alternatehistory.com

In Shikaku-Mon (an althist scenario from GURPS Alternate Earths, and my favorite TL of all time - look it up! It's good!), one of the many changes is that economics is a relatively underdeveloped science, while psychology (as well as something we might call memetics or semiotics) is used as the foundation for the world's most influential ideology, synarchism.

In essence, synarchism (developed by this world's Marx-equivalent) explores how ideas and sympathies influence the individual and society, and how "rational" ideas and sympathies should replace old, irrational ones, creating a utopian society. (Spoiler alert: It's about as successful as OTL communism.) People don't really care all that much about economics, and there are no analyses of ownership of the means of production or something similar.

Could such an ideology feasibly arise? Is our modern reliance of economics when it comes to political discourse a historical fluke, and could we instead use more psychological terms when analyzing societies?
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