NationStates Jolt Archive

My great nation (MirMi Heimen (pronounced Meer-mee hye-men)) oppresses its people in order to maintain a competent economy. If I were to one day allow people to vote then people would take options concerning other things like whether or not they want to work. By keeping them oppressed and making all decisions for them: whether to wear black with red or blue -or- whether to use a contraceptive or not. By making decisions for my people they never get the bold idea that one day they don't feel like working for me.

And if they do start to make decisions..well...:confused: :sniper:

In denying your populace the right and ability to think for themselves at all, you also deny yourself the growth, inspiration, and advances that could result on account of it. Not to mention, eventually, if pressed hard enough, people tend to revolt. You can squeeze so hard for only so long before something explodes.

Dictatorships need not be an all or nothing affair, nor is it in their best interest to deprive themselves of resources like their people. Oppression does not guarantee a stimulated economy, especially when you take away the freedom of choice - which tends to inspire competition, which leads to growth, which you're squelching via your methods.

Besides the fact that there is no possible way to control all things at all times in all places to the degree you suggest. It is a flawed system, doomed to eventual failure. One person cannot run an entire nation on their own, after all. However much they would like to pretend they can.

--Dominion Ministry of Public Relations

"Sniper smilies are perhaps the most blatant sign of a regime doomed to failure."

-Imperial Foreign Secretary

I see your point and understand completely, but you see with a command economy you are able to force a change, any kind of change, to the system. Let this change be that you want more people to buy bananas instead of apples. By having dictatorship powers you can set the price of bananas to Ç0.38 and the price of apples to Ç398.87. Thus you have an increase in banana sales getting rid of any surplus and driving the price up. I know what you are thinking: inflation:eek: ! This is where you use your dictatorship to lower the price on everything from doorknobs to kitchen appliances making everything affordable and making people happy :)

We would not be adverse to anyone attempting *cough*regimechange*cough* ... a restoration of basic liberties in MirMi Heimen.

~KNN blurb.

This is where anarchy is the best choice. Everyone just does what they want, and if a couple million people die, oh well. That's the way anarchy works.

I see your point and understand completely, but you see with a command economy you are able to force a change, any kind of change, to the system. Let this change be that you want more people to buy bananas instead of apples. By having dictatorship powers you can set the price of bananas to Ç0.38 and the price of apples to Ç398.87. Thus you have an increase in banana sales getting rid of any surplus and driving the price up. I know what you are thinking: inflation:eek: ! This is where you use your dictatorship to lower the price on everything from doorknobs to kitchen appliances making everything affordable and making people happy :)

If you truly believe that material things alone makes people happy, or that by controlling price you control cost - which is silly, given that you are forgetting the cost of producing things, which opens up another barrel of worms that you are dismissing completely - you are more delusional than we originally thought.

You see, we are a dictatorship. And a successful one. And have been for some time. And the level of control that you are suggesting is impossible to maintain, and does not 'make people happy'. You cannot force happiness. You cannot control all aspects of everyone's existence to the level you are suggesting. And you have missed several of the points we made in our earlier missive in favor of being flippant with the 'economy is all' approach which only further suggest that you have no real grasp of the intricate balance required to both maintain control, effectiveness, and avoid the usual pitfalls associated with dictatorial rule.

We very much doubt that your regime will be long lasting, or enough of either a benefit, or a threat to bother with if you continue to operate under such delusional ideas. Thus, while we would like to wish you well in your endeavors, we very much doubt that amount of well-wishing will do you any good at this point.

A pity, when power and potential are wasted.

--Dominion Ministry of Public Affairs

And the level of control that you are suggesting is impossible to maintain, and does not 'make people happy'.Oh, it's possible to maintain, just very difficult and requires extraordinary circumstances. Specifically, the utter inability for people to do anything to improve their station or flee the nation. I'm not talking about silly walls with guard towers, either. I'm talking being in an environment so utterly hostile that to leave the protection of the government is instant death. Of course, it also requires a rather large segment that isn't oppressed. Otherwise, no technological advances will ever be made.

Somehow I doubt the faceless nation you're talking to has taken such precautions, and is probably just withering on the vine.


-Stefen Alzis