Capitalists cant build things?

[ShamanMcLamie]

Province resources alone are not enough. Demand/supply balance of the goods need to be a large factor. I am not sure about randomness in choice either. I would prefer capitalists to build the factory that would provide best ROI (computed from the current state of market), province resources would go into this calculations (assuming they provide some bonus). it's not ideal in a long-term because it would tend to produce cycles - if everyone starts producing goods in demand it will soon lead to oversupply and factories start losing money. This is close to the real-world behaviour though.


I like this idea. It works as a way for player to nudge economy in the desired direction. One could build seemingly unattractive industry in anticipation of some changes in the world and later sell it to capitalists (possibly with profit). On the other side, the state may also purchase some unprofitable industries from the capitalists if it wants to keep them running.

That is a really good point about markets I didn't think about. I guess what you could have is a weight towards what is naturally best for a province, with another weight towards what the market demands, and finally a third, but smaller weight for randomness because Capitalists don't always make the best investments. A laissez faire economy will strengthen the market weight where as a more command economy wights the capitalist towards regional resources. Imposing more economic controls like subsidies ensure certain industries you want develop, but not as fast if they were purely capitalist driven. There is also the political consideration like unemployment and pop satisfaction. For example tariffs can help boost a local industry, but also dissatisfy pops that want that good.

I think the balance should be between laissez faire that benefits long term economic growth and growth of industry that will generate more overall resources and income, but the state doesn't have direct access and control over those resources and income. You have greater economic growth, but you might not have as easy of access to key resources which could be crucial to satisfying certain pops, developing infrastructure, or other goods like weapons needed for war.

Where as state control is more about securing certain resources and pleasing certain pops politically. For example you might want to ensure you have enough steel to produce weapons so you could subsidize the steel and weapons factories to guarantee those goods are produced, but they won't grow as fast than if purely driven by capitalist. A possible decision is to ban their sale on international markets(basically every country has an internal market and all combine into the international market), but those industries will take a growth hit as a result. You could also nationalize industries to absolutely secure those resources, but they take another growth hit.

There is also politics. For example it might be ideal to leave certain industries in the hands of the Capitalist, but you could have a large block of nationalists and socialists demanding the government take control of those industries and tariffs to protect them. You could also have the opposite situation where capitalists, industrialists and farmers want privatization and free markets when you desperately need to secure access to certain resources.