Ship Hulls For Tanks - Pocket Empire - Arguing W/The Foolish

[barnest2]

The above is dead on.
It still costs just as much/ a little more to create your tanks, you just don't have the utility of money for paying your workers, instead you have to reward them in some way such as with goods (which can be inaccurate/inefficient)... but you cant pay them, which is the best way of rewarding them really...
People are not going to work for 'the good of humanity' like it says in star trek... that's just silly... people are far too greedy for that...

 

[Solomani666]

Cost in MGT terms is not a factor.

This all came from an idea I had; what if you had a government without amonetary economy, but instead had a resource based economy. Then the only constraints for building anything would be time, physical resources, and the desire or need to do so. This would also eliminate the root cause of for the evential demise of all republics... Fiscal irresponsibility.

But by eliminating money you're not eliminating cost at all, you're only eliminating a standard way to compare the relative value of things. The costs in terms of resources, time and most importantly labour (the key component of any measure of value, which I think it's telling that you didn't mention) are still exactly the same. However what you have done is eliminate any way to compare the relative values of those resources, time and labour compared to each other.

Simon Hibbs

You should read a post before answering

 

[barnest2]

Cost in MGT terms is not a factor.

This all came from an idea I had; what if you had a government without amonetary economy, but instead had a resource based economy. Then the only constraints for building anything would be time, physical resources, and the desire or need to do so. This would also eliminate the root cause of for the evential demise of all republics... Fiscal irresponsibility.

But by eliminating money you're not eliminating cost at all, you're only eliminating a standard way to compare the relative value of things. The costs in terms of resources, time and most importantly labour (the key component of any measure of value, which I think it's telling that you didn't mention) are still exactly the same. However what you have done is eliminate any way to compare the relative values of those resources, time and labour compared to each other.

Simon Hibbs

You should read a post before answering

Maybe you should follow your own advice. Even if you get rid of money, you are not going to change the cost of things. People will always want paying, even if its not with money...

 

[rust]

People will always want paying, even if its not with money...

Yep. Whether one has to give them 2 kg of food and 2 l of liquid per day
or the money to buy those 2 kg of food and 2 l of liquid, the end result
is identical, 2 kg of food and 2 l of liquid per person will have been used
as a part of the cost to keep the person working. To remove the money
just means that one has to deliver the actual goods, which is a lot more
complex and inefficient.

 

[phavoc]

Per the MGT rules, a small craft designed for the role can kill any tanks designed with vehicle rules. Those small craft could easily replace tanks.

The only consideration left is the cost...

Cost in MGT terms is not a factor.

This all came from an idea I had; what if you had a government without amonetary economy, but instead had a resource based economy. Then the only constraints for building anything would be time, physical resources, and the desire or need to do so. This would also eliminate the root cause of for the evential demise of all republics... Fiscal irresponsibility.

At the highest level, they are governed by leaders from each major family group (simplified model).

Given the above, and that they have a culture where starships and ground forces are crewed/composed of family units, you get a situation where vehicles and equipment are driven by social forces to be the very best their society can make.

Lenin would be crying in his grave...

What you propose is possible, just improbable. At least with human culture today. Star Trek - The Next Generation had much the same thing. Money was irrelevant, everyone had access to basic food and shelter. But even under that sort of 'utopian' society, there were limits. All resources are finite, and therefore choices must be made. In a perfect environment, the allocation of resources would be logical and based upon needs and priorities set by some sort of governing body. So building uber tanks would seem to be a waste of resources unless the society was under a dire threat. Otherwise military expenditures are waste, since they produce nothing and return nothing. On the other hand, if you don't have them when the time requires, the price you pay there is pretty high as well.

As far as the rest, it almost seems like the society you propose would be more of a hive-mind based than an individualistic one. Under that sort of social architecture the economic system would work. Though if you were wanting a culture that had some units that excelled beyond the standard military unit you would most likely need a militaristic society that embraced martial perfection and drove the people to success in military skills. Which would put negative pressure on other areas of society that weren't seen as important. Or perhaps at least. It's all theory.

Thankfully it's Traveller... anything and everything is possible! Just say 'Grandfather made it so!'.

 

[Solomani666]

Cost in MGT terms is not a factor.

This all came from an idea I had; what if you had a government without amonetary economy, but instead had a resource based economy. Then the only constraints for building anything would be time, physical resources, and the desire or need to do so. This would also eliminate the root cause of for the evential demise of all republics... Fiscal irresponsibility.

But by eliminating money you're not eliminating cost at all, you're only eliminating a standard way to compare the relative value of things. The costs in terms of resources, time and most importantly labour (the key component of any measure of value, which I think it's telling that you didn't mention) are still exactly the same. However what you have done is eliminate any way to compare the relative values of those resources, time and labour compared to each other.

In fact the costs in your economy are likely to be much higher, becasue by eliminating money you're taking away a vital tool the economic planners need to manage the relative priorities of work and goods. This is likely to create inefficiencies.

For example, your economy won't know if it's overproducing certain goods unless it has a top notch way to measure relative demand. You can estimate demand by asking people what they think their requirement might be, but what poeple think and what they do can be very different. For example there's a huge difference between asking people what they might pay for something, and actualy seeing what they do pay for it with real money. You need a reliable way to measure people's relative needs for different things, and a way to adjust that relative need dynamicaly in real time. Price is a realy excellent way to do that.

Simon Hibbs

You are still thinking inside the box.

Their economy is extremely efficient. If for example grav cars are invented, each member of [congress] goes back to their [constituants] and asks each nuclear familly...How many grav cars do you need, and how many do you want? The numbers go back to [congress] who then allocated the resourses for production. Orders for types and features are taken then production is started. If a lot of cars are needed right away, then large portions of the population are mobilized and trained for the task.

After the need is fulfilled, production is scalled down to per order levels.

Now that the need has been fulfilled so the empire can function, next comes the want. Want production is handled by smaller family or individualy operated shops. This is the phase where Maserati grav vehicles appear. Low yearly quantities, exotic materials, attention paid to every tiny detail, and branded by the name of the family that runs the production shop.

There is a type of money that for peoples wants. If Maserati produces only 100 cars per year, then 80 of those cars will probably go to his clique (pear group, usually persons from your school). 15 might go to high profile people to increase the fame of the Maserati car brand. For the remaining 5 cars, Maserati creates 5 coins and gives them away usually as prizes or in a lottery. This allows people of lower status to obtain wanted items above their social rank.

Very very efficient. No economic indicators are needed. You simply ask the people what they need and it is up to the government to see that they get it. Items you want that are above your social status may take a bit of trading and barganing.


.

 

[barnest2]

Except you still need to pay the people building these things. And it is much easier and more efficient to pay them with money than with goods.
And you are seriously proposing training the masses to build any product?

What do you pay the teachers? How do the students afford to eat? How do you pay the farmers making the food? How do you pay people in this economy? through goods yes?
YOU HAVE NOT TAKEN AWAY THE COST OF THINGS!
There are costs inherent in anything, not matter how you distribute them...

 

[phavoc]

Cost in MGT terms is not a factor.

This all came from an idea I had; what if you had a government without amonetary economy, but instead had a resource based economy. Then the only constraints for building anything would be time, physical resources, and the desire or need to do so. This would also eliminate the root cause of for the evential demise of all republics... Fiscal irresponsibility.

But by eliminating money you're not eliminating cost at all, you're only eliminating a standard way to compare the relative value of things. The costs in terms of resources, time and most importantly labour (the key component of any measure of value, which I think it's telling that you didn't mention) are still exactly the same. However what you have done is eliminate any way to compare the relative values of those resources, time and labour compared to each other.

In fact the costs in your economy are likely to be much higher, becasue by eliminating money you're taking away a vital tool the economic planners need to manage the relative priorities of work and goods. This is likely to create inefficiencies.

For example, your economy won't know if it's overproducing certain goods unless it has a top notch way to measure relative demand. You can estimate demand by asking people what they think their requirement might be, but what poeple think and what they do can be very different. For example there's a huge difference between asking people what they might pay for something, and actualy seeing what they do pay for it with real money. You need a reliable way to measure people's relative needs for different things, and a way to adjust that relative need dynamicaly in real time. Price is a realy excellent way to do that.

Simon Hibbs

You are still thinking inside the box.

Their economy is extremely efficient. If for example grav cars are invented, each member of [congress] goes back to their [constituants] and asks each nuclear familly...How many grav cars do you need, and how many do you want? The numbers go back to [congress] who then allocated the resourses for production. Orders for types and features are taken then production is started. If a lot of cars are needed right away, then large portions of the population are mobilized and trained for the task.

After the need is fulfilled, production is scalled down to per order levels.

Now that the need has been fulfilled so the empire can function, next comes the want. Want production is handled by smaller family or individualy operated shops. This is the phase where Maserati grav vehicles appear. Low yearly quantities, exotic materials, attention paid to every tiny detail, and branded by the name of the family that runs the production shop.

Very very efficient. No economic indicators are needed. You simply ask the people what they need and it is up to the government to see that they get it.

That's ineffecient in a different way. That's how communism (old-school) was supposed to work. The biggest problem was the corruptness of people. Russians used to have a running joke... I'll pretend to work and you pretend to pay me.

Money is just another way to allocate scarce resources. It allows someone to "vote" their desires by exchanging money for goods or services.

While capitalism is wasteful in some ways, it's also brutally effecient in many other ways. The scramble for a slice of the consumer pie forces companies to constantly innovate to beat the competition. Companies who make shoddy goods are put out of business because people won't buy them.

A good tech example is the cheap long distance network and fiber optics. When MCI was around and came up with the brilliant idea of buying massive amounts of minutes in bulk very cheaply they were able to capture a large segement of the lucrative US market. Using their money they realized they could make even more by building their own lines. They started laying fiber optics to do so. This forced AT&T to move forward their introduction of fiber optics by more than 10 years.

In your perfect society what would be the drive to innovate? I don't see much push internally (what's the need?), so it would most likely external forces driving them.

 

[rust]

Their economy is extremely efficient ...

You could have copied this almost verbatim from one of the brochures
about the economy of the GDR which once were printed in East Berlin.
They tried it for fourty years, and Germans are usually very good at
making things work. This thing did not work, for all the reasons which
have already been mentioned above.

However, as has also been mentioned, this here is Traveller. If you want
it to work in your universe, it will. Just do not try to look at it closely, or
to define how it does work ... :wink:

 

[barnest2]

However, as has also been mentioned, this here is Traveller. If you want
it to work in your universe, it will. Just do not try to look at it closely, or
to define how it does work ... :wink:

No, don't give him comfort in his advice. He might think he is right I'm joking of course, you can of course do what you want in your universe... I just like there to be some level of realism in my governments...

Unless its a feudal technocracy... I just ignore that one...

 

[rust]

The biggest problem was the corruptness of people.

Thinking about the GDR, their main problem was more the complexity of
an economy.

To take cars as an example, people do not just need "a car", different
people need different types of cars, and they need them now, not at the
end of a production cycle. Moreover, their needs tend to change often and
in a rather unpredictable way.

The task of planning all this, from the education of the workers to the con-
struction of the assembly lines of the right products to the delivery of the
right amounts of the right raw materials to the production schedule to de-
liver the right products at the right time - all this was a problem that was
impossible to solve for any central institution, no matter how hard they
tried.

Without any reliable means to know the future, all that is left is guess-
work, and the complex network of companies and customers in a capita-
list society is simply much better at guessing, because there different
companies make different guesses, and some of them have a good chan-
ce to make the right guess and produce the right goods at the right time.

 

[DFW]

This all came from an idea I had; what if you had a government without amonetary economy, but instead had a resource based economy.

In reality, a fiat currency based econ IS a resource/production based econ. End game is no different as the currency is only as valuable as the production of the entity...

 

[Solomani666]

It's a very simple concept.

It's a Democratic government with a resource based economy where people are assigned positions based on merit and have the overwhelming consent of those governed.

It's a tech level 15/16 society with enough resources to fulfill all of the needs of its citizenry and nearly all of their desires.

If you have everything you need and nearly everything you want, then money becomes pointless. Most crimes also become pointless.

Corruption is much harder to conceal as it is pretty difficult to pass 5000 tons of titanium under the table. Also the penalties are much greater the higher someones status in society. But the main question would by "why would you do it in the first place?" If you are in the position to actually be bribed for 5000 tons of titanium, then you are also in the position where you can simply request just about anything you might want that the person bribed you with anyway.

 

[barnest2]

Corruption is much harder to conceal as it is pretty difficult to pass 5000 tons of titanium under the table.

In a tl15/16 society, it would be particularly easy...

If you have everything you need and nearly everything you want, then money becomes pointless.

You can keep saying this. It doesn't change the fact that things have a cost even so. why would people work, if they get nothing for their work?
And just saying that they get what they want isn't good enough.

What you're going for is a perfect utopian meritocracy (I don't think you can combine this with democracy)... which is possible, if people stop being greedy... good luck with that one...

 

[Solomani666]

This all came from an idea I had; what if you had a government without amonetary economy, but instead had a resource based economy.

In reality, a fiat currency based econ IS a resource/production based econ. End game is no different as the currency is only as valuable as the production of the entity...

Fiat currency is NOT a resource/production based economy, hense the term 'fiat'. Fiat currency can best be described as a corruption based economy since banks create money out of thin air by lending money they do not have and then collecting interest off that money that never existed in the first place. Hence fiat currency can not be in any way a resource/production economy. In fact most of the money in the world does not even exist at all.

.

 

[phavoc]

It's a very simple concept.

It's a Democratic government with a resource based economy where people are assigned positions based on merit and have the overwhelming consent of those governed.

It's a tech level 15/16 society with enough resources to fulfill all of the needs of its citizenry and nearly all of their desires.

If you have everything you need and nearly everything you want, then money becomes pointless. Most crimes also become pointless.

Corruption is much harder to conceal as it is pretty difficult to pass 5000 tons of titanium under the table. Also the penalties are much greater the higher someones status in society. But the main question would by "why would you do it in the first place?" If you are in the position to actually be bribed for 5000 tons of titanium, then you are also in the position where you can simply request just about anything you might want that the person bribed you with anyway.

Umm, well, not really. At least not in the human condition as humans are today. Avarice, lust, hate, etc... all still exist. Simply having all those material goods around would not necessarily reduce incidents of corruption. Most people are corruptable because either they are a) underpaid and use corruption as another source of income, or b) they are greedy and while they have their needs met already, they simply want more. And you said it well - "...and nearly all of their desires". They still have desires, and some will go unmet through normal channels. They are gonig to try to meet those desires some other way (theft, therapy, pharmaceuticals, whatever)

A society that can meet the needs of its people would eliminate a), but certainly not b). The recent devestation in Japan shows a very orderly society trying to recover from a massive disaster. There isn't any looting going on, or groups of people robbing the local Best Buy for TV's. Had that happened in the US I'm betting we'd have seen more videos of lootings, etc going on. Japan has a very orderly society, and in some ways would be akin to what you are proposing. But they still have corruption, organized crime, etc. On the surface it seems all nice and orderly, but they are human like the rest of us and have their vices.

This is, after all, a game, so sure your society can exist in Traveller. And flourish as well. But its not something that would really work with the current human condition. Not that I can tell from history at least.

 

[DFW]

It's a Democratic government with a resource based economy where people are assigned positions based on merit and have the overwhelming consent of those governed.

Those two don't work together necessarily. You have defined that positions, are assigned by popular vote (democratic government) AND a Meritocracy (position assigned by objective criteria)...

 

[atpollard]

So what happens when citizen Alpha (that's me) in this TL 15/16 society decides that I prefer to spend 3 days with my family and work 4 days (32 hours per week)?

Next Tuesday (since I always hated working Mondays anyway) I tell all my co-workers about how great it was to spend three days with my children at the beach. They are impressed, recognize the far greater quality of life that this entails, blog about it and the entire world goes from a 40 hour work week to a 32 hour work week.

World wide productivity drops 20%, but general happiness increases 15% (more requests for 'wants' are denied due to the reduced productivity.) The 'want shortage' increases stress at work from the pressure to produce more to meet demand.

Bill, director of operations at the widget assembly facility where I repair robots, starts to develop high blood pressure from the stress and the doctor instructs Bill to work Monday, Weds and Friday so he can rest between days of work. It does the trick and Bill never looked better, so we all try it and go from a 40 hour work week to a new 24 hour work week. World wide productivity declines by 40% from its 40 hour work week levels.

Now everyone starts to feel real stress as all 'wants' are denied and some 'needs' are in short supply. So we take another day off per week to start a garden so we won't go hungry ...

What prevents this?
What incentive makes people choose hard jobs vs easy jobs?
Why work harder? Why innovate?

What motivation replaces money?

 

[DFW]

It's a tech level 15/16 society with enough resources to fulfill all of the needs of its citizenry and nearly all of their desires.

If you have everything you need and nearly everything you want, then money becomes pointless. Most crimes also become pointless.

Who produces the goods & services for the populace?

 

[DFW]

Fiat currency is NOT a resource/production based economy,

I'm afraid you misunderstand why one would have a Fiat currency vs. something like a gold standard and how it can be operated...