[freeciv-data] Re: Artillery and sea units

scripsit Richard Stallman:
>     PS: what would happen to default game strategy if democracy and republic
>     switched places in the tech tree? I think it would interesting...
> 
> I was amused by the idea that "in democracy there is no corruption".
> But if that really means a system of direct democracy, I guess I don't
> know.  How much corruption is there in Switzerland?

I would classify as pretty corrupt a system which condoned and
encouraged banks' seizure of the assets of holocaust victims' heirs.

Switzerland also isn't a `pure' democracy; it's a federal republic with
parliamentary democracy, much like Germany.

However, that's not what Freeciv corruption is about.  `Corruption'
really means inefficiency or waste in this case.  I think it's aruable
that the combination of market capitalism and parliamentary democracy is
likely to have less waste.  The downside of that is increased
unhappiness -- all the poor sods making minimum wage and being unable to
afford healthcare or education for their children are unhappy, and need
to be given bread and circus.

A social democracy, OTOH, might trade increased waste for decreased
unhappiness.  It's `waste' in the sense that the political right calls
waste -- government bureaucracy, welfare state, etc. -- but that keeps
more of the population content (or at least not being criminal).

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Thanasis Kinias
Web Developer, Information Technology
Graduate Student, Department of History
Arizona State University
Tempe, Arizona, U.S.A.

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