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-- RF Williams

This is a somewhat cleaned-up version of the "Introduction to Capital-in-eRepublik, Part II - Tomball Mushtooth's Catastrophe" by Phoenix Quinn (a/k/a Silas Soule), originally published approximately half a century ago in e-time.

Your dedicated curators here at Radio Free Dixie intend to publish additional excerpts from this epic work. But if you really want us to stop, just send tons of bribes. We're cool like that.






In Part I, we looked at the Americas in their beautiful pristine state, prior to the arrival of CAPITAL. Now, to dig into the origins of the economic "science" behind it, let's get to know how the Greatest Wizards developed their bags of tricks.

First up: Tomball Mushtooth, the Magician of Catastrophical Thinking!


II. REVEREND TOMBALL MUSHTOOTH

There were of course other antecedents besides pre-CAPITAL America. The ancient pre-Internet game designers, for example, saw game-play as improvable and, in principle, perfectible. The real explosion in modern e-economic idiocy started with the foundational ludo-catastrophism of the Right Reverend Tomball Mushtooth.

He was a crusty old e-Anglo-curmudgeon who opposed the giddy views of the Ancients. Reverend Mushtooth liked nothing better than the cold shower of "reality", as he saw it.



Rev. Mushtooth wearing the "Infinity Stones" with which he hoped to "cleanse" the New World of millions of players.


His magical rule of Economics was that growth in players' greediness and horniness would always exceed the power of software to produce joyful rewards. He predicted, no doubt with a sour grin, that there must be divine balance of "equality in alimentation", wherein players' ever-growing appetites should and would eternally be kept in check, inevitably and divinely, by a balance of misery.

Since then, we've learned that mean ol' Tomb was an extra-terrestial traveler who'd seen it all go horribly wrong on his home planet, once they started doing intra-galactic business with a Ferengi-like group of Rygellians. In order to forestall (future) reliance on extra-terrestrial imports, he encouraged localized planet-side-only production and was a big fan of austerity measures. Thus, he opposed all assistance to the poor. He encouraged high tariffs on everything.



On a more theoretical plane, he proposed that a type of "overpayment" arises from "unearned" capital assets, referring to corrupt practices for owners, and from pay raises awarded due to political action by wage slaves. He described these kinds of "overpayments" as a form of economic surplus that arises from irrational stewardship of the limited "hard goods" on hand.

Rev. Mushtooth would not have been a fan of bitcoin. His stern protestantish views led to much noodling about on these topics. As we shall see.



One of the Ancient Game Designers gesturing for Rev. Mushtooth to "begone" because he does not "spark joy".



Tomball Mushtooth is best remembered for promoting the foundational concept of "modern" Economics, that too many mouths to feed will lead, one way or another, to a balls-up fucking catastrophe all the way round. And that, sadly, became the foundational mythos and leading storyline of the eRep Labs game designers, who abandoned the Ancient Knowledge for this mess.

The Geniuses of the Carpathians only needed to mix in a smidge of hyperactive nationalistic Clauswitzian nostalgia to the Mushtooth stew in order to create the neo-fascist damp puddle known as eRepublik.

It all boils down to a silly irrational fear of there being too many disagreeable French men and women in the world.




So now you know. That's how this "science" began -- as a religio-scientistic theory promoted by an extra-terrestial "Brit" stating that chaos and misery can only be halted by massacring the poor. And the French.




"An incident on Maltus" -- said to be Rev. Mushtooth's favorite classical painting from his home planet




MORE TO COME!




OK. Be well and keep swimming, turtle-friends.

The Pond is large enough for everyone!



Thanks for checking out this edition of "Radio Free Dixie"!

All you home-grown economists, please share your notes in the convenient comment section below. Except for any whacked-out trolls with nothing to say except to piss and moan. Y'all can just shut it, plox, ya filming? 😉