Join the new world

First of all, my applause to those who have gotten involved in politics and have decided to run for Congress and published manifestos, it should be an interesting and (hopefully) clean election. As promised in my last article, I will go through ideologies in eRepublik, for those who are new to politics. I will try to be brief and to the point 🙂

Be forewarned, this article is written from my point of view (which I will try to keep unbiased) and I do not wish to insult any individual or party.

Social Orientation

Generally speaking, totalitarian and authoritative regimes are conservative (traditionalists who believe a social hierarchy is inevitable) ; libertarian and anarchist regimes,on the other hand, are more liberal (strongly believe in the individual and freedom).

Totalitarian - Advocates of totalitarianism believe that total power should be in the hands of the state through politicizing every aspect of personal life, thus abolishing private life. So basically in a totalitarian regime one party calls all the shots and controls everything right down to the media.

Authoritarian - Think of a one party government that makes decisions with or without the will of the people. Unlike totalitarianism, those who advocate authoritarianism oppose political freedom but do not wish to abolish all private life. They may infact allow for economic and other freedoms.

Libertarian - Basically regular elections, civil liberties, individual rights and a set of laws (usually determined by a written constitution). The regime pretty much all Western societies have in place.

Anarchist - Anarchists want a stateless society and believe political authority is unnecessary. Basically a system where individuals mind their own business and co exist with each other through consensual agreement.

Economic Orientation

In the interest of keeping this article brief and accessible (and keeping 'isms' to a minimum) I won't rant on about the differences between Leninism, Trotskyism, Marxism, Thatcherism, Ahernism (I threw that one in for comic relief) etc. I will simply refer to the left as socialism, the right as pure capitalism (no Milton or Friedman biographies, sorry) and the centre as the best of both worlds.

Socialism (far-left, left) - Socialists believe in social equality, the community and the needs of those impoverished (I use the term loosely) in society. In order to accommodate such needs and equality contemporary socialists believe in state interference in the market (through taxes and state companies) in order to combat the unfair nature of pure capitalism. Some but not all socialists believe in common ownership.

Centre (centre-left, centre, centre-right) - Those aligned to the centre believe in the free market however are also conscience of social needs. So they believe in a balance between the state and the market (a balance between high and low taxes and public spending).

Pure Capitalism (right, far-right) - Those who believe in one hundred per cent, undiluted capitalism. People on this side of the spectrum generally advocate no state control or interference in the market, low taxes, low government spending and basically everybody is responsible for themselves.

Look here to find out where you are on the political compass.

Political ideologies are just ideas as to how society should function. I think a country benefits a lot more from a good administration then from any ideology, so don't get too caught up in choosing between them.

If you liked the article vote, if you really liked it subscribe to the newspaper 🙂 Any questions feel free to pm me or leave a comment here.