Victoria 3 - Dev Diary #72 - Economic Law Changes in 1.2

[Maxwell Tornado]

How do you have a command economy under an anarchy?

provided one exists.

No democracy has had a command economy outside of a total war, and none did at all during the time period. While obviously reductivist analysis is bad that doesn’t mean that anything goes, there will still always be constraints.

So make diehard democrats really really despise command economy.

Personally I think that there should be more graduated restrictions and more options. You shouldn’t be able to take an authoritarian monarchy into universal sufferage constitutional monarchy in just one step, or go back in one either.

Absolutely and completely agreed. Except for revolutions.

 

[NHK8901]

If we are to say never concede to trasde unions, genmerally keeping the workers poor will there be some kind of over production great depression like irl? Right now in game I havent seen anything like that.

 

[Ramidel]

So make diehard democrats really really despise command economy.

Here's the thing: a command economy would require the voters to be willing to go for it, under a system where the means of production are currently in private hands one way or another. The devs have decided essentially that that's not feasible under a system where the electorate can send non-socialist candidates to the government.

 

[Maxwell Tornado]

Here's the thing: a command economy would require the voters to be willing to go for it, under a system where the means of production are currently in private hands one way or another. The devs have decided essentially that that's not feasible under a system where the electorate can send non-socialist candidates to the government.

I don't see what you mean.

 

[Meriador_]

Here's the thing: a command economy would require the voters to be willing to go for it, under a system where the means of production are currently in private hands one way or another. The devs have decided essentially that that's not feasible under a system where the electorate can send non-socialist candidates to the government.

No, they've decided that a democratic council republic must enact Cooperative Ownership - i.e. worker ownership of the means of production - to be socialist, and lacks the centralization for a government-run state capitalist economy. Why are so many people treating this change as one making democratic socialism impossible? How did so many people gloss over the new economic law that is literally "the socialism economy?" The actual design change means you can't do state capitalism instead of actual worker ownership of the means of production as a democratic council republic. And yet so many people are here to either support or denounce the idea that democracy is inherently capitalist when, if anything, the game is forcing you to be more *directly* socialist if you're a democratic council republic.

 

[unmerged(60177)]

At the moment this is required since Cooperative Ownership is such a radical economic shift that it should require multiple legal changes to implement. I do think there is room for mixing co-ops and government ownership into the regular economic laws but we'd need to do in a way that you can't just eliminate the aristocrats by changing some PMs.

In regards to this, I don't think co-ops should necessarily eliminate aristocrats.

Denmark had and still has a very large co-op movement (Andelsbevægelsen) especially in the agricultural sector.
As Swedes, I'm sure you know something about this, since Arla is a co-op.
The way it works in Denmark, is that the amount of input you have, equates your share of the profits.
So in a dairy co-op with 100 farmers, the large local farmer, who might input 20% of the milk, also gets around 20% of the profits, but usually doesn't have more voting rights, than the guy who inputs 0.5% of the milk.
It's been similar with industrial butchering, flour mills, banks, even local health insurance before there was free state health care in Denmark.

Early on, this was a way for the farmers to become independent of the Aristocrats who owned a lot of the dairy production, Mills and so on, but if of course didn't eliminate those aristocrats.
Indeed, the largest dairy in the world at the time, was a co-op of large aristocratic milkproducers built in central Zealand in 1899. So this was a co-op meant exclusively for the aristocrats. Indeed, Edward the 7th visited it in 1904 with the Danish King, and the Royal family of Siam visited in 1934.

Later on, once the conflict shifted to being with the workers in the cities, the dynamics changed, and the aristocrats and farmers became allies against the urban workers. And today, most of the large aristocratic farming estates in Denmark, are part of Co-ops like Alra or similar companies.

My point is, aristocrats shouldn't be eliminated by co-op PMs in the sectors they are active in, namely farming and lumber. Rather, the profitmargin should increase for everyone involved, and capitalists should be eliminated.
There hasn't really been a mining industry in Denmark, so I don't know if some of the iron or steel Mills in the UK were co-ops, or how they worked.

 

[Maxwell Tornado]

Denmark had and still has a very large co-op movement (Andelsbevægelsen) especially in the agricultural sector.

Agriculture being a coop seems to be a recurring trend. Under socialism in Hungary, we of course had planned economy, but agriculture in particular was ran as "production cooperatives" (termelőszövetkezet). They were representative democracies with multiple committes, because soviet model.

 

[Ramidel]

Agriculture being a coop seems to be a recurring trend.

Most agricultural co-ops aren't co-ops in the same sense as factory co-ops, where the workers as a group own the whole thing. Rather, they're service cooperatives; each farmer owns their own small farm, and the co-op handles stuff that's too big for a single farmer (which can include stuff like owning the equipment, buying seed and fertilizer at bulk prices, selling the product, sometimes doing some manufacturing too, or serving as a credit union to raise funds). It's a very different calculus from a factory.

Which isn't to say that a hybrid model shouldn't be possible, of course. The Soviet Union tried it - it's just that the kolkhozy ended up being de facto state farms anyway because Stalin was not big on self management.

 

[grommile]

There hasn't really been a mining industry in Denmark, so I don't know if some of the iron or steel Mills in the UK were co-ops, or how they worked.

Steelmakers in the UK in 1836-1936 were conventionally capitalist enterprises.

The steelmaking industry was nationalized in 1946, reprivatized in 1952, nationalized again in 1967 (and treated as a loss-making source of employment in Northern England and South Wales rather than as a profit-making enterprise), and finally reprivatized in 1988.

 

[Ramidel]

And yet so many people are here to either support or denounce the idea that democracy is inherently capitalist when, if anything, the game is forcing you to be more *directly* socialist if you're a democratic council republic.

I didn't say that or anything like it, so please don't put words in my mouth. I said that the devs have decided that voters under any kind of democratic system won't go for a command economy. That's it. I didn't say a thing about cooperative ownership - or even "socialism" at all.

 

[Maxwell Tornado]

Most agricultural co-ops aren't co-ops in the same sense as factory co-ops, where the workers as a group own the whole thing. Rather, they're service cooperatives; each farmer owns their own small farm, and the co-op handles stuff that's too big for a single farmer (which can include stuff like owning the equipment, buying seed and fertilizer at bulk prices, selling the product, sometimes doing some manufacturing too, or serving as a credit union to raise funds). It's a very different calculus from a factory.

Which isn't to say that a hybrid model shouldn't be possible, of course. The Soviet Union tried it - it's just that the kolkhozy ended up being de facto state farms anyway because Stalin was not big on self management.

That's what we had. Forceful collectivisation that took all the farmland away from everyone, and merged it all into co-ops. It has a wiki article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collectivization_in_Hungary

Small individual farms were explicitly banned, to everyone's detriment.

 

[unmerged(60177)]

Most agricultural co-ops aren't co-ops in the same sense as factory co-ops, where the workers as a group own the whole thing. Rather, they're service cooperatives; each farmer owns their own small farm, and the co-op handles stuff that's too big for a single farmer (which can include stuff like owning the equipment, buying seed and fertilizer at bulk prices, selling the product, sometimes doing some manufacturing too, or serving as a credit union to raise funds). It's a very different calculus from a factory.

Which isn't to say that a hybrid model shouldn't be possible, of course. The Soviet Union tried it - it's just that the kolkhozy ended up being de facto state farms anyway because Stalin was not big on self management.

This is a good point, which I didn't thi k about.

The Danish agricultural co-ops are and were, private farmers taking their own milk or pigs to a co-op Dairy or Abbatoir, where they collectively made and sold things like butter and bacon.
So the farmers often still had labourers actings paid farmworkers, and the co-op would often have employees as well.

So it might not be covered by Vic3's "Workers co-op", but it is one of the most effective co-op forms in the world.

Currently the Arla, the world's 9th largest dairy company, as well as Danish Crown, Europe's largest producer of pork and the world's largest pork exporter are both farmer co-ops.

 

[Lys91]

Under a democracy, what you are likely to obtain rather than a planned economy is state capitalism. I don't think there are any examples of democratic government that adopted a planned economy. I would be happy to hear if there are any examples.

This is a good point, which I didn't thi k about.

The Danish agricultural co-ops are and were, private farmers taking their own milk or pigs to a co-op Dairy or Abbatoir, where they collectively made and sold things like butter and bacon.
So the farmers often still had labourers actings paid farmworkers, and the co-op would often have employees as well.

So it might not be covered by Vic3's "Workers co-op", but it is one of the most effective co-op forms in the world.

Currently the Arla, the world's 9th largest dairy company, as well as Danish Crown, Europe's largest producer of pork and the world's largest pork exporter are both farmer co-ops.

I think that is something relatively common across Europe (especially in the agricultural sector). I don't know how common it is in other parts of the world.

 

[Comrade_Winter]

I welcome this changes.
I just refus that to get Planned Economy you have to get autocracy or oligarchy. Also democracies can have it if you administrate the state democratically it's not impossible to have a planned economy.

Plus: please add one party state :*

 

[Maxwell Tornado]

Plus: please add one party state :*

I'm kind of struggling to come up with ways in which one-party states are different from oligarchies, to be honest. I won't object to their inclusion, but I'm failing to fully justify it.

 

[BrotherJonathan]

I'm kind of struggling to come up with ways in which one-party states are different from oligarchies, to be honest. I won't object to their inclusion, but I'm failing to fully justify it.

Agreed. It could definitely be included but I don't really see what it would bring to the game other than adding flavor of you're playing as a communist or fascist government.

 

[Jamaican Castle]

I'm kind of struggling to come up with ways in which one-party states are different from oligarchies, to be honest. I won't object to their inclusion, but I'm failing to fully justify it.

From a gameplay perspective, I guess, it's that Oligarchies always support the same interest groups, whereas a one-party state could be, say, Armed Forces.

 

[BrotherJonathan]

From a gameplay perspective, I guess, it's that Oligarchies always support the same interest groups, whereas a one-party state could be, say, Armed Forces.

But in game terms isn't that just an autocracy?

 

[Maxwell Tornado]

From a gameplay perspective, I guess, it's that Oligarchies always support the same interest groups, whereas a one-party state could be, say, Armed Forces.

Yeah, it's kind of bizarre that in your comunist/fascist oligarchy, the aristocrats and capitalists have more political power, but I think that's a broader issue with the distribution of power laws. Vanguardists already want an autocracy, which boosts aristocrat political power... Because logic. This isn't even a difficult fix, just change autocracy from aristocrats to the head of state's IG, and oligarchy from aristocrats and capitalists to IGs in government. And the voting models shouldn't have these kinds of boosts at all, because they already have voting, and all the modifiers that come with that.

 

[agaabrieel]

Sometimes I think players have a bit of trouble distinguishing between proposals that would contribute to the gameplay and are still in the game's scope and 'what if lol that'd be cool' proposals. The latter is in the scope of mods.