because during the Boring Times, instead of focusing on Industrial Growth or Resource Exploitation like everyone else in Europe, I focused on growing my agricultural production.

And 400 million sounds awfully high. That's almost approaching modern population levels for the areas in quwsrion

 

[Shadowbound]

@Crezth and Shadowbound

I don't have the raw numbers, I merely go with what EQ tells me, which is that I am the primary supplier of grain for most of Europe, parts of China, and a major exporter to Japan, parts of the Middle East and Africa. My production is higher because during the Boring Times, instead of focusing on Industrial Growth or Resource Exploitation like everyone else in Europe, I focused on growing my agricultural production.

And 400 million sounds awfully high. That's almost approaching modern population levels for the areas in quwsrion

I see where he's coming from, Russia supplied 1/3 of the world grain market before WW1. But this is keeping in mind that absolute volume of trade was much lower than it would be later and that the Russian agricultural economy was in the hands of major conglomerates who weren't entirely concerned with maintaining enough food for domestic consumption (see, food riots). When you double the population, even assuming massive increases of productivity, you're still not getting enough food for domestic consumption, nevermind feeding another... 500 million or so on top of that.

 

[EQandcivfanatic]

Actually this makes a good argument for reevaluating my current standards of manpower and manpower growth. I have been working on various estimates, and assuming about equal levels of tech in terms of agriculture. Overall I've been assuming a hefty mechanization of Russian agriculture over the past 30 years, partially due to his own orders. That's also been assuming that the newly unemployed created by less people being able to do more work have been migrating into factory work and cities (there's a reason Russia can't break 6 stability at best after all). I will point out the number of peasant rebellions earlier in the NES in Russia which took place as mechanization increased.

As Shadowbound pointed out earlier in the thread, Russia is not exactly the most pleasant place to live for the average person. I will be looking into this, as it raises a legitimate point about food and assumptions I've been making for the past 10 or so years in the NES about Russian food production. I will be consulting a couple of books about Soviet food production during WW2, and trying to figure out which of the following courses I will take:

1. Assuming that Russia is in fact importing food, not exporting (which in turn means some very unpleasant new looks at a number of other countries, especially Japan).

2. Status quo, but with the added assumption that Russian peasants are starving on a regular basis.

3. Assuming that the manpower level for Russia is flawed, and revising the current growth/manpower formula.

 

[Shadowbound]

I wouldn't look at anything past the New Economic Policy. Collectivization trashed Russian agriculture. Ther's a reason I just went with Kansas for trends (also, with mechanization you'd be looking at 1950s Kansas instead of 1938, which raises another load of issues).

The important thing to consider when making a country a net exporter is not whether they produce a lot of goods, but whether they can produce the goods for a lower opportunity cost than anyone they're selling to. Russia does this by having very cheap labor, Brazil can't match it in that respect so the best explanation is a major capital advantage. The US runs off slave labor, which actually becomes efficient with the second industrial revolution, which has had the effect of wrecking the value of labor elsewhere in the country and making it the wonderful place it is.

 

[Luckymoose]

Dat per capita income.

 

[Circuit]

I wouldn't look at anything past the New Economic Policy. Collectivization trashed Russian agriculture. Ther's a reason I just went with Kansas for trends (also, with mechanization you'd be looking at 1950s Kansas instead of 1938, which raises another load of issues).

The important thing to consider when making a country a net exporter is not whether they produce a lot of goods, but whether they can produce the goods for a lower opportunity cost than anyone they're selling to. Russia does this by having very cheap labor, Brazil can't match it in that respect so the best explanation is a major capital advantage. The US runs off slave labor, which actually becomes efficient with the second industrial revolution, which has had the effect of wrecking the value of labor elsewhere in the country and making it the wonderful place it is.

... something about your interpretation of opportunity cost doesn't sit right for me, considering that opportunity cost is a relative measure and you seem to be defining it in absolute terms. For example, Brazilians might be more productive than Russians in producing agricultural goods, but are even more productive producing consumer goods. Russians could be less productive than Brazilians in producing agricultural goods than Brazilians but produce agricultural goods better than anything else. In this scenario, the Russian opportunity cost for producing agricultural goods would be lower than Brazil's (since Brazil would have to sacrifice producing consumer goods to produce agricultural goods, while Russians would be sacrificing less in that regard), so both would specialize (Russia in agriculture, Brazil in consumer goods) and export (this is classical Ricardian trade theory).

That said, I can't really say anything about how they could feed their population, so it's possible that they can't produce enough to feed their population and can't afford to trade it since they need it themselves.

 

[TheLastJacobite]

I will be consulting a couple of books about Soviet food production during WW2, and trying to figure out which of the following courses I will take:

1. Assuming that Russia is in fact importing food, not exporting (which in turn means some very unpleasant new looks at a number of other countries, especially Japan).

2. Status quo, but with the added assumption that Russian peasants are starving on a regular basis.

3. Assuming that the manpower level for Russia is flawed, and revising the current growth/manpower formula.

I don't like any of these options

 

[Shadowbound]

You just seriously took comparative advantage out of Principles, but replaced Portugal and England with Russia and Brazil. But I don't understand what you're talking about.

Other than that I have no idea whether or not Brazil is a food importer, but there'd be something hilariously dysfunctional if they did.

EDIT: You're basically the only country in the world that has a spare hundred million people.

 

[Grandkhan]

MP x 3 x 3 x 3000 is what EQ told me to use, and it works out pretty well.

8 people for every male of serviceable age? Fair enough.

This gives Denmark a population of 5,238,000 (given that already like 50% of serviceable males are in the army and still should be counted) in comparison to OTL's 3,764,000 so I guess I could be worse.

 

[TheLastJacobite]

EDIT: You're basically the only country in the world that has a spare hundred million people.

They're not spare! I was saving them for...stuff

 

[Jehoshua]

It would seem to me, considering the entire Soviet Unions population never went above 300 million (even accounting for Poland that still gives a population around 325-350 mil to Imperial Russia by the year 1991, when the Soviet Union had 293 million people if we go by purely what happened OTL), that the population estimates for Russia are severely flawed. (even noting the Soviet Unions situation dampened population growth)

The best estimate I could think of, considering Russia in Capto is roughly equivalent to the RL tsarist Russia, the population should be around (considering Tsarist Russia had a population of approximately 182 million in 1916) 200 to 225 million people, 250 million people if life has been really good for the Russkis, with these estimates presuming greater population growth than would be expected ordinarily due to superior food production than was otherwise available. Presumably this would see a population of around 350-450 million around 1991 for Capto's Tsarist Russia, with the actual population within that range depending on food production improvements, immigration/emigration, wars, plagues, famines and various other unknown factors.

 

[Circuit]

You just seriously took comparative advantage out of Principles, but replaced Portugal and England with Russia and Brazil. But I don't understand what you're talking about.

Other than that I have no idea whether or not Brazil is a food importer, but there'd be something hilariously dysfunctional if they did.

EDIT: You're basically the only country in the world that has a spare hundred million people.

I have no idea whether Brazil is a food importer. And yes, that is a textbook explanation I put up.

On reading your post again... I don't know why I said that either.

But anywho, I like all three of those options.

 

[EQandcivfanatic]

The question remains ewhethrr I'm dreally able to type. ,but I;'d; say Russai goinm mto die., Maybvge the qhole equaltion is wroing to beging with. maybe not 3 and 3 and 3000 but 3 and 2 and 3000

 

[ChineseWarlord]

EQ, are you drunk?

 

[EQandcivfanatic]

you'r;e drunkl!

 

[Lord of Elves]

The mod has spoken.

 

[Lokki242]

The population of Iran is 33,696,00 as opposed to the historical population of 14,340,000. That's... quite a difference. Though I suppose it would make sense due to TTL's Iran much less third world repressed nature compared to OTL.

 

[Quisani]

1. Assuming that Russia is in fact importing food, not exporting (which in turn means some very unpleasant new looks at a number of other countries, especially Japan).

2. Status quo, but with the added assumption that Russian peasants are starving on a regular basis.

3. Assuming that the manpower level for Russia is flawed, and revising the current growth/manpower formula.

EQ, let me assure you, I'm am standing right here in ATL Russia, and the peasants are fine, the crops are fine, and most assuredly, the vodka is fine. Everything is happy and good, and resisting the power that is the culture of ATL Russia is most assuredly futile and will result in the total collapse of OTL Russia.

Here is a picture showing the total and complete truth of it.