How will governments pay for all the employees?

[Guest]

I was thinking...

 

In game governments are going to have lots of employees, primarily military. If the TU has an military of 100 people, that's going to be very expensive. How are they or any other org supposed to pay for a large government? There isn't enough taxes to cover these large governments. Going off real world statistics the average U.S Citizen makes 50k a year, and they pay about 8.5 k in taxes. One government employee makes 50k a year, to pay that employee there must be at least 5.8 citizens in the U.S paying taxes. That may not seem like much but when you consider high paying jobs like Senators or the cost of equipment that number goes up drastically. If we use these numbers for the TU, they couldn't even get close to paying their military. If all 403 people paid 8.5k in taxes to the government, the government would make $3,425,500 a year. With their 100 military members making an average salary, they would need at least 590 people to simply pay the soldiers. This doesn't take into account the fact that the TU taxes are much lower than the U.S tax rate of 30%. This also only shows one part of the government, there would be builders, engineers, designers, miners, managers and leaders to pay as well. All of these would cost more or less. Another HUGE expense would be all the buildings/ships that need to be built. These would cost huge amounts and need workers to build them, scientists/engineers to design them and people to operate and maintain them. All of this costs money which I don't think any org has. Something else to consider is this, in game you can make money quick by just mining. This means that salaries will have to be ridiculously high to make it worth it. No one will work for 50,000$ a year when they can make $1,000,000 by mining on their own. Combine this with the fact that there aren't millions of tax payers and we have a big problem. 

 

Basically what I am saying is we need  total Libertarian governments with reserve militaries to opperate. 

 

Maybe I am way over thinking this...

[MasteredRed]

sake, this is a serious problem worth consideration, but it is not for public discussion like you expect it to be.

 

First off, if you would like suggestions of how to fix this problem, I would recommend some books.

 

Thinking Strategically: The Competitive Edge in Business, Politics, and Everyday Life 

by Avinash K. Dixit & Barry J. Nalebuff

 

Armchair Economist: Economics & Everyday Life

by Steven E. Landsburg

 

Reinventing the Bazaar: A Natural History of Markets

by John McMillan 

 

Now, you should hopefully be familiar with government economics and how this should work. Such as inflation, currency, exchange, value, and so forth. Since we have the U2 as our currency in DU, it is the Government's Job(let's just say the TU) to raise the funds and distribute them to the appropriate sources. The TU will go ahead and raise funds through taxes most likely. This means that the TU will distribute the currency through to established power, such as the Military Commander, which will designate funds to his troops. Rinse and repeat, and you have a working government.

 

Now, please ask questions that base more on the mechanics of the game that are not thought of. I know that there are places that still have questions to be answered, so before you delve into economics, think about the physics.

[Lights]

for starters, if they are in your org, it would be smart to have loyal people who dont require compensation XD. and if they do, well, we can't make that decision as of now because we don't know what type of economy it will be.

[Anaximander]

for starters, if they are in your org, it would be smart to have loyal people who dont require compensation XD. and if they do, well, we can't make that decision as of now because we don't know what type of economy it will be.

 

Yeah... no. Nobody is gonna do anything without pay. Organisation jobs = daily quests.

 

It's a realistic economy, and like in EVE's case, alliances are made and undone by loosely defined economics.

 

One way is for NQ to implement a monthly salary system in-game, with contracts taking care of jobs.

 

Simple and easy to explain to a newbro.

[Lord_Void]

The real question is how does the process get started? They can't have a military if they don't pay it, and they can't pay it if they don't have any taxes, but why pay taxes to someone without a military? 

[MasteredRed]

Yeah... no. Nobody is gonna do anything without pay. Organisation jobs = daily quests.

 

It's a realistic economy, and like in EVE's case, alliances are made and undone by loosely defined economics.

 

One way is for NQ to implement a monthly salary system in-game, with contracts taking care of jobs.

 

Simple and easy to explain to a newbro.

Sadly, this is very true.

 

I mean, the case of why people are contributing now is due to how involved they want to be. Most aren't as involved though.

 

Even then, the only reason people get involved in helping organizations now is due to what they hope to gain in the end.

 

Simple and easy.. sadly true. The world is easy to predict sometimes.

[Kurosawa]

Has Novaquark said any thing about a tax/salery system ?

 

 

if not i think you are over thinking it, but even then it will properly work as a pyramid sca.. system where the lower ranks gets nothing and pay all while the top ranks take all the cream.

[Lights]

i mean, if all you hope to do in orgs is make yourself #1 macho then yeah youre gonna want compensation, but some are there just to be there, like Alpha Academy

[MasteredRed]

Has Novaquark said any thing about a tax/salery system ?

 

 

if not i think you are over thinking it, but even then it will properly work as a pyramid sca.. system where the lower ranks gets nothing and pay all while the top ranks take all the cream.

Well even then, your idea of economics needs to be at least at a simple level. Everything in economic structures works along the same lines, except in socialism. 

 

So you can almost always assume that governments raise funds, government distributes funds to other governmental workers, workers distribute those assets to their workers. For the sake of DU, that's most likely going to be how it works. 

[Lord_Void]

It also depends how members make money: do they do moneymaking activities and give a bit to the group or does the group make money and give it to the player? Both are viable but have different strengths and weaknesses. 

[Lethys]

Hopefully they make orgs raise money and then give it to the players - hilarious awoxing incoming

 

I think it will be straight forward (but hopefully better than eve): player does something (mine, sell, build, w/e) and pays taxes or does some kind of job for the gov with no salary -> org gets income and redistributes it to SRP, r&d, building, w/e

[Anaximander]

Has Novaquark said any thing about a tax/salery system ?

 

 

if not i think you are over thinking it, but even then it will properly work as a pyramid sca.. system where the lower ranks gets nothing and pay all while the top ranks take all the cream.

Hi, you must be new to the forums please, feel free to read anything associated with the game, you'll find your answers there.

 

 

i mean, if all you hope to do in orgs is make yourself #1 macho then yeah youre gonna want compensation, but some are there just to be there, like Alpha Academy

Hah.. no.

 

 

In EVE, there are "univesity" organisations, that teach newbros how to play the game and even give them some starting things for the game, like a Tier-1 frigates. The Newbros have to pay nothing and are paid in how easy it is to find PvP to do and maybe, share in some loot.

 

The "univesities" real job, is to train canon-fodder for the alliance they work for.

 

 

Nothing is for free. Never was, never will be.

 

 

Sadly, this is very true.

 

I mean, the case of why people are contributing now is due to how involved they want to be. Most aren't as involved though.

 

Even then, the only reason people get involved in helping organizations now is due to what they hope to gain in the end.

 

Simple and easy.. sadly true. The world is easy to predict sometimes.

See, favouritism is the main reason why the greatest back-stabs have taken place in EVE. You favour someone else because they rubbed shoulders with you a lot instead of how much they actually contributed? The guy who flipped the bird to is gonna sell you out to the enemy on an opportune moment and rub it in your face.

 

Salary systems take care of all that.

 

 

The alternative is a simply API key solution with an add-on that automatically issues payment to all memberso f the org, depending on their rank.

 

AKA, don't sweat over it. It will come, one way or another.

 

 

 

 

 

Thing is, in EVE, at first, when I needed to make money I could :

 

1) mine & haul minerals back to the trading hub to sell them (which is a long and boring trip)

or

 

2) mine and sell to my corpration at a 90% price on the main trading hub. 

 

 

Guess what is the sane thing to do. Yup, the second one. I mined, put up a contract for the minerals in a price associated with the 90% of the main trading hub's average, and through the magic of time, someone from the org that needed minerals for industry, validated the contract, I got paid and they got cheaper than average minerals (hauling time / fees excluded)

 

Same thing will happen in DU. It's what jobs boards are in the game for. I know many of you hate the very mention of EVE, but you need to drill it through your heads - learn how to work Excel, or risk your guys bailing on you because you pay them less than the bigger fish in the region.

[revofire]

Yeah... no. Nobody is gonna do anything without pay. Organisation jobs = daily quests.

 

It's a realistic economy, and like in EVE's case, alliances are made and undone by loosely defined economics.

 

One way is for NQ to implement a monthly salary system in-game, with contracts taking care of jobs.

 

Simple and easy to explain to a newbro.

Why does NQ have to do it? That would have to be a very robust system. Why not hire accountants that can perform more actions than NQ could ever implement? More jobs, more community, more immersion.

[Anaximander]

Why does NQ have to do it? That would have to be a very robust system. Why not hire accountants that can perform more actions than NQ could ever implement? More jobs, more community, more immersion.

You must be new to sandbox games, people are not as trustworthy as automated systems are. Let's not bring enbezzlement into what emergent activities can take place in DU.

[Violet]

It's going to be a long time before we will actually see functioning government like organisations in DU. I think these orgs like the TU are a probably going to fail pretty hard when they have recruited all these people to roles but don't yet have the material wealth to actually implement their plans.

 

The way I see thing happening is people coming together for mutual defense and trade, first just pooling resources to build a territory unit around a trade post, then some defenses and a milita force. As a "safe" area is established and faith in the leaders of the organisation is built then they might start renting out space to people which becomes the revenue stream for more formal types of police an military.

 

The idea that anyone will pay taxes is laughable, you can't force anyone to do anything so people will just leave unless you can offer them something in return.

[Lord_Void]

It's going to be a long time before we will actually see functioning government like organisations in DU. I think these orgs like the TU are a probably going to fail pretty hard when they have recruited all these people to roles but don't yet have the material wealth to actually implement their plans.

 

The way I see thing happening is people coming together for mutual defense and trade, first just pooling resources to build a territory unit around a trade post, then some defenses and a milita force. As a "safe" area is established and faith in the leaders of the organisation is built then they might start renting out space to people which becomes the revenue stream for more formal types of police an military.

 

The idea that anyone will pay taxes is laughable, you can't force anyone to do anything so people will just leave unless you can offer them something in return.

 

While I agree that many groups are writing big checks when they don't have anything to back them up yet, I think many groups will probably survive. They will have to subsist off the faith of their members for the first few weeks/months as they build up resources, but after that they should be able to start making good on some of their promises. The key is just getting the ball rolling, so to speak. 

 

And if I'm not mistaken there will be game mechanics that allow you to force members of your org to pay taxes, so people will pay. The question isn't if they will pay, it is if they will stay.

[yamamushi]

I think this goes into a deeper question of, what is the role of government in Dual Universe?

 

Obviously the purpose of government in-game is going to be much different than real-world government, which isn't an easy distinction to make because there is endless debate about what the purpose of government should be.

 

 

Personally, I subscribe to Murray Rothbard's school of thought as laid out in "Anatomy of The State", which I recommend anyone interested in the topic read (available for free here: https://mises.org/sites/default/files/Anatomy%20of%20the%20State_3.pdf ). It's a short read at ~60 pages in large font, but the fundamentals of what the purpose of government should be in a free and open society are laid out quite succinctly. 

 

 

I believe the purpose of government in real-life should be to protect free trade, and in doing so that involves protecting the rights (civil/property/etc) of the people. That does not involve taxation on income, rather taxation on the production of goods and services and imports/exports. That also precludes any censorship that might arise in the field of free trade, as I don't necessarily believe it's the government's purpose to dictate what people can and can't purchase with their own money. Money also doesn't really have true value if you're limited in how you can use it. 

 

In the real-world, governments need to raise money to pay for militaries, social services and the operation of the bureaucracies that make them up. They do this by levying taxes on income and trade, and all areas of the economy. All of this done under the guise of the "social contract", which I'm not particularly a proponent of. 

 

 

 

In Dual Universe I see government filling one of many purposes:

 

• Protecting Free Trade
• Protecting property rights
• Providing infrastructural services (everything from energy grids to traffic control for spaceships)

 

I think anything else that a government would do in DU could fit into one of those three things, and I don't necessarily believe that governments should be responsible entirely for the third on that list (hence the old anarchist joke, "who will build the roads?"). 

 

That will all likely lead into a debate amongst governments and those they govern about what services they should provide for their people. Should governments provide healthcare (in the form of respawn modules), should governments provide universal income, should they provide raw materials to their people? 

 

Which in turn gets into another question of, are all of the people living in a governed area employees? Will these governments allow for citizens to live in their territories without necessarily having to do work for them? Or are all of the citizens of a particular government state employees? 

 

 

 

All of those questions are going to dictate how any particular government raises money to pay for its existence.

 

Another driving philosophy is going to be whether a particular organization sees its government as an entity in of itself, or if they recognize that governments are amorphous entities composed of people. 

 

 

Personally, I would favor a tax based on the use of markets in territories. If you're trading in a heavily defended area, you should expect to pay more for that government-backed service. Alternatively, if the tax rates are low, that may bring in more trade, however, it will come with the downside of not getting all of the perks that you'd otherwise pay for. Although, that doesn't necessarily mean that every heavily taxed territory would be more protected.

 

 

- I'm stepping away but I will finish my thoughts in a follow up post - 

[Warden]

 

What salary? Here's your daily food ration, now get back to work!

 

 

 

 

While there's monetary reward systems planned here (in our group), obviously they can't be offered right at the beginning. Everyone will have to do their part in basically every organization - at least for some time - until you can establish whatever fancy salary system you may have set up.

 

Since it's not as crucial as in real life I think the "hardcore approach" won't be that popular and I can imagine that if the economy goes down, people just continue without (demanding) salary if they like organizations.

 

More power to anyone who manages to eventually establish a large system in some player run government faction. But I don't think this will be that viable or do-able from the start.

 

Perhaps I miss the grand aspect or point in this debate or look at it from a too pragmatic or simple perspective. But regardless I'm willing to bet that small to moderate organizations won't even apply any fixed reoccurring salary, or not think of it by default. Unless they're rather "hardcore" in terms of roleplaying, trying to be realistic, etc.

 

I come to this assumption because among the many endless organizations this is usually not a point that is too highlighted or mentioned. Usually other rewards are favored or chosen to motivate people.

 

But I'm not against this before anyone gets me wrong. I think it would be nice to eventually be able to pay actual salaries (and demand things for it in return). I just don't think anyone can pull this off from the start.

[Kurosawa]

Hi, you must be new to the forums please, feel free to read anything associated with the game, you'll find your answers there.

 

I see little reason to spend to much time on something that might change countless time between now and alfa/beta and eventually release.

 

But i do fear that some are throwing assumptions and wet fantasies around like they where facts. Which, if it takes to much hold is bad in the long run.

 

btw i know for a fact there are giant killa sharks with freakin lasers on there head in game, right now.

[Guest]

I have some ideas on how to solve this issue. First armies will be almost completely reserve. When a war starts the Government will have to raise up the army and start paying them. When the war ends the government stops paying them and the military members go back to their lives. Governments might also need to simply require military service for parts of the year/Month. This would work because people want to fight in video games. As far as business goes, there should be a business that collects ores from a hundred players. Let's say they buy 1 Gold from each player for 10$. Now the company has 1,000$ in gold. The company now sells to organisations the gold in bulk for 1,100$. They only raise the price a little so Orgs go to them not the individual because its more convenient. 

[devu]

And once again RBE that Homeless is proposing will provide answers to all that.

No politicians, no money no problem that scientists and engineers can find solution for.

And we don't have to care about food or population overgrowth. That make things even easier.

 

System is scaleable and efficient. Will work for small group up to the big org. We will face completely reverse problem to overcome.

How to not let everybody in who can drain resources out of our org. Simply using us for his own personal need, stopping by.

[devu]

I see little reason to spend to much time on something that might change countless time between now and alfa/beta and eventually release.

 

But i do fear that some are throwing assumptions and wet fantasies around like they where facts. Which, if it takes to much hold is bad in the long run.

 

btw i know for a fact there are giant killa sharks with freakin lasers on there head in game, right now.

Source?

 

But to be serious, there are those kind of topics around even little information we know about game, that are kind of fall into universal debate. If game allows to create any political system I wish to see all the flavors. People go wild with imagination what they can possibly came up with. Even worshipers of sharks with freakin lasers! Why not Some making calculations on well known patterns, other will go wild. Nothing wrong about this

[yamamushi]

Here's a clip from the Kickstarter/crowdfunding video on the topic of taxes:

 

 

 

(~10:40 into the video)

 

 

"At some point, it will be possible to create taxes on a territory so that you finance global defense systems or major infrastructures"

[Kurosawa]

Source?

 

But to be serious, there are those kind of topics around even little information we know about game, that are kind of fall into universal debate. If game allows to create any political system I wish to see all the flavors. People go wild with imagination what they can possibly came up with. Even worshipers of sharks with freakin lasers! Why not Some making calculations on well known patterns, other will go wild. Nothing wrong about this

 

You are of cause right and by all means give us all your ideas and fantasies, maybe DU will read you toughs and give us even more cool stuff and options to play with.

My post was directed to CaptainTwerkmotor who quite often will state his ideas and assumptions as facts. it could be the way he talks it just rubs me the wrong way.

[Anaximander]

You are of cause right and by all means give us all your ideas and fantasies, maybe DU will read you toughs and give us even more cool stuff and options to play with.

My post was directed to CaptainTwerkmotor who quite often will state his ideas and assumptions as facts. it could be the way he talks it just rubs me the wrong way.

Feel free to check the kickstarter page and video. Then you can take a chill pill cause your extreme butthurt clouds your judgment . Your passive aggressive is really amusing , don't overdo it though, you might have a rage-induced stroke.

 

 

I really admire ignorant folk like you, life must be so blissful when you just stay in the dark.