An Examination of Extra-Universal Systems of Government

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The brutal nature of the Chinese state is unfortunately not unique, or even uncommon in the wide range of possibilities that make up the multiverse. The next country in this chapter has its own version of oppression, a different but no less authoritarian system.

Well, then there's this line, which leads me to think that the next one will be some sort of fascist dictatorship. An oppressive state does not sound like a utopia by any means.

I'd kinda like to see the contrast between the Best Korea-like China and whatever you do to the next China.

At some point, you definitely have to do a working Syndicalist state.
 
It'll be interesting to see your take

It's nothing spectacular... for now, i'm just putting on a black & white version of the Sepia Blank Map the countries you analyzed and some of the neighbours (currently, on the map there are Alaska, Hawaii, USA, UPDA, China + Maoist Countries and that wanked South Africa)

Now that i think about it, you could make that South African country a sort of "separate but equal" federation of states instead of a segregationist country... you could have a Boer state, a British state, native tribal states and states for (maybe "relocated") minorities such as Indians, all of whom have full authority on local matters and whose population is equally and fairly represented in the federal state's government in a democratic environment, but the population of each state can not live or work outside of its own state except for special cases, and miscegenation is prohibited... you could make it work for every country with ethnic plurality though
 
Hm, are there any other options? I don't particularly want to see China again (although a contrast between the United Soviet Republics of China and Manchuria, this new Chinese state and the OTL PRC would be interesting) and Canada seems a bit too close to the US. If it came down to those two, I'd have to choose Canada.

Well yes there are other options, but not for this form of Socialism- unless I was willing to mess around with it's inception.

So that's one vote for Canada.

A Socialist Canada sounds interesting....

That's two votes for Canada.

A utopia socialist Canada? Its almost a gimme, I would almost prefer China.

Who says it has to be utopia?

I took this to mean he was planning on doing a uptopia next. If I misread, my bad.

Sorry, next one is another authoritarian state. Utopias may come later, I'm planning a chapter on World Governments and at least one will be a Socialist-Utopia.

Well, then there's this line, which leads me to think that the next one will be some sort of fascist dictatorship. An oppressive state does not sound like a utopia by any means.

I'd kinda like to see the contrast between the Best Korea-like China and whatever you do to the next China.

At some point, you definitely have to do a working Syndicalist state.

Canada: 2 China: 1

I have an idea for a state with Anarcho-Syndicalism as its governmening philosophy, I'm debating including it in this chapter or creating an entire Chapter dedicated to Anarchism.

It's nothing spectacular... for now, i'm just putting on a black & white version of the Sepia Blank Map the countries you analyzed and some of the neighbours (currently, on the map there are Alaska, Hawaii, USA, UPDA, China + Maoist Countries and that wanked South Africa)

Now that i think about it, you could make that South African country a sort of "separate but equal" federation of states instead of a segregationist country... you could have a Boer state, a British state, native tribal states and states for (maybe "relocated") minorities such as Indians, all of whom have full authority on local matters and whose population is equally and fairly represented in the federal state's government in a democratic environment, but the population of each state can not live or work outside of its own state except for special cases, and miscegenation is prohibited... you could make it work for every country with ethnic plurality though

Well in any case I'm still looking forward to seeing it, and you should feel free to use an artist's license.

EDIT: You know all those countries are in different universes right? That the UPDA and Communist-Feudalist China don't exist in the same world?
 
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Unfortunately the world would seem to disagree with your definition;


A corporation, in essence, involves people buying and selling stock on an open market. mrmandias' described "Cash democracy" is essentially that, except replace the word 'stock' with 'vote.' So, once again, it would quickly turn into a corporate state as the person/faction with the most stock simply had an overwhelming majority. Even if not, you would quickly find a situation with an oligarchical system in which several factions have bought up enough 'stock' to overwhelm individual stock-owners, but no one group is powerful enough to overwhelm the others; for the moment.
You're completely misinterpreting that definition. The fascist (Corporatism was, as I said, Italian fascism) definition of corporation does not resemble that of a modern capitalist corporation; it refers to something like a guild, though not precisely. You would not buy and sell stock in such an organization.
 
Unfortunately for all the Canada votes I've decided to go with China since it's easier. I promise there will be a Canada or two in the future.
 
That's fine. As I said, it would make it easier to compare the two different (three, if one wants to include the bad old days of OTL's PRC for analysis) dystopian, communist Chinas.
 
Next country should be finished later today or tomorrow, as I mention it's in China and it's going to have Christian-Socialism as an ideology.
 
Heavenly Union of Peasants and Workers​

I stare glumly out into the rain-drenched Senado Square and wish ferverently that I had though to bring an umbrella. June in Somalia (I had just finished up the last of my interviews in the UPDA a week before) was a blazingly hot affair, but in Macau it means the rainy season and torrential downpours. The original plan was to meet my contact at the large fountain in the center of the square, but I have retreated from the rain to seek refuge under an overhang, and I fear I will miss her when she comes by.

“Mr. Chaná?” A voice in Cantonese startles me and I jump around to see Mary Leong, my contact.

I apologize for not meeting her where we planned, and she says it’s no matter. A few minutes of wandering around and we find a bench in the foyer of the Leal Senado Building that will serve for the interview. The area is a bit crowded but Miss Leong appears unworried about being overheard. I begin by asking her why she left the Heavenly Union of Peasants and Workers.

“I left after a member of my congregation was arrested by the morality police.” She tells me. “In the Union if you practice the Religion of the Lord of Heaven (Roman Catholicism) then you either keep it very secret or you get arrested and sent to a camp. I swam across the channel to Macau and fortunately the government was willing to let me in.”

The government of the Autonomous Community of Macau is a self-governing territory of Portugal that has served as the sole gateway into the Heavenly Union or “South China” since Hong Kong was turned over to the Tianjing government.

“Both my parents were Christian-Socialists- at least officially, they didn‘t believe- I wasn’t introduced into any other faith until I turned fourteen. One of the women in our neighborhood came to me in secret and told me that the bible was different than the government said it was, and I shouldn’t tell my parents. It was she who taught me to read and write.”

Miss Leong continues, telling me about the omnipresent restrictions and regulations that made up life in her former country.

“The one thing I remember was the omnipresent propaganda. We were warned about the hedonistic libertines in Indochina and the west and to be ever on guard against their vice and heresy seeping into the country.” She makes a derisive sound. “I never realized how much I believed was wrong until I reached Macau.”

I bring up the topic of her experiences with her government, outside of the police and law.

“Well our communal committee wasn’t so bad, the secretary appeared to actually care about us, he used to work in the fields regularly along with everyone else- committee secretaries were supposed to do that anyway but not all of them did- and I’m positive he overstated production on occasion.” Leong looks out the window at the square outside where the rain is beginning to slowly lessen.

“But we still had no choice about working, and we were honestly lucky. I think about all the years that secretary was voted into office and each time he was the only candidate.”

The Holy Union of Peasants and Works traces its beginnings to the division of China in 1851 by the creation of Taiping China by Hong Xiuquan.

Hong was the founder of a unique form of Christianity- he believed that he was the younger son of Jesus (the part-mortal, part-divine savior in Christian mythology) and later added his own revelation to his version of the Christian bible. While the specific theology of the “god worshippers” as Hong Xiuquan called his sect, is unimportant to our purposes, certain elements bear mentioning. Taiping Christianity was overwhelmingly concerned with such things as stamping out vice and preserving morality, while also making goods and possessions communal property in imitation of some early Christian communities. Unlike those same communities however, there was nothing pacifistic about the Taiping military which fought (and overcame) the forces of the Qing Dynasty.

With small beginnings in the Guangxi province, the Taiping Empire rapidly swelled, soon fielding an army of five million men and women and capturing important cities including Tianjing, Hanzhou, Suzhou, Guangzhou, and eventually Shanghai. The European powers, particularly Britain and France but later including Russia, gave limited aid and support to the Qing rulers of China, but as Britain’s primary focus was on the growing struggle with Russia over Central Asia they paid little attention to situation until too late. After the fall of Shanghai the Imperial government appealed for help from any sources and received it in the form of Russian troops and military advisors.
Britain and France scrambled to match the Russian contribution, but in any case it was too late to destroy the Taiping state. Entrenched in a number of strategically vital locations and having the support of several simultaneous Muslim uprisings at the same time, the Qing could manage no more than a stalemate even with foreign help. In 1866 an armistice was arranged between. The Taiping Dynasty in Tianjing and the Qing Dynasty in Peking. Hong Xiquan had one his war.

Unfortunately for the charismatic religious leader the state he created was unstable, it’s ruler’s disinterest in governing and the blatant self-interest of the literally hundreds of “princes” appointed to administer Taiping territory made the system completely unworkable. Not to mention the abolishment of private property and the vicious oppression of Buddhism, Confucianism, and any religion other than Taiping Christianity made the government highly unpopular. By Hong Xiquan's death in 1871 the Taiping Empire had collapsed into warlordism with a powerless Emperor in the nominal capital of Tianjing. The situation lasted until 1877 when the “King of the North” Lai Dhakai defeated the other warlords with British help and overthrew the Taiping Emperor, proclaiming the establishment of the Lai Dynasty. In contrast to the previous Dynasty, Lai sought to crush the Taiping Christians partly at the urging of his British patrons who wanted to use South China as a counter to the growing Russian influence in Peking.

Eventually both Russian and British efforts bore fruit and in 1885 Lai Dhakai signed a treaty accepting British protection while the Qing became a protectorate of the Russian Empire in 1887. Both halves of China would undergo numerous imperialistic ventures, increasingly building up resentment against the puppet governments and their European masters. In response to growing anti-west sentiment a Socialist movements took hold, resulting in the creation of the Chinese Socialist party in 1901.

In 1912 when the Russian Civil War prompted a similar uprising in North China the population of South China also rose up in an attempt to overthrow the Lai Dynasty. There were three main factions among the rebels, Taiping Christians and other persecuted religious groups seeking religious freedom or alternatively to establish a theocracy (depending on who you ask), the Socialists, and the Republicans. In 1915 after increasingly ineffectual rule by the Lai Emperor a group of generals with no real ties to any of the rebel organizations overthrew the monarchy and established the Democratic Republic of China as a military dictatorship. By 1918 the rebel armies had been broken and by 1920 the last of the guerilla forces were mostly rooted out. At the same time the Qing Empire was toppled and replaced by the Republic of China, a country that was at first authoritarian but would slowly transition to full democracy.

In 1926 James Gareth Endicott, a Canadian Methodist who’d originally been born in China returned to the country as a missionary. Initially supportive of what he believed to be a democracy, Endicott became quickly disillusioned with the ruling junta of the DRC and its rampant corruption and suppression of any sort of organized opposition. During his time as a missionary he came into contact with the Socialist underground. Impressed by the intentions of the socialists he became a supporter of the Chinese Socialist Party and began to envision an entwining of Socialism and Christianity called Christian-Socialism. The idea was that many of the original teachings of Jesus with his condemnation of the rich and support of community life were not too different from the foundations of Socialism. Endicott envisioned mutually beneficial Christian communities with all property held in concert by the people dedicated to peace and the love of ones’ neighbors. When he began to preach this new philosophy he was arrested and released for sedition several times and eventually executed by the government when he refused to leave China or stop speaking out against the DRC.

With James Endicott’s death there was an enormous uproar among Chinese Christians and Chinese Socialists (he had been well respected by both groups) and in 1934 a new uprising began, spearheaded by an alliance between the Chinese Socialist Party and the Taiping Christians who were the most organized of the Christian groups. Although Endicott was a Methodist and had dismissed Taiping Christianity as heresy, the Taiping Christians seized upon Christian-Socialism for its similarities to Hong’s abolishment of private property and redistribution of wealth. This new rebellion dragged on, disrupted by the Four Years War when they co-operated with the government against the Japanese and the Americans, until 1942 when it was finally victorious.

The new government was quickly dominated by the (Taiping) Christian Socialists who set out to purge the socialist branches favoring atheism or secularism as well as forms of Christianity other than their own. A Peoples’ Church was established that combined the teachings of Hong Xiquan with those of James Endicott (but rather more heavily slanted towards Xiquan) and membership became mandatory for all citizens of the newly proclaimed Heavenly Union of Peasants and Workers. The Secretary of the Holy Peoples Party (the amalgamation of the Chinese Socialist Party and the Taiping Christian organizations) is also the head of the Peoples’ Church and is required to have been a member of the clergy for at least one year. All members of the government are legally required to be celibate during their term in office, a restriction that can be avoided simply by being very discrete. The Party Secretary is chosen by a gathering of the eight archbishops of the Church although the Peoples’ Congress is at least theoretically elected by the people.

The population is divided into “Holy Communities” of no more than five thousand individuals who are expected to co-operate and work towards their mutual benefit and that of the state. There is no private property of any kind, everything is owned either by the government or jointly possessed by the Holy Communities. One of the major focuses of the Heavenly Union is on stamping out vice and corruption of the spirit (as defined by them). Alcohol except for purposes of communion is illegal as are opium, tobacco, and all other narcotics or recreational substances. Engaging in prostitution (buying or selling) is a capital crime, so is homosexuality. Adulterers are publicly flogged while divorce and polygamy are also illegal.

While church attendance is mandatory for all citizens, the state takes the pragmatic approach of not trying to stamp out all other religions, merely discourage them heavily. Buddhism, Confucianism, and Daoism are tolerated and permitted to form small congregations that meet within their homes (houses of worship other than those for the Peoples’ Church are banned) provided they register themselves with the government. In addition practitioners of those religions are banned from voting, holding office, and being physicians or teachers (among other things) and face considerable discrimination. Other beliefs however, face considerable opposition and must practice in secret. Hinduism, Judaism, and Islam are all illegal while other forms of Christianity face the heaviest persecution and a special branch of the morality police is specifically tasked with rooting out and destroying “bourgeoisie heresy”.

I interviewed several other expatriate South Chinese during my visit to Macau, and most of them had similar stories to Mary Leong’s. One spoke of stowing away on a freighter that crossed the small channel between Macau and the mainland, another left the country via the border with Dai Nam and arrived in Macau intending to continue on to the Republic of China. All spoke of persecution and most were Chinese Christians although several were dissident members of the pro-democracy underground. Recent rumblings from among the South Chinese population have been speaking of potential change coming to the Heavenly Union.

The final government to be surveyed in this chapter has little need to worry about potential uprisings however, nor does religion play a major role in its state.

EUG IV.png
 
Very impressive, a state that would have few friends in OTL. I'd always wanted to see how Christian Socialism could work (or, in this case, break :p) and you've done a very good job of mixing the two. An extreme enough statism can indeed break the traditional left-right political axis. As for the historical particulars, I'm impressed. Lots of wars to inch a Chinese state closer to your vision and not one radical event; you've really bloodied up Chinese history. Anyway, I have a gut feeling that this last communist state would be close to the Oceanian model, but I'm a cynical man. Oh, and by the way, are you planning a theocracy chapter?
 
Will the next one be a Good Communist state? Or a Brainwashing one?

Well I don't want to give anything away yet, but I'm trying to balance out my examples of failed and succesful communism.

Very interesting. I was right about the initial POD, but the developments from that were very unexpected.

Thank you.:)

Originally I was planning to have the Christian Socialists establish their state by rebelling against the Taiping Empire, but then I started to actually read about it and I realized the state Hong Xiquan created was much to unstable to survive long term. The rest just played from there.

Very impressive, a state that would have few friends in OTL. I'd always wanted to see how Christian Socialism could work (or, in this case, break :p) and you've done a very good job of mixing the two. An extreme enough statism can indeed break the traditional left-right political axis. As for the historical particulars, I'm impressed. Lots of wars to inch a Chinese state closer to your vision and not one radical event; you've really bloodied up Chinese history. Anyway, I have a gut feeling that this last communist state would be close to the Oceanian model, but I'm a cynical man. Oh, and by the way, are you planning a theocracy chapter?

I'm glad I was able to impress you, historical realism is something I pride myself on.:)

I'm planning a Theocracy Chapter, but I have no details other than that. I'm also planning chapters on Anarchism, Democracy, Monarchism, and one chapter for World Governments. Probably I'll think of a few more as time goes on.

Interesting entry.


Glad you liked it.:)
 
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