Capitalist countries do well, Soviets loosen up, + third interesting economic system?

This is a wank where everyone does well!

And I don't want the third system to merely be somewhere on number line between capitalism and socialism, say 70% capitalism and 30% socialism and getting regulation about right. No, I want it to be something really different.

For example, I've heard of Gandhian economics and feminist economics. I've heard of parecom which is an abbreviation for participatory economics.

Maybe an approach based on a particular indigenous world view and ethic which is a dynamic system with plenty of quick-cycle feedback?
 
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So you'd like to see a radically different economic system in full swing?
My quick look at Gandhian economics seems to point to it as anti-capitalist and autarkist, which ultimately means it's going to look a lot like Joseon.
 
Yes, I'd like to see a radically different economic system in full swing.

And since I don't know what 'autarkist' or 'Joseon' is, I'm immediately interested! :)
 
Yes, I'd like to see a radically different economic system in full swing.

And since I don't know what 'autarkist' or 'Joseon' is, I'm immediately interested! :)

Autarkist means zero external trade, and Joseon was a kingdom in Korea that existed between the 1400s and 1900s. Both refers to the fact that this TTL India most likely will have no external trade and look down towards capitalism, which will mean continued extreme poverty.
 

Cueg

Banned
This is just my opinion :

At the end of the day, all economic systems deal with the facilitation and distribution of power. It may sound a bit Marxian, but its what I genuinely believe to be true.

The concept behind the antithesis of 'Capitalism' was, naturally, the destruction of power structures. Its opponents, and its very creator in the Wealth of Nations, viewed the system of Capital with varying degrees of contempt. It [Capitalism] was borne out of a need for social egalitarianism during the pinnacle of the European Enlightenment. The tenuous and nuanced relationship, they correctly pointed out, was the means to understanding what an "equal" society would not only look like, but how it could be achieved.

In regard to egalitarianism, the concept has been inextricably bound by perceived and real oppression. Be it the oppressive slave owner, feudal lord, or capitalist, the 'revolutionaries' would view their system as innately unjust, prompting an attempt at its overthrow. All oppressed of all societies are, as the indication dichotomizes, beholden to their oppressors. They, eventually, view the system as unjust, or unequal, and so begins the revolution.

The reason I say all this is because all socio-economic systems have one distinct characteristic. For the established theory, its the maintenance of the status quo, of the power structure through which power is derived. For the heterodox theory, however, the established class is condemned and branded as oppressive (rightfully so, in my opinion).

The burghers viewed the aristocracy as oppressive.
The social egalitarian Enlightenment thinkers then viewed the burghers as oppressive.
Even within feudalism itself, the lords felt threatened and oppressed as the central authority of the king came to fruition. In the end, all socio-economic systems revolve around the same concept, the same struggle. The struggle for egalitarianism and vehement opposition to oppression. Even Gandhianism revolved heavily around the oppression the British had wrought on the Indian sub-continent.

Every power structure is oppressive by definition. As such, there will always be critics of the entrenched echelon. In that, any and every socio-economic system is manifested out of the will of the oppressed, to overthrow the oppressors. Marxian Socialism never came before Capitalism.

So, to conclude, the "third interesting economic system" must be manifested out of the detractors of the established system of power. With that, the possibilities are endless because there have always been power structures.
 
zeppelinair, thanks for the definition of 'aukarkist' as zero external trade, but no, that's not what I have in mind.

I want my indigenous society to maintain its informal economy, including subsistence agricultural, and then it can be a lot choosier about trade. And that makes a big difference.

And yes, my society will have hierarchical features. I don't want to make my people some kind of 'noble savages.' It's much more humanizing to allow them to be full human beings, flaws and all. And later on, somewhat with what we call 'jobs' but as much with activities and occupations, a lot of ways of getting into this will be multi-path rather than single-path. And although perhaps subtle, that will often make a big difference, too.
 

Cueg

Banned
zeppelinair, thanks for the definition of 'aukarkist' as zero external trade, but no, that's not what I have in mind.

I want my indigenous society to maintain its informal economy, including subsistence agricultural, and then it can be a lot choosier about trade. And that makes a big difference.

And yes, my society will have hierarchical features. I don't want to make my people some kind of 'noble savages.' It's much more humanizing to allow them to be full human beings, flaws and all. And later on, somewhat with what we call 'jobs' but as much with activities and occupations, a lot of ways of getting into this will be multi-path rather than single-path. And although perhaps subtle, that will often make a big difference, too.

Did you know that most primates have hierarchical societies? Our society is, to a large extent, a manifested form of our biological predispositions. It's an old and primal form that transcends huminaztion.

A lot of work has been done on what many describe as the humanization of society. Its orgins, the birth of the human, can be traced back to hunter-gathering societies. In that, we find a society without hierarchy and oppression.

We became human, language and all, through this period of humanization, a period we call the Paleolithic Age. This transformation was the catalysis that made us different. It wasn't hierarchical, and it wasn't oppressive. It was an egalitarian revolution that saw the animal become human. The savage apes, our ancestors, became "nobel".

This isn't Marxist propoganda, it's established, mainstream archeology.
 
with gathering-hunting societies, I've read that how equalitarian things are between men and women is loosely a function of what percentage of calories are provided by hunting versus gathering.
 
As an example of how different things might be in a developing economy, they evolve from their system of traditional healers. 60% of their doctors remain women.

Experience and/or formal school training remain two equally valid paths to becoming a doctor (and maybe even a third or fourth path as well).

Of course, someone can progress from being a nurse to being a doctor, and it's viewed as being absolutely ridiculous for this not being the norm in rich countries.

They say it's better to know fewer things well, just like Harvard medical school might say and other fancy western medical schools have said, except they really mean it!

They say it's a good thing for a doctor to say 'I don't know' and help to find a specialist who knows more, except they really mean it!

And the same for a doctor being a good listener.

======

And yes, this alternate to the credentialism of both the West and the 'socialist camp' is pretty much of a radically different system.
 
From 2009 during the H1N1 flu pandemic, which was widespread but not as severe as first feared.

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2009/09/04/health/research/04flu-001.html?_r=1&referer=

" . . . In children without chronic health problems, it is a warning sign if they seem to recover from the flu but then relapse with a high fever, Dr. Frieden said. The relapse may be bacterial pneumonia, which must be treated with antibiotics. . . "
And presumably with adults, too.

In fact, I'd say this is among the two or three most important facts a doctor should know about influenza.
 
I've come across clan systems/ clan economies in various science fiction settings, same with guilds continuing to flourish into the transplanetary age. So why not give them a try as alternative economies:

Capitalist economy: Everyone works for themselves. Individual enterprise and individual responsibility are encouraged. Welfare, education and social programs exist but are in essence a security policy by the work owner to keep his workers productive.

Communist economy: Everyone works together for the greater good and to support education and social net for everybody. Individual enterprise is frowned upon, but tolerated where it serves the greater good.

Clan economy: Clans or communities work together for their own good, provide their own education and production system. Clan members own everything together but trade among other clans. Individual endeavors are encouraged as long as it is beneficial to the whole clan.

Guild economy: A guild provides education and a social net for their members, collectively owns all production and distribution of property. The guild promotes individual excellence as it adheres to the rules but forbids individual enterprises outside of the framework of the guild. However the influence of the guild is limited to the working environment. Outside of work, individuals are free to do what they want.

Things get interesting when you allow people to belong to several clans and guilds at once. For instance someone could belong to a family clan, a profession guild, a hobby/sports guild and a church (can be either a guild or a clan). Alternatively a person can belong to two clans at once: one on their mothers side, one on their fathers... or one clan he/she is born in and one he/she marries into. I somewhere read that several Native American tribes had a system like this, one wonders what would have happened if contact with Europe came 200 years earlier, during medieval times and the settlers imported the medieval guild system.
 
One thing I saw suggested in a Paradox megacampaign was a system of industrialized feudalism, where factories, not farms, were passed down from generation to generation in noble families, while serfs were proletarians tied to their individual factories. I don't know how plausible that is, though I suppose it could be the system of an industrialized Tsarist Russia that doesn't ban serfdom.
 
I suppose it could be like the Amish(?) where young adults leave for two years and decide whether to come back or not, and the people have as many qualities of citizens as serfs. (although I'd still ask, what realistic better alternatives, and how stuck are the people)

I'm mainly looking for a clear better alternative which gives both the West and the Soviets a real run for their money! :cool:
 
You can check what's emerging in Europe at the moment. You have Sweden which started a universal income program, which is quite the trendy idea at the moment, being floated around a lot of different parties from different horizon.
You also have a strong startup culture.

If you mix the two together, you get a society where it's easy to create your own company, just as it's easy to get into (at least low level) politics due to political fragmentation (as opposed to a two party rule as in the US), but with also a strong social net. That would be the final and complete form of the concept of flexisecurity.

Of course, what's good in this is that it's not a utopia, it's actually being done :)
 
I think this has some potential. With a social safety net, people can afford to take some risks and start their own businesses. 80% of new businesses fail. That's the baseline statistic I've heard the most often. Yes, 8 out of 10. And often because fixed expenses eat you alive before you really get rolling with sales and with collecting payments due. In America, conservatives often blame federal regulation and have a hard time seeing that it's more often ticky-tack state and local regulations. I still think the fixed expenses are a much bigger issue.

But what I'm really interested in is an earlier and better start to decolonization. And let's say things go very well for a number of countries in the Third World.
 
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And I still like the idea of developing countries keeping their informal economies going.

You may have heard the idea that capitalism devours informal economies. For example, previously parents asked a neighbor to watch their children. And now they take their children to fancy and expensive daycares. Well, you might ask, don't I want parents to have more choices? Course I do. But there's a lot of good to the informal economies and I want these to stay available, too.

Maybe if just a couple of national leaders take the approach, we're going to measure informal producers and economic actors very approximately and we're not going to try and bring them in house for the sake of tax revenue. And most of all, we're going to keep subsistence agriculture going as we develop other things parallel.
 
You may have heard the idea that capitalism devours informal economies. For example, previously parents asked a neighbor to watch their children. And now they take their children to fancy and expensive daycares. Well, you might ask, don't I want parents to have more choices? Course I do. But there's a lot of good to the informal economies and I want these to stay available, too.

But those things are not available. The reason they became less available is not tied to capitalism itself which would have conscioustly killed it. It's just that it's easier and more reliable to use thse facilities and paid things.

If anything, the fact that the woman next door who used to watch the kids if now working probably doesn't help.

Regarding the informal economy, it's now called the sharing economy, pretty interesting model. However, there's always been some form of capitalism. For example, merchants in Rome basically used a system of venture capitalism for their ships, it's very interesting.
 
Point well taken at the end. I think mixed systems are the more interesting systems anyway. In a similar vein, there's only about 120 different atoms, but many thousands of molecules.

I do want my society to avoid the trap of cash agriculture. I want them to have a very strong social norm that sharecroppers and small holders are to be treated fairly, backed up by both formal and informal leaders.

That is, I want them to skip this level of "development." And because they are patient, they're able to get some good deals from various UN development agencies and, even more importantly, from multinationals seeking sources of products. In the 1950s, they're making radios and electrical switches for cars. By the early '60s, they're making whole car engines.

Maybe early on, they hit upon the stroke of genius, not only are we going to offer some of our young people scholarships to study aboard, we're going to offer some of our middle-aged citizens and their families scholarships to study aboard, too. This way, they already have some life and leadership experience and can more readily step into managerial positions.

And through all this success, some of this nation's doctors have been to medical school and some haven't. And when western doctors visit, and go on rounds with these doctors, and attend house calls and work clinic, often they cannot tell the difference. Now, this is a different system!
 
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