Collectivism increases chance of 'Social Welfare Programs' edict tech?

[ikki]

It's definition is not to sterilize poor but rather to promote those with good traits. Poverty is not a trait, intelligence is. It's also very anti-invidualistic because you will invade someones natural (or god given) right to procreate in the name of progress of society. It's a very complex topic imho.

Well that is what the swedish social democratic eugenics did anyway, regardless of your views. Oh and this austrian migrant copied everything he could from sweden on their program althought he never quite managed a equally "fine" system. Oh and sweden still loves https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alva_Myrdal for her umm ideas. Got a nobel too for the cleansing of the poor and potentially criminal people with skulls not conforming to nordic standards

 

[EvilSoeren]

Well that is what the swedish social democratic eugenics did anyway, regardless of your views. Oh and this austrian migrant copied everything he could from sweden on their program althought he never quite managed a equally "fine" system. Oh and sweden still loves https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alva_Myrdal for her umm ideas. Got a nobel too for the cleansing of the poor and potentially criminal people with skulls not conforming to nordic standards

She inspired Bush Senior then?

 

[PhroX]

I kinda agree with the OP here. Collectivism was described by Wiz as a system in which the people exist to serve the state. Welfare is the complete opposite - it's the state serving the people. Welfare systems are about improving the lives of people not strengthening the state. The state does not benefit from large scale welfare. The individual people receiving it do. Thus they are individualist policies.

Hell, Communism as a whole - according to theory, if not always in practice - is much the same. A "finished" communist society has no state at all so cannot be consider collectivist according to Wiz' description, and even before this is reached, the state is (supposed to be) focused on the good of the people. Sure, a dictatorship like the USSR would probably be collectivist, but that's a result of them being a dictatorship, not which end of the left-right axis they lie on. A society which actually completely implemented communist theory would not be in any way collectivist.

The real world analog to collectivism is fascism - an ideology which glorifies the subservience of the individual to the state - not communism.

 

[Haldan]

just roleplay the details out dangit

 

[ozmono2005]

I kinda agree with the OP here. Collectivism was described by Wiz as a system in which the people exist to serve the state. Welfare is the complete opposite - it's the state serving the people. Welfare systems are about improving the lives of people not strengthening the state. The state does not benefit from large scale welfare. The individual people receiving it do. Thus they are individualist policies.

.

Interesting but I don't think you are considering the positive benefits of welfare. If welfare is state funded infrastructure in the following areas, health, education and even economic than it can very well have positive implications for the state. A higher educated, healthier more mobile workforce is stuff that pays a huge dividend to the state for example. The state doesn't have to worry about people either taking time away themselves or to care for someone else who is sick, the workforce is more able to compete and innovate and as far as government is concerned returns on local investments outweigh returns on foreign investment, meaning there is a certain retention on money spent locally.

 

[PhroX]

Interesting but I don't think you are considering the positive benefits of welfare. If welfare is state funded infrastructure in the following areas, health, education and even economic than it can very well have positive implications for the state. A higher educated, healthier more mobile workforce is stuff that pays a huge dividend to the state for example. The state doesn't have to worry about people either taking time away themselves or to care for someone else who is sick, the workforce is more able to compete and innovate and as far as government is concerned returns on local investments outweigh returns on foreign investment, meaning there is a certain retention on money spent locally.

Yeah, fair point. I was certainly oversimplifying to say that the state doesn't benefit from welfare (although there are certainly people who would argue that compared to other ways of spending the money, the state does not benefit). However the benefits to the state are not generally the primary aim of welfare. Welfare, at least from my experience, is primarily a moral thing. It is used first and foremost to help people, and done so out of a belief it is right and just to do so, not out of any perceived benefits to the state.

Just as an aside, here's something relevant to the whole left wing = collectivism thing that came to mind as I was writing this post. Look at the American presidential race - it ain't Bernie going on about making America (i.e. the state) great again....

 

[ozmono2005]

Yeah, fair point. I was certainly oversimplifying to say that the state doesn't benefit from welfare (although there are certainly people who would argue that compared to other ways of spending the money, the state does not benefit). However the benefits to the state are not generally the primary aim of welfare. Welfare, at least from my experience, is primarily a moral thing. It is used first and foremost to help people, and done so out of a belief it is right and just to do so, not out of any perceived benefits to the state.

Just as an aside, here's something relevant to the whole left wing = collectivism thing that came to mind as I was writing this post. Look at the American presidential race - it ain't Bernie going on about making America (i.e. the state) great again....

Agreed. As for American politics what I've found often is people are under the belief that the private sector (or free market) will take care of everything if left to it's own devices in a way that is more efficient than the state could. Funny because such people like to say the communist manifesto is flawed because it doesn't account for greed when I personally think that of both extremes.

 

[Kharnan]

I kinda agree with the OP here. Collectivism was described by Wiz as a system in which the people exist to serve the state. Welfare is the complete opposite - it's the state serving the people. Welfare systems are about improving the lives of people not strengthening the state. The state does not benefit from large scale welfare. The individual people receiving it do. Thus they are individualist policies.

But it's the individual people who have to pay for all those indolent bastards who choose not to do anything but live on other people money.
State also benefits from those policies since they create jobs in administration (votes) and people tend to vote for politicians who promise to "give" them money.

 

[PhroX]

But it's the individual people who have to pay for all those indolent bastards who choose not to do anything but live on other people money.
State also benefits from those policies since they create jobs in administration (votes) and people tend to vote for politicians who promise to "give" them money.

How does the state benefit from corrupt vote buying politicians? Individual people - said politicians - are benefiting, but not the state as a whole.

 

[The_Red_Star]

But it's the individual people who have to pay for all those indolent bastards who choose not to do anything but live on other people money.
State also benefits from those policies since they create jobs in administration (votes) and people tend to vote for politicians who promise to "give" them money.

I think you'll find that the number of "moochers" who do nothing but live off welfare when they can seek a job is much lower than you'd think it is. Being idle and unproductive is a terrible feeling and most people generally like to feel useful. And a lot of the people who have been unemployed for a long time have simply been unable to find work due to circumstances beyond their control. On a semi-related tangent; I've always felt that the idea that work should come before family is one of the most perverse that modern society has ever come up with; any society that doesn't offer at least a year or two of maternity and paternity leave is not one I'd want to have kids in. Some people may see letting parents actually spend time raising their kids without worrying about putting food on the table as enabing laziness but screw that entire mentality tbh.

 

[Red Rook]

But it's the individual people who have to pay for all those indolent bastards who choose not to do anything but live on other people money.
State also benefits from those policies since they create jobs in administration (votes) and people tend to vote for politicians who promise to "give" them money.

Aside from all the other issues with what you've said, what votes? Collectivism in the game disallows democracy.

 

[Kharnan]

I think you'll find that the number of "moochers" who do nothing but live off welfare when they can seek a job is much lower than you'd think it is. Being idle and unproductive is a terrible feeling and most people generally like to feel useful. And a lot of the people who have been unemployed for a long time have simply been unable to find work due to circumstances beyond their control. On a semi-related tangent; I've always felt that the idea that work should come before family is one of the most perverse that modern society has ever come up with; any society that doesn't offer at least a year or two of maternity and paternity leave is not one I'd want to have kids in. Some people may see letting parents actually spend time raising their kids without worrying about putting food on the table as enabing laziness but screw that entire mentality tbh.

I like to keep things simple. Can you work? No welfare for you.
Maternity leave is a good thing, yeah. Well, its a must I think, someone has to care for the baby. But when mother is busy it's the father, not the state duty to provide for the family. Maybe family has enough money so that both parents can take some time off- that's awesome! But no one should be forced to provide for them.

Aside from all the other issues with what you've said, what votes? Collectivism in the game disallows democracy.

I was talking about real life. When politicians promise to give more money to the people, they usually gain votes. But that money comes from our wallets.

 

[BrokenSky]

No. Most right-wingers are very nice. Literally my entire family is right-wingers. My best friends are a fundamentalist christian and a Trump-supporting Sikh. Also, left-wingers are equally capable of doing evil things.

But if you support segregation, nationalism, racial superiority etc you are supporting social stratification, which is what the right-wing advocates for or allows. The Nazis were particularly extreme in this regard, as they actively attempted to exterminate undesirable minorities.

This does not translate to all right-wingers being evil.

Left wing means you promote equality and egalitarianism over other considerations. Communists, anarchists, social democrats, some liberals etc are left wing. Right wing means you support hierarchies and inequalities, or see them as unavoidable. Conservatives, monarchists, fascists, propertarians/libertarians etc are right-wing.

Being right-wing doesn't make you racist, and being left wing doesn't make you support welfare. So on and so forth.

We shouldn't take this conversation beyond this point as it is OT.

I disagree wrt it being off topic. If you genuinely group political entities in such a confusing manner then it's going to be nearly impossible for us to have a conversation about collectivism and individualism in stellaris, because your axis is orthogonal to what I understand the collectivist - individualist axis to be.

The first thing that needs to be understood is that as I understand them "left wing" and "right wing" don't have any bearing on personal social freedom, only on economic freedom (left being economic state power; more regulation, economic support + welfare, taxes to support those things etc., while right wing being economic popular power, supporting entrepreneurship, economic independence etc.) with a second, orthogonal axis (up and down) with authority vs. egalitarianism, that is state social power vs. popular social power.

In stellaris, both the state power options are bundled together (I think they should be re-separated into two different ethos axes, but in order to do it well there would need to be another axis added) and called collectivist (so things like "left" healthcare and welfare and "up" hierarchical government structures and slavery) and all the popular power options are bundled together as individualism.

Your idea of left and right wing seems to combine capitalism and similar ideologies with authoritarianism (so state social power and popular economic power) and socialism and similar ideologies with egalitarianism (so state economic power with individual social power).

What I mean by confusing then is this: when they collapsed the two dimensions into one ethic axis for stellaris, they made it so that all the state power options were one pole and all the popular power options were the other pole. This is thematically self consistent and, while I would prefer it if the left both dimensions as separate axes, works ok given the xenophobe, spiritualist and militarist axes are separate. In your collapsing of the 2d space to a 1D approximation, however, you seem to have linked some state power options with other popular power options and called them one pole. Which you can see is confusing.

 

[Sir-Rogers]

Collectivism is about the collective. Social welfare programs fit perfectly in that. I know I skipped over the whole political discussion, it´s simple really.
Social welfare is to help the people, collectivists are the people.

 

[The_Red_Star]

I like to keep things simple. Can you work? No welfare for you.
Maternity leave is a good thing, yeah. Well, its a must I think, someone has to care for the baby. But when mother is busy it's the father, not the state duty to provide for the family. Maybe family has enough money so that both parents can take some time off- that's awesome! But no one should be forced to provide for them.

This idea, while it makes sense in theory to those with a layman's knowledge of economics, does not actually work in practice; the best way to deal with poverty as it turns out; is just giving the poor money and making it easy for them to pick up useful skills and work; much like how Utah found that the best way to deal with homelessness was to just build cheap homes for the homeless. Allowing people to go bankrupt due to medical costs, the costs of raising a family or taking time off to raise a child (because family comes first), or struggling to pay for their education is simply not helpful for the health of the economy or the mindset of the people. Large numbers of people struggling to meet ends meet are the perfect ground for revolt or political extremism; you don't want that.

No not just maternity leave, maternity and paternity leave. Family should come before the economy or the work force. Children need time with their parents and guardians far more than the economy needs parents to work. Similarly, a robust (and free) daycare system should be available like it is in northern Europe so that the children of a country may continue to be taken care of instead of dumped on their own back home. The majority of people take jobs to support families in part at least, Jobs should support and not interfere with family life and child rearing; otherwise what is the point?

 

[PhroX]

Collectivism is about the collective. Social welfare programs fit perfectly in that. I know I skipped over the whole political discussion, it´s simple really.
Social welfare is to help the people, collectivists are the people.

No, collectivism is about putting the state before the people. Welfare is about putting people first.

 

[Al Nahar]

For people who argue that social welfare is incompatible with individualism: there is a concept known as "rational egoism", introduced by Russian socialist philosopher Chernyshevsky.
Since anyone can suffer a debilitating accident or be left without a job at some point in their lives, it is beneficial for egotistical actors to enter a "contract" with each other. Everyone gives up some set amount of money for social welfare, and then if something happens to you, you are supported through this contract.

Interestingly, the concept of rational egoism was completely botched by Ayn Rand (born Alisa Rosenbaum, educated in Russia and most probably familiar with this idea), who kind of missed the point of it.

 

[BrokenSky]

No, collectivism is about putting the state before the people. Welfare is about putting people first.

@PhroX
Welfare is about putting the responsibility for people's health in the hands of the state, not into the hands of the individual. It's taking away peoples freedom to excel by being responsible for themselves.
Clearly collectivist.

Collectivism is about the collective. Social welfare programs fit perfectly in that. I know I skipped over the whole political discussion, it´s simple really.
Social welfare is to help the people, collectivists are the people.

@Sir-Rogers
Welfare is about making the state serve the needs of the individual, about giving people the freedom to live without having to worry all the time about their health.
Clearly individualist.

My point here is that use of the edict isn't really opposed to either of these alignments. Bear in mind also that the collectivist boost to researching it is small compared to things like the combined modifier for having more than 6 planets.

 

[Kharnan]

For people who argue that social welfare is incompatible with individualism: there is a concept known as "rational egoism", introduced by Russian socialist philosopher Chernyshevsky.
Since anyone can suffer a debilitating accident or be left without a job at some point in their lives, it is beneficial for egotistical actors to enter a "contract" with each other. Everyone gives up some set amount of money for social welfare, and then if something happens to you, you are supported through this contract.

Interestingly, the concept of rational egoism was completely botched by Ayn Rand (born Alisa Rosenbaum, educated in Russia and most probably familiar with this idea), who kind of missed the point of it.

Logical theory. But this whole welfare tends to grow too much, taxes are raising and in the end those who do honest work are being punished because someone failed to provide for the family. Sometimes they fail because taxes take too much of their income and prices are too high (again, taxes) so they need welfare funded by those taxes- and the cycle goes on and on.

 

[Amaror]

Yeah I think the most weird think is that collectivism at the same time means you can't be a democracy. While we have plenty of social democracys with very large wellfare programs in Europe. Hell, Sweden is one of the most well known nations for it's social democracy.