NationStates Jolt Archive

Have y'all considered changing the names for some of the categories? For example...

"Iron fisted consumerist" isn't really a common term. There is, however, a commonly used term to describe the same economic/political/social combination, namely "Fascism" and/or "Corporatism," or hell, "Fascist Corporatism." See here. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporatism#Italian_fascist_corporativism)

Or, for example, instead of "Psychotic dictatorship," have you considered "Theocratic Dictatorship" (Consider the Middle Eastern Theocracies)?

As it is, Iron Fisted Consumerism is subtley misleading, since even though there is more economic freedom than Personal and Political, the economic freedom is only moderate.

Now, I know you might say "But hey, we have a Corporate Police State," but there is a difference between the two.

Also, I noted that there wasn't really a "Communist" type, even though there is an "Iron Fisted Socialist" type, even the two are slightly different in terms of economic freedom. Socialists do have some degree of economic freedom.

That said, there's no Socialist slot in the "No personal freedoms" grid.

Of course, by no means can it be expected to fill all 27 slots with actual, well known systems, but it does seem as though there could be better names for at least some of them.

No?

Personally, I think they're just fine as is. Regardless, it's not something anybody but Max has the ability, or the authority to change. Seeing as how he picked those categories, I would assume that he's satisfied with them.

There's also the fact that things like "Communist" would necessitate a high tax rate or large government, while "Theocratic" would require a high amount of taxes dedicated to church welfare. This would be outside the scope of the UN categories, which is based solely on the Political Freedoms, Economy and Civil Rights rankings.

It also enables more creativity this way; what if someone wants a Psychotic Dictatorship that isn't necessarily Theocratic, or an Iron Fisted Socialism that isn't necessarily Communist? One can be Psychotic but not Theocratic, and while all Communists are Socialist not all Socialists are Communist.

"Fascism" isn't exactly something the Boss likes, and I imagine we'd have all kinds of complaints if people trying to run their ideal state found that NS labelled it "Fascist"; it's got far too many negative connotations to use as an objective label.

In fact, that goes for all of them; because they're not real-world examples, they're more open to interpretation and creativity. They can be stand-ins for conventional political systems, but they don't have to be.

If you want to be a Theocratic Dictatorship or a Fascist Corporatism you can always wait until you've got 500 million population and change the pretitle to suit.

~ Tsar the Mod