Business Cycles

[unmerged(6473)]

How will Victoria treat business cycles? How can they be modeled? When playing EU, for example, I never really had any sense of business cycles occurring.

In real life, both today and in the Victoria time period, economic recessions were a very important factor. In fact, the quest to find new markets, to exploit cheap labor, and to gain raw materials was what drove the imperialism of this time period. The industrialized countries wanted and NEEDED colonies in order both to have economic stability and to avoid economic recession.

How will this very important thing be treated by the game? In other words, how exactly will a business cycle downturn be modeled? And what exactly will be the negative economic repurcussions for not having sufficient colonies?

In real life, economic recession means no profits for the capitalists, so they get mad. Also, and more importantly, on the working class level of society, it means unemployment and inflation, and these things can mean greater unrest in the game model. That is, more chance of riots, rebellion, coup, revolution, and so forth. Demonstrations are just the first step in all of this.

Funny thing is that when we play games like EU / EU2, it is almost like we are running a centrally planned economy--we have state resources, centralized plan, centralized investment, state budget, manpower and military resources available to the state, and so forth. Where is the private sector? I know that we have to do this for purposes of the game, but do you not see the unrealism of it? It is almost a philosophical point--that is, who exactly IS the player? Give the player control of EVERYTHING and EVERYONE in the country, and your model is far closer to Stalin or Hitler and called "totalitarianism". So when you are playing Spain in EU and you send out Columbus, who exactly are you the player--the king of Spain? Everybody in Spain? Columbus? You see how it is a bit unrealistic to have the player in control of everything in this EU time period as well as in Victoria.

Back to the main point, you can't really have the true implications of economic recessions if the player has full control of everyone in the country. The capitalists, the workers, and the government are all separate though interconnected things. Whom exactly will the player control? If he controls the government, then he should be placed under pressure from the others to expand and to seize colonies. But if the colonies are not obtained, then there must be some real and negative consequences. But what will those be in the game? How can we accurately model these things to make Victoria a great and realistic game?

I thank you in advance for your wise comments.

 

[Johnny Canuck]

You touch on a really important point here, with respect to the degree & "nature" of the player's control over a state. I would suspect that the player will remain some sort of "power behind the throne," similar to EU2 - if the player was a faction, or even a government, what happens when said faction is defeated or the government is overthrown. Having said that, I agree that the player should not have too much control over their country. Things like economic fluctuations should be beyond the control of the player - they were certainly beyond the control of governments of the time. I would love to see things like delays in implementing orders, exploration expeditions funded & launched by "private" agencies, etc., to simulate that the government is only one player in a given state (powerful, but not omnipotent).

In particular, though, I hope that colonial expansion is not linked too close to economics. The German drive for colonies was very unprofitable, but was undertaken for reasons of national "honour" & to placate certain domestic pressure groups. Economics actually had very little to do with imperialism - the primary markets for imperial states like France & Germany were other European states, not colonies.

 

[unmerged(5664)]

Wow EB. - do you ever have an ideological axe to grind...

 

[DGuller]

Originally posted by Johnny Canuck
You touch on a really important point here, with respect to the degree & "nature" of the player's control over a state. I would suspect that the player will remain some sort of "power behind the throne," similar to EU2 - if the player was a faction, or even a government, what happens when said faction is defeated or the government is overthrown. Having said that, I agree that the player should not have too much control over their country. Things like economic fluctuations should be beyond the control of the player - they were certainly beyond the control of governments of the time. I would love to see things like delays in implementing orders, exploration expeditions funded & launched by "private" agencies, etc., to simulate that the government is only one player in a given state (powerful, but not omnipotent).

In particular, though, I hope that colonial expansion is not linked too close to economics. The German drive for colonies was very unprofitable, but was undertaken for reasons of national "honour" & to placate certain domestic pressure groups. Economics actually had very little to do with imperialism - the primary markets for imperial states like France & Germany were other European states, not colonies.

It would be interesting and unpredictable making strategy games work like that. You don't send explorers, you either encourage or discourage exploration politically or monetarily. You don't micro-manage your colonies, you give the governor of the colony a budget, and they do what they feel is necessary with it (pocketing some of it also ). You don't send out colonists, you merely give a priority list of what you want to colonize, and your minister would figure out the rest. You don't direct armies, you simply appoint a general, and your army is just as likely to be a bunch of idiots attacking across the river into the mountain province as AI, given a poor choice of a general, with a bigger chance of idiot appointees in an autocratic form of government. With this system, you can actually badly lose a war you started, making world conquest difficult, and game more unpredictable.

 

[cthulhu]

Originally posted by EB.

First, there is the economic imperialism. That is the profitable kind. That is the kind that the US has over most of the world right now. You don't have to bother with actually governing the colonies--let them pretend to be independent and to pretend to manage their own affairs. Ultimately, they are nothing but the victims of a great vampire. This is the imperialism of free trade.

Did you just call the U.S. a great vampire sucking the lifeblood of the people of this planet? My, my...

 

[Johnny Canuck]

Originally posted by EB.
Thanks for the reply, but as for the German imperialist drive, I would have to add some comments. It is true that the colonies were unprofitable for the government of Germany, but the archives of the period of full of documents from German industrialists demanding that Bismarck or his successors get colonies for Germany, and these key individuals did make a lot of profit on the colonies. So, maybe the German government lost money, but the profiteers did make their profits nontheless. The German hunger for colonies was especially intense during the periods of economic distress. Meanwhile, Britain with its huge empire could absorb the shocks of economic recession far better. The key thing is access to markets. If you cannot sell your goods somewhere, then the warehouses fill up, then you lay people off, then the workers cannot afford to buy as much, then demand lowers even more, then the warehouses fill up even more, and so on. The colonies help to solve all of this bad economic cycle.

It is fashionable to say that colonies were just a subjective thing, a matter of honor or prestige, and that they were costly and unprofitable. In real fact, the imperialists wanted colonies in order to exploit them for a profit. The key is profit. Access to markets, cheap labor, and natural resources. It was not about feeling good but about markets. It is no accident that Britain fell as a great power precisely when it lost its empire. The whole people of the imperialist nations were taught to want colonies for their empire, but that is because they were being propagandized by the big corporate media which of course were under the control of the very forces who would make the most profit from colonies.

So, when somebody says "colonies were unprofitable", we must be very, very suspicious. Colonies were in fact profitable, as long as you consider exactly who is making the profits. Bismarck hated the idea of colonies--they cost money from the budget, they threatened to embroil Germany in conflicts with other great powers, and so forth--but still we see that he and his successor had to join in the drive for colonies because their capitalists so demanded. It is all about profit.

I'm not sure that access to markets is the key, as you mentioned. In fact, I tend to think that colonies as markets were rather irrelevant in terms of economic fluctuations. Most imperial states traded with each other far more than they traded with their colonies. You mentioned that Britain, with its vast markets, could absorb a recession more easily. And yet, from 1873 onwards, the British economy entered a period of recession that was prolonged & was directly related to the relative decline of the British economy vis-a-vis the American & German economy. This decline occurred at the same time as the British Empire expanded. By your logic, the late 19th century should have seen the British economy expanding relatively (due to an expanding empire) & the German economy being left behind (due to acquiring only a few poor second-rate colonies). However, this period saw precisely the opposite occur.

You are right to differentiate between the desires of the state and the desires of the private sector, but I do not think that one can draw a direct link between the desires of capitalists & the actions of the state. I recently read an interesting article on Krupp which demonstrated that he did not influence the German government, even as he profited (though not enormously) from the actions of the German state. In terms of the naval arms race, German fixed on this strategy not because Krupp wanted the state to buy his steel, but because certain state actors (Wilhelm II, Tirpitz, etc.) felt that it was the proper strategy considering their strategic & diplomatic position. If anything, Krupp became a prisoner of the German state. Considering his industry, his only possible client that could guarantee his business was the state, but the state could & often did threaten to go to his competitors if he did not offer cut-rate prices & other incentives.

Plus, remember that there are traditionally two kinds of imperialism.

First, there is the economic imperialism. That is the profitable kind. That is the kind that the US has over most of the world right now. You don't have to bother with actually governing the colonies--let them pretend to be independent and to pretend to manage their own affairs. Ultimately, they are nothing but the victims of a great vampire. This is the imperialism of free trade.

Then there is the second kind which is political imperialism. This is when the imperialist country must take direct and open control over the colony. This is only done when the first form of imperialism is for whatever reason not working. This form is costly and unprofitable though still necessary. When political imperialism allows economic imperialism to continue without restraint, then the costs of the former are usually far outweighed by the profits of the latter. This is more the imperialism of monopolies, of restraining trade of the colony with rival imperialist powers.

This is an important distinction, although I would add the caveat that most leaders in the 19th century (or today for that matter) did not understand the difference or the risk/reward of the possible types of action abroad. I would, though, not quite agree with the vampire analogy.

 

[unmerged(8622)]

WOW. Never have I heard someone have the exact views and feelings on the state of things. It is incredibly refreshing to see someone out there also shares my views on USA imperialism.
-SS

 

[unmerged(2567)]

Originally posted by Shadow Soldier
WOW. Never have I heard someone have the exact views and feelings on the state of things. It is incredibly refreshing to see someone out there also shares my views on USA imperialism.
-SS

Although it may well be said in less...expressive ways, though I agree wholeheartedly in principle.

 

[unmerged(2695)]

Originally posted by EB.
How will Victoria treat business cycles? How can they be modeled? When playing EU, for example, I never really had any sense of business cycles occurring.

Busniess cycles should be in. They are historically easy to simulate. As the major constraint on economic activity in the period was the money supply they can be linked to gold finds - as the cycles themselves were. To make the game a bit more unpredictable gold can be found in any previously unexplored province.

Another way is to hardcode the business cycles.

In real life, both today and in the Victoria time period, economic recessions were a very important factor. In fact, the quest to find new markets, to exploit cheap labor, and to gain raw materials was what drove the imperialism of this time period. The industrialized countries wanted and NEEDED colonies in order both to have economic stability and to avoid economic recession.

Hobson/Lenin explanation simply does not do justice to the phenomenon of imperialism. In fact, it clouds the issue. The largest overseas European market, for goods as well as capital, in the 19th Century was the North American. The second largest South America. Then East Asia. Africa was, then as now, irrelevant.

The driving factors behind imperialism are exactly the same that are motivating contemporary "international development": Humantarian concerns and national prestige - and a pie-in-the-sky promise of profits.

I won't deny economic motivations. But they must be put in their right perspective. That huge profits were to be made was one of the arguments the colonial lobbies used to sell their policies to reluctant governments. Individual firms made money, even if the Hamburg and Bremen trading houses that instigated German impeiralism in Africa and the Pacific went bankrupt and none of the Chartered Companies set up by British interests to further expnasion in Africa ever turned a profit.

However, the basic motive force for the "new" imperialism in Africa and the Pacific in ythe 19th Century was in fact humanitarian concerns as exploited for domestic political purposes.

When the slave trade was abolished in the 1830s it was humanitarian concerns - the anti-slavery and missionary lobby - that ensured that Britain stayed in West Africa. Figthing slavery and protecting missionaries was something "enlighteneed" European opinion very much wanted their governments to do. In a world with limited access to entertainment missionary society meeting were as much part of popular entertainement as freak shows and circuses (not to mention the very important fact that the slide shows at these meetings showed naked women - pictures of "negro boobs" were among the chief attractions of such meetings). But the concern for the heathen in Africa was just an overseas extension of the basic concern with social issues at home that gave rise to everything from small scale charties and private social work to labour legislation. The public was attuned to the idea that something had to be done about the evils of the world, at home and well as abroad.

The second motive force was the incipient democratisation of Europe and America. The family farmer, artisan and tradesman were the publicly declared pillars of society from the United States to East Prussia. On the Continent the sentiments of the little man had always been important because a happy soldier is agood soldier. With the extension of the suffrage to the lower middle class his opinions became directly relevant to the existing political elites whether reactionary or progressive. These groups were precisely those that formed the backbone of the missionary movement. "Middle class" morality was after all based on Christian self-improvement through words, works and voluntary public service. An "ethical" foreign policy suppressing slavery and protecting missionaries came natural to them.

This ethical foreign policy was "muscular". It was also extremely nationalistic. European political culture of the early 19th Century was shaped by the national experience of the Napoleonic Wars as seen through the lens of national-liberal theories of the nation and the people. This made for a very aggressive nationalistic culture in all countries. National prestige was a real concern because the nation was a source of pride. The country - the "fatherland" - was not to be slighted by anyone - least of all some heathen cannibal king.

Nationalism is a sentiment that leads itself to political exploitation just like inequality. The first statesman to consciously adopt imperialism as a programme was Disraeli in the 1870s. It was a huge short-term success that kept the Tories in office for a generation. It was fed by the stories about glorious deeds on the battlefield, heoric death against overwhelming odds and the imperial mission of the British races that was the lifeblood of the new mass circulation dailies.

The timing of the new imperialism is thus due to a third independent technological innovation: The mass circulation press made possible by progress in paper and printing technology.
The public craved entertainement and the press needed scoops to sell papers - which was why Gordon Bennet sent Stanley to Africa. The public wanted to read about the things that interested them. The best stories then as now were about wars, disasters and human misery. The Band Aid effect was just as important in the 1870s as in the 1980s.

The third motive force behind imperialism was economic expansion in itself: The growth in world trade. Commecial nations needed both bases for trade protection, coaling stations and eventually cable stations. Where no "civlized" government existed, as in most of Africa and the Pacific these installations had to be protected - or even builft from scratch.

The globally most important such "station" was in fact Egypt after the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869. It became vital to Britain because it controlled the most convenient route to India. It thus had to be protected. Suez became the pivot of British foreign policy until 1947. But the penetration of the Malayan archipelago was also motivated by security concerns as well as economic opportunities even if Malaya with its rubber and tin was in fact the only "new" colony that ever turned a profit.

The fourth motive force was of course the competitionbetween the powers that imperialism in itself created. But the imperialism of Germany, Italy and the US was in fact secondary. Britain was the global role model of the 19th Century. Given its success copying it had to be the right thing. Since Britain was wealthy and had colonies, colonies came to be regarded as a source of wealth. Colonial projects were of course sold as profit-making ventures. So were shares in .com companies.

 

[Zagys]

I agree that the player should only control what a government of the time could reasonably be able to control, not be able to tailor every aspect of the country to the player's exact specifications like in EU.

I disagree however with the Stalinist bullshit and irrational anti-Americanism.

 

[TheArchduke]

Guys that is a dangerous road.. MOO3 really sucks because you haven´t got control of your country really and the AI runs it for you.

 

[unmerged(6473)]

Well there are many motivations for imperialism, and some of these might be "subjective" ones such as religious conversion, spreading civilization, raising national pride, and so forth.

But I would still state the the overwhelmingly important consideration is still the objective consideration of PROFIT. All of the other stuff is just pretense and decoration. Any attempts to prove otherwise are in essences attempts to mask the profit motive in modern imperialism. Bottom line here is that the imperialist countries are rich precisely because their colonies are kept poor, and the colonies are poor precisely because the imperialist powers are rich. The flow of wealth in Victoria time period and ever since has always been from the colonies to the imperialist country. Please do not forget this most important point--otherwise, nothing at all makes any sense. It is all about PROFIT, and all of the rest is just a mask to hide the truth.

As far as missionary zeal, I will defer to the wisdom of Tutu, who stated "Before the European missionaries came, the Europeans had the Bible and we Africans had all of the land; but after the missionaries came, we had the Bible, and the Europeans had all of the land."

Missionary comes, then soldier comes, then merchant comes.

I have a lot of Indian friends who would love to discuss the wonders of British civilization and the question of profits.

 

[Tim O]

Originally posted by EB.
How will Victoria treat business cycles? How can they be modeled? When playing EU, for example, I never really had any sense of business cycles occurring.

In real life, both today and in the Victoria time period, economic recessions were a very important factor. In fact, the quest to find new markets, to exploit cheap labor, and to gain raw materials was what drove the imperialism of this time period. The industrialized countries wanted and NEEDED colonies in order both to have economic stability and to avoid economic recession.

How will this very important thing be treated by the game? In other words, how exactly will a business cycle downturn be modeled? And what exactly will be the negative economic repurcussions for not having sufficient colonies?

In real life, economic recession means no profits for the capitalists, so they get mad. Also, and more importantly, on the working class level of society, it means unemployment and inflation, and these things can mean greater unrest in the game model. That is, more chance of riots, rebellion, coup, revolution, and so forth. Demonstrations are just the first step in all of this.

Funny thing is that when we play games like EU / EU2, it is almost like we are running a centrally planned economy--we have state resources, centralized plan, centralized investment, state budget, manpower and military resources available to the state, and so forth. Where is the private sector? I know that we have to do this for purposes of the game, but do you not see the unrealism of it? It is almost a philosophical point--that is, who exactly IS the player? Give the player control of EVERYTHING and EVERYONE in the country, and your model is far closer to Stalin or Hitler and called "totalitarianism". So when you are playing Spain in EU and you send out Columbus, who exactly are you the player--the king of Spain? Everybody in Spain? Columbus? You see how it is a bit unrealistic to have the player in control of everything in this EU time period as well as in Victoria.

Back to the main point, you can't really have the true implications of economic recessions if the player has full control of everyone in the country. The capitalists, the workers, and the government are all separate though interconnected things. Whom exactly will the player control? If he controls the government, then he should be placed under pressure from the others to expand and to seize colonies. But if the colonies are not obtained, then there must be some real and negative consequences. But what will those be in the game? How can we accurately model these things to make Victoria a great and realistic game?

I thank you in advance for your wise comments.

I like to think that I am the Nation in it's abstract, not an actuall person.

 

[Johnny Canuck]

Hardu - I have to say that that was a simply brilliant post. Imperialism was complex, & it is necessary to link together all of the disparate factors you mentioned to understand it effectively.

EB - I don't think that imperialist countries were rich because their colonies are poor. Britain was not rich because of its colonies - rather, it was rich because it led the first Industrial Revolution & its products were competitive on the European & North American markets. In fact, the Empire was not the single dominant factor either in the rise or decline of British economic dominance.

Think of it this way - a colony cannot be both a source of cheap labour & a market for goods. If the labour is kept poor through low wages, etc., then by definition they would lack the funds to purchase finished goods from the metropole.

This is not to say that profit was not a factor in imperialism, but rather I would say that to focus exclusively on profit & economics would obscure some other more important causes, such as Hardu described.

 

[unmerged(2695)]

Originally posted by EB.
Well there are many motivations for imperialism, and some of these might be "subjective" ones such as religious conversion, spreading civilization, raising national pride, and so forth.

But I would still state the the overwhelmingly important consideration is still the objective consideration of PROFIT. All of the other stuff is just pretense and decoration. Any attempts to prove otherwise are in essences attempts to mask the profit motive in modern imperialism. Bottom line here is that the imperialist countries are rich precisely because their colonies are kept poor, and the colonies are poor precisely because the imperialist powers are rich. The flow of wealth in Victoria time period and ever since has always been from the colonies to the imperialist country. Please do not forget this most important point--otherwise, nothing at all makes any sense. It is all about PROFIT, and all of the rest is just a mask to hide the truth.

As far as missionary zeal, I will defer to the wisdom of Tutu, who stated "Before the European missionaries came, the Europeans had the Bible and we Africans had all of the land; but after the missionaries came, we had the Bible, and the Europeans had all of the land."

Missionary comes, then soldier comes, then merchant comes.

I have a lot of Indian friends who would love to discuss the wonders of British civilization and the question of profits.

Then explain why Germany is the third richest coiuntry in the world?

I'm not certain I care to rehash discussions I thouoght were finished in the late 1970s, but here goes:

Britain made enormous profits from its colonial possessions in the 18th Century, mainly by reexporting col,onial goods to the Continent. But the value of the British Baltic Trade was the same as the value of the East or West Indian.

In the 19th Century Britaion made money from being the first to industrialise, primarily by exporting to the European and American markets. But the majore source of British wealth became the return on investments - primarily in North and South America.

I don't deny that quite a few people believed they could make a profit colonizing Black Africa. Soviet socialism had this strange idea that exploiting inaccessible natural resources in Siberia would some increae the wealth of the country. It is noteworthy that the Canadian Arctic with its huge natural resources is still underexploted by Soviet standards.

The point of my post is that imperialism is
a) a complex phenomenon
b) that it was motivate by the same concerns that motivates contemporary politics.

And finally, I would point out that Engels stresses that the economic explanation is the "ultimate" explanation. Which may well be the case. The main point is that the false consciousness of 19th Century Europeans made them do extremely stupid things.

As for "objective" conditions: The ultimate objective condition is DEATH. I consider any idea people are willing to die for an "objective" condition.

PS: I suggest you change your signature. It clearly falls under the category of politically offensive slogans.

 

[cthulhu]

Originally posted by EB.
The flow of wealth in Victoria time period and ever since has always been from the colonies to the imperialist country.

This is simply not true. Read Wealth Of Nations by Adam Smith.

 

[cthulhu]

Originally posted by Hardu

PS: I suggest you change your signature. It clearly falls under the category of politically offensive slogans.

What does it say? My educated guess: For The Motherland. For Stalin.

 

[unmerged(7537)]

Originally posted by TheArchduke
Guys that is a dangerous road.. MOO3 really sucks because you haven´t got control of your country really and the AI runs it for you.

Good point, bad example. MOO3 would suck even when you are in complete charge yourself.

@EB et al.
I strongly disagree that the colonies played any sort of role in preventing the reocurring world economy collapses, IMO they even speeded the cycle up rather than slowing it down.

What the game should model is the actual reason behind establishing colonies: Because the capitalists (most notably colonial investors) wanted them, because they wanted the government to take actions to not only protect their investments, but also to back up their own private interests, preferably with gunboats and bayonets.

 

[unmerged(2695)]

Originally posted by cthulhu
What does it say? My educated guess: For The Motherland. For Stalin.

The equivalent "Heil Hitler" would not be accepted. "For Stalin" - and 30 million killed to build socilaism in one country?

 

[cthulhu]

Agreed, it is very bad taste. But I hope no Moderator will ban him, I enjoy reading his posts (so far).