An Examination of Extra-Universal Systems of Government
- Thread starter Ephraim Ben Raphael
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I think it’s a matter not of uniting them, but rather keeping them united. Until 1919 everyone was content with taking orders, even if only nominally, from Beiyang. The “nominally” part comes in when Beiyang does something the warlords don’t like; restoring the empire for instance.
Obviously this arrangement is unsustainable in the long term. A government made up of warlords coalitions is an intriguing idea, but we can see that this didn’t work in 1919, and failed again in 1923, and again in 1925, and again in 1930, and the aftereffects of that one lingered on until the Communist takeover.
Here’s how it goes. In 1919 some of the warlords got fed up with Duan not standing up to the Japanese, which really didn’t mesh well with what these particular warlords stood for. So a new potential leader, Cao Kun, stepped up to offer his ideas of how the government should be run. Duan was overturned, but Cao’s authority only lasted a couple of years before the same thing happened.
In 1930 Chiang Kai-Shek was opposed by the warlords who had previously flocked to his cause. They opposed his centralist policies, and his implementing them with his consolidated government power base in Nanking. So they played another round of knock off the leader. This time Chiang won, but his victory spelled an end to the coalition arrangement. Zhang’s Fengtian Clique could still match Chiang’s power but they were spread too thin and on their way out.
So a Beiyang China system as per OTL always results in a game of “knock off the leader”. If the leader wins, the system fails. If he loses, the new up and coming leader will have to deal with the same problems of his predecessor down the road.
I believe the solution here is to try and get some kind of official, constitutional system where the leader is chosen by his subordinates. This way the components of the system can check it without undermining things. A leader can abuse his power only so much before being simply replaced. The main risk is that factions can grow more powerful behind the scenes and might split off from the government, but this is a move recommended against because you are splitting away from the system that gives you the power you are rebelling to obtain.
Disclaimer: I’m kind of tired right now so this monologue might be a bit unintelligible. My reply ended up being a lot longer than I first intended.
Here are some ideas for wacky ideologies that I've been thinking about. Let me know which of them, if any, you would like to hear more about:
1. All positions of power are held by children, because they are the only ones considered innocent enough to not abuse their power. In practice, the kids are not so incorruptible, and the adults regret ceding power to them. Adults work tirelessly in the fields and factories, while children with machine guns bark orders at them.
2. Writing is banned, along with photography, television, and anything else that the government deems excessively symbolic. They aim to achieve zero percent literacy, but it's no easy task, given that there's a massive illegal book trade.
3. War is treated as a sport, where one should strive to win, but also play honorably. That means no deception, no torture, and no slavery, because they claim these things violate the spirit of war. The nastier side of this ideology is that peace is considered just as dishonorable as these offenses, since they consider it an unnatural suppression of the will to conquer.
4. "An eye for an eye" is taken as far as it can possibly go. Everyone is to be given exactly the reward or punishment they have earned. It is a hyper-individualist society, where having friends is practically impossible without getting charged with conspiracy against the public.
1. All positions of power are held by children, because they are the only ones considered innocent enough to not abuse their power. In practice, the kids are not so incorruptible, and the adults regret ceding power to them. Adults work tirelessly in the fields and factories, while children with machine guns bark orders at them.
2. Writing is banned, along with photography, television, and anything else that the government deems excessively symbolic. They aim to achieve zero percent literacy, but it's no easy task, given that there's a massive illegal book trade.
3. War is treated as a sport, where one should strive to win, but also play honorably. That means no deception, no torture, and no slavery, because they claim these things violate the spirit of war. The nastier side of this ideology is that peace is considered just as dishonorable as these offenses, since they consider it an unnatural suppression of the will to conquer.
4. "An eye for an eye" is taken as far as it can possibly go. Everyone is to be given exactly the reward or punishment they have earned. It is a hyper-individualist society, where having friends is practically impossible without getting charged with conspiracy against the public.
Those sound like rogue states that would exist for about a month until collapsing into civil war and facing interventions by the resident superpower or international peacekeeping organization
Yeah, the hard part is coming up with origin stories for these ideologies. It would take some pretty special circumstances for these to have enough popular support to be put in place and last more than one generation.
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I apologize in advance for asking something probably obvious:
Why is this thread in this forum? Does it mean its material (societies) are collected and published somewhere?
I am wondering because I hope there is some kind of compilation.
I would very much like to read all the various scenarios but without threadmarks it is slightly annoying in a thread with 1700+ posts and multiple authors.
Also, I've conceived of several original settings for a story and I would like to compare if there have been similar ideas here as some the entries are indeed very well written (kudos to authors).
Why is this thread in this forum? Does it mean its material (societies) are collected and published somewhere?
I am wondering because I hope there is some kind of compilation.
I would very much like to read all the various scenarios but without threadmarks it is slightly annoying in a thread with 1700+ posts and multiple authors.
Also, I've conceived of several original settings for a story and I would like to compare if there have been similar ideas here as some the entries are indeed very well written (kudos to authors).
no one
Banned
I have settings for worlds.
1: Two superpowers are locked in a cold war, just like OTL, however, they treat it as a giant game of chicken, with them consistently threatening war on each other until the other backs down
2. A nation whose whole economy is based around declaring war on weaker nations, and stealing their money after winning
1: Two superpowers are locked in a cold war, just like OTL, however, they treat it as a giant game of chicken, with them consistently threatening war on each other until the other backs down
2. A nation whose whole economy is based around declaring war on weaker nations, and stealing their money after winning
There i this gem that I found when I used to indulge Illuminati franchise:
http://armageddonconspiracy.co.uk/The-Political-Series(3043164).htm
well the 2nd is the logical extension of Fahrenheit 451 by Bradbury
Yeah, I should read that again for inspiration. I read it a long time ago when I was pretty young, and unfortunately I don't remember much. For my no-writing society, I was thinking it would be a weird mix of deep-green primitivism and modern technology. Communications technologies would be absolutely forbidden, but in other areas they'd look very modern, with state-of-the-art medicine and the latest, most energy efficient solar panels and maglev trains. (The trains do NOT run on time, though, since standardized time is another concept they despise.) As for the motivation for such a society, you know how it's often pointed out that on the internet, where things are anonymous, people are less considerate? Well, this society noticed that this applies not just to the internet, but to writing in general. Their hatred of anonymity is why they oppose recording the human voice as well. They want the only mode of communication to be face to face, so that everyone has to take ownership of their words, instead of letting the words speak for themselves. Along with anonymity, they also oppose anything overly "formal" or "bureaucratic" such as having a codified constitution or a standardized school curriculum. Their preferred form of government, of course, is direct democracy, where decisions are made publicly in spirited town hall meetings rather than in backroom deals. That's the ideal, anyway. In reality, there are still plenty of backroom deals, since the whole thing is run by a handful of rich families who have an interest in keeping people illiterate, impoverished, and confused so that they won't be able to organize an effective rebellion.
xsampa
Banned
I was thinking about a reactionary ideology to neoliberalism that embraces components from its varying critics. For example, in response to Occupy! and other leftpop movements, it advocates direct democracy for local issues while supporting a technocratic elite to keep the wealthy in check and eliminate voting, which would be seen as a tool of neolibs. Other trojan (hobby) horses would include identity politics, individualism, since it destroys institutions that could rival neoliberalism like the church, unions and clubs, and Americanization of other countries.
xsampa
Banned
@rvbomally: In the Moskowien map, there was an independent RK turkestan. Is it dominated by Germans? Also, what happened India and Nazi Africa?
This just sounds like the Khmer rouge with access to solar panels. Direct "democracy", communications technology forbidden, and an extreme anti-intellectual opposition to writing. The only saving grace would be if this place doesn't decide to collectivize agriculture or execute people with glasses (a sign of being able to read and write).
This first one is actually very close to North Korea. The regimes sees the Korea people as as a pure, virtuous and child-like race who need to be protected from the outside world by a motherly leader. Propaganda described Kim Jong Il quite adrongynously as the "parent leader" and state media emphasize the motherly qualities of Kim Jong Il and Kim Jong Un. Paintings and stories depict the Kims visiting military bases in the dead of winter to make sure the soldiers are warm and have enough to eat (like a devoted mother).
I just finished reading The Cleanest Race: How North Koreans See Themselves and Why it Matters by Brian Reynold Myers. It's a great explanation of how North Korea developed the way it did and what its leaders believe.
Tutmonda Komunumo de Morgaŭ
Pretoria-E-Pitoli is not two cities joined as one, as Budapest is in the Hungarian Soviet. It is the two names for the city, in Afrikaans and Xhosa, haphazardly joined together in one of the country’s few acknowledgments of its multilingual past. The city was built as one city, but there are noticeable bifurcations. The Futurist core has yet to consume the entire city, leading to a noticeable split between the chrome towers stretching into the blue southern African sky, and what was derisively called the “Malnova Urbo” – the Old City. Old buildings, in varying states of demolition and replacement, paired with large billboards showcasing their Futurist replacements, showed that the regime’s commitment to erasing the past was more than words. Even the name of Pretoria-E-Pitoli is one the city fathers plan on erasing, replaced with the more politically acceptable “Monda Ĉefurbo” – the World Capital.
The people of this new shining city on a hill were either the most diverse in the world, or – as the regime would have it – the least. The long traffic jams in the Malnova Urbo gave me opportunity enough to see the New Society for the Future in its ostensibly embryonic stages. I saw stalls selling Peking duck and boerewors, and when pointing this out to my taxi driver, all he mentioned was how the government was not doing enough to prevent street merchants from placing raw meat so close to cooked meat. People of all colors, and all mixes of colors, mostly talked to each other in the same universal tongue: Esperanto. Nevertheless, I still heard small groups speaking in Spanish, Mandarin, and Afrikaans.
I reached the offices of the Ministry of Culture. Here was the most important agency in the entire World Order, the one responsible for making sure the World of Tomorrow becomes a reality. I met my contact, Mr. Justin Park, Deputy Undersecretary of the Ministry of Culture. From what I read of his biography, his mother is a colored South African, while his father emigrated from Korea, a mixture he is very proud of. He was a tall man, easily five inches taller than myself. The warm look in his eyes matched well his brightly-colored, African-style garb. He greeted me in Esperanto, and I greeted him in kind.
Mr. Park commended me on my Esperanto, saying I spoke it like a native. Given the myriad accents I heard on my drive here, I wondered to myself if that was intended to be ironic. I mentioned that I studied the language in the Nutshell, and that it was close enough to Spanish to make that study easy.
“It should be, my friend! The universal tongue cannot be universal if people cannot learn it.”
We entered the lavish Zamenhof Building of the Kulturo Placo. In the center of the building is a large fountain featuring the planet Earth, with statues of men and women holding hands around it. The Ministry of Culture had an entire plaza in downtown Pretoria-E-Pitoli dedicated to it, and numerous provincial offices scattered throughout the World State.
“The Ministry needs this office space to house all of its employees. We have so much work to do, but we are creating a new, post-national mankind. We regulate everything, from cuisine, to dress, to language. Particularly language. Communication barriers must be the first to go.”
Esperanto is a constructed language, developed by L. L. Zamenhof in the 19th century. Zamenhof intended for the language to be easy to learn for anyone in the world, which would facilitate worldwide communication, and with it, economic ties and political understanding. Mr. Park led me through the sub-ministries located in the Zamenhof Building. Appropriately, most of the sub-ministries were dedicated to the regulation and enforcement of Esperanto in the World State.
Mr. Park gestured to a maze of cubicles on the fifth floor. “This is what we like to call the Dictionary Department. They create new words, to replace those in existing languages. We try to have words for as many concepts as possible, to make Esperanto as rich as it could be.”
“That floor is for Enforcement, “Mr. Park told me when I asked what was on floor seven. “Language agents, to make sure storefronts are in Esperanto, for instance.”
“Do they have the power to make arrests?”
Mr. Park shook his head. “We issue citations to violators. This isn’t Soviet Russia, we do not beat people in the streets for saying the wrong things. Citations are enough, and they help keep the lights on.”
“Of course, the language in the streets is only the start,” Mr. Park continued. “The Ministry’s latest grand project is renaming. Streets and neighborhoods first, but then we will move to cities, provinces, and eventually, people. Soon, every child born in the Global Community will have a post-national name. We would change the names of everyone in the country, if that wouldn’t create a logistical nightmare. My wife and I are already committed to the project. We have a list of Ministry-approved names for our future children.”
I asked Mr. Park for examples.
“My favorites are Lumo, Paradizo, and Unueco. Children are the future of humanity, so their names should reflect a bright future.”
The bright future of the world state began in the British dominion of South Africa. A crossroads for cultures, South Africa was a multicultural society centuries before Zamenhof. The multilingual society there attracted Zamenhof and his followers, and they eventually founded an Esperanto school in Pretoria. The horrors of the Great War attracted many Europeans in particular, who moved to South Africa to participate in the Esperantist project. Many of them were highly educated, such as the founders of the Futurist movement, and contributed to the Esperantist movement. Although initially welcomed as a curiosity, the Esperantists butted heads with the post-war South African government as they moved to implement their system of apartheid. The Esperantists, already disgusted by the racist system they encountered, openly flaunted apartheid laws by welcoming all people.
Esperantism, along with Marxism, became the primary competitors for the resistance against apartheid. The Esperantists were more popular among the middle and upper classes, many of whom were disgusted by apartheid but saw communist brutality as a worse alternative. Esperantism also had an appeal to the lower classes. Originally a curiosity among intellectuals, Zamenhof’s project became the core of a political movement, Esperantism, which preached the equality of all men and sought to erase artificial and arbitrary divisions between them. Although inspired by international Marxism, the Esperantists focused their efforts on erasing boundaries which divided nations. The horror of the Great War and the inhumanity of apartheid convinced the Esperantists that nationalism, unchecked, would lead to the end of mankind.
After our tour, Mr. Park welcomed me to eat lunch with him in the Zamenhof Building’s cafeteria. The cafeteria served all manner of food – curry, pasta, grilled meats, and plenty of vegetarian and vegan options. Some of the dishes were odd fusions: knockwurst burritos, tikka masala pizza, sushi burgers. Mr. Park told me that the cafeteria was a place where the Ministry’s culinary departments tested what sorts of fusion cuisine would be popular with the people. If they proved popular, restaurants throughout the country would be offered stipends to serve them to the public for a period of one year. He assured me that every strange item on the menu was approved by a battery of taste testers beforehand. I privately questioned the effectiveness of this program.
We sat by ourselves in the nearly-empty cafeteria; we were eating a late lunch, but my time-lagged body felt as if I were eating an early breakfast. Mr. Park ordered a hamburger made with ingredients traditionally used for pizza. I settled for lentil soup. I asked the deputy undersecretary what exactly Esperantism believes about nationalism. Between bites, Mr. Park gave me an answer.
“Nationalism is responsible for most of the evils in the world,” Mr. Park explained to me. “We are all one species, the human species. I am no more or less human than you, or anyone in this building, or anyone in this planet. Humans working together can accomplish great things. The nationalists themselves believe that. So, what more can humans accomplish if all of us were united? Instead of wasting resources and lives on pointless wars over lines on a map, we can be curing cancer, or finding a way to the stars.”
It was the communists who would light the powder keg of South Africa. Funded by the Trotskyites based in the Soviet Union, the communists launched their revolution after the South African depression. The Esperantists at first cooperated with the communists, securing Pretoria and surrounding regions. It was not long before the Esperantists split with the communists, and succeeded in getting the support of anti-communist, anti-fascist nations such as the United Kingdom and the United States. The communists were eventually crushed by the National Party-led government, but they did not have the manpower to crush the nascent World State. Doing so meant war with the United States and United Kingdom, something their German allies refused to allow. The two sides begrudgingly partitioned the country between themselves.
The new Tutmonda Komunumo de Morgaŭ - Global Community of Tomorrow - or World State as most of the world called it, was organized along the lines of other liberal democracies. It adopted a written constitution, with many protections taken from the Constitution of the United States, and had established, written rights inspired French Declaration of Rights of Man and Citizen. It adopted a tripartite system of government, with a bicameral legislature, and a Prime Minister picked from the legislature to serve as head of the executive. However, the government was also given a clear, Esperantist directive in the Constitution: to expand Esperantism around the globe, prepare the World State to be a true system for global government, and to begin this project by erasing national identities and serving as an example to all. Even the Declaration of Rights is suborned to this goal.
The World State became a beacon for the oppressed around the world. European Jews, American blacks, Indian Muslims, all streamed to southern Africa seeking a new life. The World State opened its borders to all, a policy only changed in later years for the purposes of ensuring the right proportions of various ethnicities existed to ensure homogenous mixing.
Playing Devil’s advocate, I told Mr. Park what I thought may be a nationalist’s response to his beliefs.
“People value their national identities. They aren’t merely arbitrary, they are organically formed through thousands of years of cultural evolution. Nationalism causes problems, but we can’t hold the idea of a nation responsible for that. National identities enrich and diversify humanity. A nationalist critic would say that the Global Community is doing what it accuses nationalists of doing: destroying culture.”
Mr. Park shook his head.
“We are not destroying culture. Human history has always involved the intermixing of cultures and peoples. Are these cultures destroyed? No, they are changed to form a new culture. A stronger culture. A more harmonious culture. They retain the defining characteristics of what makes them valuable and beautiful, but without the violence inherent in division.”
“Anyway, the concept of nationalism is inextricable with the concept of the nation. Look at the Soviets. Their government continued to separate the constituent nations of their country, and now all of them are more nationalistic than ever! Only the Cheka keeps that monstrosity together.”
I then asked about the World State’s commitment to individual human rights. Aren’t the World State’s programs infringing on the rights of its people?
Mr. Park shook his head again. “Not at all! People are much freer here because, now that they do not have to worry about national divisions, they can express themselves as individuals. We tolerate, even encourage, all alternative lifestyles and points of view. We only disallow the fomenting of nationalism. Those beliefs are against the society we are trying to build and the liberties it guarantees. To say that people have the freedom to be divisive and bigoted is absurd.”
But what about democracy? From what I understood, all of the political parties are united on the Esperantist message. What meaningful choice do the people have?
“The Global Community is a multi-party democracy, and their disagreements can put the British or Americans to shame. Just watch a session of Parliament, or the nightly news. But I suspect what you are implying is, what can a nationalist voter do? Indeed, we do not allow nationalist parties to form. Again, the very notion of nationalism is so anathema to the Global Community that allowing them is like letting a cancer go unchecked. No civilized country allows terrorists to run amok. The nationalists may claim to be peaceful, but their actions speak otherwise. The Monda Ĉefurbo is peaceful, but many communities suffer from racial or religious riots because of terrorist activity.”
I then asked Mr. Park about religion. Wasn’t religious freedom protected by the Declaration of Rights?
“Religion is a troubling issue, one that still causes our ministry headaches. Religion is indeed protected by the Declaration of Rights. The freedom of worship is a human right, and we could hardly expect people to immigrate to the Global Community in large numbers if they are expected to reject their faith. But nevertheless, the issue of religion is a matter of fierce debate at the highest levels of government. We often get one set of policy considerations, only for them to be reversed in the next term.”
What is the nature of these debates?
Mr. Park sighed. “The details are as complex as any other political dispute, but the key question is whether religion is a form of nationalism. Everyone I have heard speak on the issue, save for the radical secularists, agrees that some religions are not nationalistic, even counter-nationalist, while others are nationalistic by nature. But then we have the question, which faiths are nationalist and which faiths aren’t? Is there a clear division between them, or is it a spectrum? Which faiths should be tolerated, and which should be suppressed? Should faiths be tolerated as a matter of course? Why should faiths be exempt from de-nationalization policies? It’s a headache.”
I asked Mr. Park if he had any specific examples of these disputes.
“Christianity and Islam are recognized as universal religions. While their adherents may not be evenly represented among ethnic groups across the globe, their religious doctrine allows anyone to be of the faith. In fact, many sects of Christianity and Islam reject nationalism and racialism as a matter of course; they consider everyone equal in the eyes of God. On the other end of the spectrum, the Shinto religion is so closely tied to the Japanese national identity that the two are inextricable. We have thus banned Shinto as an expression of Japanese nationalism, a position made easier by the Japanese government’s own efforts to turn the religion into an instrument of their brutal imperialist state.”
Mr. Park closed his eyes and shook his head, as if to rid himself of the stress of thinking about the problem.
“In theory, it would be easy to list faiths as universal or ethnocentric. The situation on the ground is more complex. Sometimes, people convert and adhere to ethnocentric faiths, even if they are outsiders. A side effect of our early intermarriage efforts is that many non-Jews have converted to Judaism. It was something our ministry hadn’t considered. On the other end, universal religions have become the rallying cry of national identities we have tried to stamp out, and they use religion as a means of protecting themselves from state scrutiny. The most nationalistic blacks from the American South use Baptist Christianity as a shield. Many of their leaders are preachers, and they use their sermons to deliver nationalist tirades, but protections on freedom of religion stay the Ministry’s hand. This is also a major issue with Shia Arabs from Mesopotamia. The Ministry’s legal department is fighting nearly a hundred lawsuits from street preachers who were arrested for racism.”
I asked how Mr. Park believed the issue would be resolved.
“To be perfectly honest? I don’t think it ever will be resolved. The radicals want religious protections in the Declaration of Rights scrapped entirely, and replaced with state secularism. Others go a step further, asking the Ministry to create a syncretic religion, an ‘Esperanto for the soul.’ I think that’s bonkers. Faith is a matter of personal introspection and community building, not top-down state policy.”
I asked Mr. Park how that was any different from the World State’s language and racial policies. His eyes widened and he backed away from me. The next few moments of silence felt like an eternity.
“I don’t know, Mr. Chana. I’ve never thought of it that way.”
I saved my toughest questions for last. I asked Mr. Park about the World State’s miscegenation policies. Mr. Park cringed.
“Please, Mr. Chana, don’t use that word. It is what foreign racists use in their propaganda. The proper term is amalgamado.”
I nodded, and Mr. Park continued.
“Yes, that is a topic of some controversy. The Ministry of Culture encourages its citizens to reproduce with citizens of a different ethnic or racial grouping. But to compare this to the eugenics policies of the Reich or the Japanese, as some do, is disingenuous. Our program is non-coercive. The Ministry of Culture provides family planning services, and we encourage amalgamation. We offer stipends and tax incentives to families who choose to amalgamate. But it is by no means a requirement. I was not the product of a government sanctioned union; my parents are both committed Esperantists, but they married out of love. We believe that the choice to have children belong to the individuals in the union.”
My next contact during my trip to the World State had a different view. Anna Blohkina, a women’s rights activist and prominent critic of the Ministry of Culture’s “amalgamation” policies, agreed to meet me in Pretoria-E-Pitoli.
“The Ministry of Culture may not send masked thugs to arrest women who go against their reproductive policies, but to say that the Ministry is not as bad as the Reich is faint praise. The Ministry’s programs are voluntary in name only. They are coercive in practice.”
I asked Ms. Blohkina to explain.
“Everything in the World State is conditioned on accepting their system. If you don’t know Esperanto, you are at a disadvantage, because all government forms are in Esperanto. Government schools teach exclusively in Esperanto. If you are a vocal critic, assuming you aren’t branded a nationalist and imprisoned for hate speech, you may be ineligible for welfare. I speak out on the basis of women’s liberation, so they cannot arrest me, but I am not eligible for welfare. Fortunately, I do not need it, but many of my friends and supporters do. And of course, the World State’s war on reproductive freedom is the most insidious.”
Ms. Blohkina reached into her pocket for a smartphone. She then showed me an image of a Reproductive Health Department billboard, advertising free birth control. I asked why she, a women’s rights activist, would find that objectionable.
“I took this picture in a poor, majority-Indian neighborhood. That neighborhood is known for resisting against the World State’s miscegenation program. So, they Reproductive Health Department – a sub-ministry of the Ministry of Culture, but they’d never advertise that – put up these billboards. You’d never find these in a ‘heterogeneous’ community. Only pro-reproduction messages straight from the Ministry. This is why the Ministry of Culture is evil. They use soft power – incentives, peer pressure, social ostracism – to promote their program. They don’t care about the rights of women, but they will provide family planning services to promote their twisted agenda and claim it’s for women. I want free family planning for all women, regardless of their reproductive choices.”
But it is still the choice of the parents, I argued. Ms. Blohkina disagreed.
“If you’re a poor mother, what choice do you have? The Ministry has yet to stoop to the level of shouting this from the rooftops, but they offer incentives to women to abort their children if they are too ‘homogenous.’ This includes a free abortion, and cash rewards. Mr. Chana, this is a Leonine contract, and the Ministry implements hundreds of them. This isn’t freedom, it’s tyranny disguising itself as freedom.”
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