NationStates Jolt Archive

If the people of your country were going on a yellow-shirt-buying spree, driving up the cost of the garments fourfold; would you (As a government leader) institute price controls? Or is this something you would leave to the market? What if the yellow shirts were a patriotic symbol? Would that change your actions? Thoughts, anyone?

I wouldn't do anything. I'd let the market handle the situation itself. Prices would rise until no one could afford yellow shirts. Then yellow shirt demand would go down. The price would stabilize. In the meantime, though, I might look into investing in the yellow shirt industry.

I'd make a point of being seen publicly always wearing a shirt of a colour other than yellow.

a) Patriotism shouldn't influence any decision.
b) Let the market handle it, like Trostia said.
c) If you institute price controls, all you do is sustain an unusually high demand for shirts, while making it much less worthwhile for people to make yellow shirts. And you end up with lots of people wanting yellow shirts, and few people actually getting them. And that'll destroy your yellow-shirt-industry for a long time to come.

Being that it's obvious where this is going, is the wearing/owning of yellow shirts necessary to maintain the infrastructure of the nation?

Price controls don't work because they cause severe hidden inflation and shortages (to say nothing of reduced quality), so that process would not work. It's better to let the market allocate them because that is the most efficient means of balancing supply and demand.

Plus, a black market for shirts is not a desirable thing. It leads to crime and even more inflation, along with corruption within the suppliers. Even worse, you could ultimately destroy the shirt industry in the country altogether.

Being that it's obvious where this is going, is the wearing/owning of yellow shirts necessary to maintain the infrastructure of the nation?

You've obviously never lived in a climate that necessitated clothing then...

What if the government runs a yellow-shirt-making racket? Would you jack up the price?

From where I come yellow shirts are a patriotic symbol, short of.

I would seize all of the yellow shirt production facilities and provide free yellow shirts to all citizens equally. We cannot let the poor the indigent and the unfortunate be deprived of yellow shirts because the greedy rich have driven up prices. Yellow shirts are a universal human right.

What if the government runs a yellow-shirt-making racket? Would you jack up the price?

That's pretty much a blank check to organized crime...state owned enterprises are notoriously corrupt, and the shirts would be sold to the black market at market prices which would help build up hidden inflation at the same time the normal market is suffering shortages.

That could be even worse...the USSR had a mountain of problems with that sector.

I would seize all of the yellow shirt production facilities and provide free yellow shirts to all citizens equally. We cannot let the poor the indigent and the unfortunate be deprived of yellow shirts because the greedy rich have driven up prices. Yellow shirts are a universal human right.

And then production of shirts plunges and the only source of them is the black market...which means that only the wealthy can afford them anyway. For those without the ability to afford the black market price, they are reduced to a shortage economy and a standard of living far below their prior level.

That could be even worse...the USSR had a mountain of problems with that sector.
...Man, I didn't even know the USSR had a yellow shirt STE...

And then production of shirts plunges and the only source of them is the black market...which means that only the wealthy can afford them anyway. For those without the ability to afford the black market price, they are reduced to a shortage economy and a standard of living far below their prior level.

Why would the production plunge to 0 so the only source was the black market?

...Man, I didn't even know the USSR had a yellow shirt STE...

Pretty much every consumer good had a state-owned enterprise tasked with supplying it...and none of them were very good at it.

Shortages were the norm, not the exception; you were lucky if you could get a yellow shirt, since it was very possible that they were only produced the previous year and this year's color from the factory was red or white...and yellow shirts might not be produced again until next year or later depending on the factory's orders.

And I thought the normal communism v. capitalism debates rapidly became complex, involved, and hard to follow outside our your own segment.....this one is going to become impossible to follow.

The division of labor leads to the fragmentation of yellow-shirt-makers into dyers and weavers, propogating trade in currency based on the yellow shirt standard....

No successful yellow shirt industry based on the principle of equitable distribution of dye has ever existed....

Why would the production plunge to 0 so the only source was the black market?

Well, it wouldn't fall to zero, it would fall to a point far below the level required to properly supply the market and shortages would develop. Shortages would in turn lead to a black market where the shirts are sold at their market price, often many times the level they are priced in the stores.

A good example are apartments in the USSR. It was virtually impossible to get a new apartment just by applying to the list, so one had to pay a variety of bribes and additional under-the-table costs if you really wanted a new apartment. Usually, the cost of that was many times the rent or deposit collected by the state meaning only the wealthy could afford it.

Everyone may be "equal", but the system simply doesn't produce enough to meet that demand and you have a de facto class system based upon ability to pay and connections within the government.

Well, if I didn't like yellow shirts and wanted to screw up the sale of yellow shirts, I would indeed enact price controls.

But otherwise, I'd leave it to the market.

Well, if I didn't like yellow shirts and wanted to screw up the sale of yellow shirts, I would indeed enact price controls.

But otherwise, I'd leave it to the market.
You make baby Marx weep like a school girl.

You make baby Marx weep like a school girl.

You make Marx sound pretty precocious. Most babies weep like babies.

I live in Brazil, during the World Cup. Yellow shirts are de rigeur.

You make Marx sound pretty precocious. Most babies weep like babies.
Marx was no normal baby. Even then he had a big, grandfatherly beard.

You make baby Marx weep like a school girl.

Is that before or after I order the yellow shirt factories seized and handed over to their employees? :)

Is that before or after I order the yellow shirt factories seized and handed over to their employees? :)
He's weeping because you haven't done it already.

He's weeping because you haven't done it already.

Well, if baby Marx thinks I am in charge of this country's government, baby Marx should have a very, very low opinion of me already. There isn't much I can do about that, because I'm not.

a) Patriotism shouldn't influence any decision.


i dont think you understand patriotism. if you are a patriot then patriotism is going to be in every decision you make about your country.

i dont think you understand patriotism. if you are a patriot then patriotism is going to be in every decision you make about your country.

All the more reason not to be a patriot.

Well, if baby Marx thinks I am in charge of this country's government, baby Marx should have a very, very low opinion of me already. There isn't much I can do about that, because I'm not.
Baby Marx would have had a revolution already.

i dont think you understand patriotism. if you are a patriot then patriotism is going to be in every decision you make about your country.
Nationalism is not patriotism. It is the exact fucking opposite.

i dont think you understand patriotism. if you are a patriot then patriotism is going to be in every decision you make about your country.

When it comes to economic decisions, it is highly undesirable to be patriotic. Those decisions should be made rationally, not according to nationalistic or patriotic aims because economic nationalism inevitably leads to economic inefficiency, irrational decisionmaking, and even the possibility of a resource war which benefits no one in the long run and hurts you in the short run.

Nationalism is not patriotism. It is the exact fucking opposite.

how so

patriotism is the love and devotion to ones country

nationalism is loyalty and devotion to ones nation

the big difference i have heard between the two is if they want to make it sound good or bad. if they want someone to sound like a good person they use patriot. when they want to make them look like a bad group or person they use nationalist.

patriotism is the love and devotion to ones country
No, it's not. It's respect of the ideals of the country. In the U.S., for example, it's about equality, and liberty.

nationalism is loyalty and devotion to ones nation

No, it's not. It's the stance that the country is perfect at everything, and can never be wrong. It's the sickest political philosophy ever devised.

Baby Marx would have had a revolution already.

The baby must have been significantly more talented than the adult, then.

the big difference i have heard between the two is if they want to make it sound good or bad. if they want someone to sound like a good person they use patriot. when they want to make them look like a bad group or person they use nationalist.

That, and liberals use "patriotism" to exclaim about their fanatical, irrational love for pointless abstract entities without sounding too conservative.

No, it's not. It's respect of the ideals of the country. In the U.S., for example, it's about equality, and liberty.


No, it's not. It's the stance that the country is perfect at everything, and can never be wrong. It's the sickest political philosophy ever devised.


look it up.

nationalism (http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/nationalism) (pay special attention to the thrid one

patriotism (http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/patriotism)


and lets also throw in what merriam-webster has to say for patriotism (http://m-w.com/dictionary/patriotism) and nationalist (http://m-w.com/dictionary/nationalist)

you also proved my point that the meaning is not much more then if they want the person/group to sound good or bad

-snip-
You're being a fascist (http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/mussolini-fascism.html), quit it.

Patriotism/Nationalism/silly amounts of affiliation with the country you happen to have been born in are just like religion. They are primitive, emotional convulsions that remind us that we used to be apes.

If you make a decision (especially as a government, and especially in economics) you want to be rational. You want to find out the realistic costs and benefits to an alternative, and you want to choose based on that. You also want to remember that the individual comes first, and that individual freedoms should not be curtailed.

You definitely do not want to hurt your own people, or any other people, because of irrational things like patriotism or religion.

look it up.

nationalism (http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/nationalism) (pay special attention to the thrid one

patriotism (http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/patriotism)


and lets also throw in what merriam-webster has to say for patriotism (http://m-w.com/dictionary/patriotism) and nationalist (http://m-w.com/dictionary/nationalist)

you also proved my point that the meaning is not much more then if they want the person/group to sound good or bad
The funny thing about dictionaries is that they're descriptive, not perscriptive. The definitions they give are the ones used by the rabble. If I brainwashed, say, 60% of the population into believing that "chicken", meant "explosive decompression", that definition would be put into the dictionary, even though it was wrong.

The funny thing about dictionaries is that they're descriptive, not perscriptive. The definitions they give are the ones used by the rabble. If I brainwashed, say, 60% of the population into believing that "chicken", meant "explosive decompression", that definition would be put into the dictionary, even though it was wrong.

Language is a tool to communicate thoughts. The meaning of its vocabulary is not absolute; it changes over time as people use it in different ways. The words "nationalism" and "patriotism" lack intrinsic meaning; they are merely sounds produced by our vocal cords. They are interpreted by human minds, and that is how they acquire meaning. If most of those who use them interpret them in a certain way, to the extent that we can speak of "accurate" definitions at all, it is most reasonable to label their usage accurate. Especially when the dictionaries are in agreement.