Libertarianism vs Statism: An experiment
I'm thinking of a possible experiment in economics. I would like to set up an experiment, one part with a more statist society, and one with a more libertarian society. We have equal numbers of people participate in each. The libertarians set up the rules and limits of government in the libertarian society, the statists, likewise for their society. The twist is, the libertarians participate in the statist society, and vice versa. Each side tries to "break" the other's society, following the rules, set down by the other side.
There would have to be the equivalent of production of various goods, trade, imposition of taxes, redistribution of wealth, allow for fiat currency, possible individual "demands" and "needs", etc. There could be no automatic "rules" for trade, such as the "keynesian multiplier effect". If there is such an effect, it should have to emerge from the trade, itself.
Does anyone have any ideas as to how this could be implemented online?
Any comments are welcome.
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MrPrime said: Yeah, I was thinking about that as well (I'm a software engineer). The problem is the "game" has to be very complex. As soon as the society "failed" the "looser" would say "It's because the game does not have X". This will go on forever... "It failed because the game did not have X, Y, X....." Maybe you can come up with the minimal number of "things" a free market game would have to have to be realistic. I'm thinking resources, businesses, entrepreneurs, laborers, insurance, some sort of contract and arbitration system, property, etc... Some initial ideas: Maybe a production system based on something like "doodle god" where you combine certain resources to create secondary resources, tertiary resources, etc. Add a timed element, and you have a higher order structure of production. (LOL, Having farmville farms compete at the farmers market would do this, with pricing for better equipment based upon the demand (auction?)) Allow for fiat currencies by having a resource that is useless as anything but a medium of exchange, and may be produced by elected "government" in the same way that the US does, or more simply, just by "creating" it. One way that the "winning" society could be judged, is by considering the relative wealth of each of the societies as a whole, and the relative wealth of the poorest members (lowest 20%?) of each of the societies. The better the poorest in society are doing, the better the society, right? Here's something to consider: The Constitution, for the most part, is based on very Libertarian principles. Yet the Statists of our society have made the American government what it is today. And now it is the goal of the Libertarians to try and eliminate statism, but this is the hardest thing in the world. It seems that it's much easier to create Statism out of Libertarianism than it is to do vice-versa. 1
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Yeah. I think that once people are not fighting for their daily survival and are educated, they tend to start to care about others around them more than themselves (less individual rights, more "group rights"). It's very hard to reverse this process. I think it's impossible in fact. 1
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