Economic Systems

[Teabeard]

This idea came to me in the Government Specific UU thread while I was involved in an OT discussion. Well, anyway here goes.

In previous Civ games we have various government types: Monarchy, Republic, Democracy, Communism, etc. but almost every government type can have multiple economic systems to do with it. Republics are usually capitalist, but they need not necessarily be so. They could be socialism, they could even be communist. The U.S.S.R. in it's final days is a good example of a Communist Republic, whereas under Stalin it was a Communist dictatorship. I suppose a Communist Democracy is also possible, but I don't think it has yet been tried, has it?

Well anyway, there should be various economic systems that you can mix and match with your government type for different effects. Here are some examples of economic systems:

Barter
Mercantilism
Laissez-faire (my personal favorite)
Planned
Green
Mixed (socialist/capitalist)
Corporatist

Maybe there are others. You start out with Barter which is not that great but you get other ones through tech. Barter becomes obsolete with the discovery of Currency.

 

[sir_schwick]

Yes, this was one of the really good ffeatures from SMAC. Economic and political systems are not inherently tied to each other.

 

[slothman]

Communism I theorize is a totalitarianist government with a extreme socialist economic system. While someplace like Sweden would be a democracy with a less socialist but still more than here system. Many of the waring places in Africe and S. America might have dictators but a capitalist econ. system. So yes I agree that would be a good idea.
If the econ. system could be changed with a revolution like the gov't system it could be good too.

 

[dh_epic]

I'm a huge fan of pulling apart your social policies from your economic policies.

I think that would make for some interesting results, instead of this "black and white" model of democracy versus communism.

 

[sealman]

I think I like the idea of your economic policy not being tied to your choice of government.

On a side note, I do not think a Communist Democracy could exist. Could be an interesting debate in the off topic forums though.

 

[dh_epic]

Not a communist democracy, but a democracy with a slightly more socialist kind of economy. Or a communist country with a great amount of political freedoms, and maybe even some free enterprise. But to say that you're either stuck in a pure form of one or another is kind of crappy.