As someone who has moved in 'prepper' circles for years, I'm amazed at the lack of basic societal knowledge there. It's either "I'm going run off to the woods and lone wolf it" or they're wannabe warlords. When I tell them that the best chance is to be part of small community with a variety of skills, they look at me like I've sprouted an extra head.
Those wannabe warlords are the type to run away when things get hard, or they will be one of the many skulls the actual warlord sits on when they sit on thier throne of skulls.
There’s one massively overlooked detail in discussions about the NCR: they have a standing army and their towns are policed. When you think about it from the perspective of a wastelander who can’t fight and just wants to survive, the taxes and governmental corruption doesn’t seem all that bad. Your alternatives include signing up to more cultish factions or facing the radscorpions alone.
I treat laws and policing as assumed from what we see of the NCR (can't have conscription or taxes without laws and people to enforce them) but yes, stating it plainly would go long way for people that don't overthink this stuff.
@@feralhistorianactually in Fallout 3 do you think the BOS giving free water is a way to get more people to show up in the capital wasteland allowing the BOS to build up the area with increase population?
@@Alex-pj8nz It's actually a much better way to do propaganda and gaining recruit than just making Rivet city a trade hub. Simply put: the BoS want to build a nation state, which means they need to have A) legitimacy of power (this is what that water distribution stuff does), B) manpower (relaxed recruit policies and training) and C) Technology (which is why they go towards Boston and Massachusetts, where the Institute is located). Maxon has the other 2, but only gain legitimacy through force, and as such will probably be very easily lose it when either another faction is there to challenge it or the locals just flat out NOT accepting that and staged a guerrilla war under a front or "protecting our community" (and Fallout4 even alluded to that possibility by having the Minutemen, basically Bostonian home grown anarchist society that actually worked until they got betrayed)
@@Alex-pj8nzHow does the free water work? What is the alternative to Brotherhood water? Water, plumbing, power is the sort of basics that become necessary.
@Thagomizer Not really no. The canonical ending for the BoS in Fo1 is that they assist the Vault Dweller in fighting the Masters army and then also assist the other human communities. They introduce technology back into Californianallowing thongs like the NCR to exist. The NCR named a state after Roger Maxson for the Brotherhoods assistance.
Yup. It’s extremely sad that a lot of the “pointing out this thing in Fallout is a bit odd or silly” mostly stems from Bethesda just ignoring the solid worldbuilding done in FO1, 2 or NV.
Mr. McGuire: I want to say one word to you. Just one word. Benjamin: Yes, sir. Mr. McGuire: Are you listening? Benjamin: Yes, I am. Mr. McGuire: Plastics. Benjamin: Exactly how do you mean? Mr. McGuire: There’s a great future in plastics. Think about it. Will you think about it?
When William the Conqueror conquered England in 1066 with a bunch of knights, there were three significant things he did. 1. His knights took over the entire top of the Power structure. Completely. 2. He had to figure out what he had actually just conquered. And so, he sent out some of his men to survey and find out. It was a census. And a really good one at that. Number of villages, number of people, you name it, it was really thorough. 3. He organized the entirety of England into "Hides". One hide produced one pound (a pound was worth a lot more back then). Also, each hide would pay 1/10th of their produce to the King. 1/3 of the produce during time of need and/or war. And each hide would provide one laborer for public projects. Digging ditches, standing guard, you name it. This worked pretty well. With the overwhelming power of the Norman Knights, they were able to take total control over England. Replacing the entire leadership of the Kingdom, secured a new culture and a long period of needed stability. The new leaders came from a more sophisticated background, bringing a higher level of sophistication in governmental structure and economic activity over the previous. This was when England started getting stone castles. Completely changing local security, and with it changing culture. There was a new legal system, melding with the local customs and bringing in a higher level of sophistication to it. In number 3, we see a fundamental aspect of economics that I feel you left out. Trading time. Of course, this is very geographically dependent. But once you have villages and agricultural communities with bare-bones technology, you trade time with your neighbors. You need help with a fence, and so you offer to help your neighbor with his roof for a day. Trading time for time. Everybody talks about a barter economy, but exchanging time dominated the Pre-Industrial Capitalist system. Note: When I say Capitalist system, I mean the system that developed when the Americans settled west of the Appalachian Mountains, settling in the Midwest. Where for the first time in human history, ordinary normal people could generate their own personal capital. Thanks to dirt-cheap land and dirt-cheap transportation on the Mississippi River system (which has more interconnected navigable waterways than the rest of the world combined), allowed for ordinary people to generate their own money, changing culture forever. Before then, exchanging goods and exchanging time was the dominant currency. So, back to Pre-Capitalism. And so, villages and small communities based on perhaps 100 people would already have a vibrant economic system going on, but time was the currency. This is also why culture and community was so incredibly strong before Industrialism. Because when time is the dominating currency, you need a fundamentally different thing going on compared to the modern world. A psychopath in the Feudal structure of Northwestern Europe, would be the nicest and most hardworking man you would ever meet. Because his own personal safety and prosperity would be bound to how people liked and dealt with him. Virtue had a direct and immediate benefit. if everyone liked you, they will help you during winter when food gets tight. Sin had a direct and immediate pain. If nobody liked you, you would be left with nothing when you needed it the most. Feudalism is extremely dependent upon Geography. The ancient world with civilization set in the desert along a river, never had Feudalism. Russia never had Feudalism. China never had Feudalism. Nowhere in Africa did they ever have Feudalism. India never had Feudalism. But in France, England, and Germany, it came naturally with the climate and geography and the technology. Also. In Europe, we have all four seasons. The work you do completely changes through the year. During winter, not much to do. Which means you start fiddling with things. And so, "Middle Class Artisanship" came naturally to the climate and geography. If you have a civilization in the desert with access to water, you produce insane levels of food. There is a reason why the Crade of Civilization was where it was. And there is a reason why California produces an absolutely silly level of food stuffs today in real-life. But it is constant labor. Without modern technology, you develop a labor class of people who are essentially slaves, dominated by an overpowering top-heavy structure. But then you place this in the Nuclear Apocalypse. I don't know the canon population density for Fallout. But you do have the Brahmin Barons. But are they Feudal Lords? Or are they more like Prairie Ranchers? Very different things. Does Fallout have a bunch of villages and hamlets with populations 50-200 spread throughout the landscape? If they do, specialization would already be happening, both within the villages as well as between villages. One gunsmith would serve all the nearby villages. Or, is the wasteland entirely covered by independent homesteads locked to a single family? If so, good luck getting any sort of economic of scale going on. And your system would be forever stagnant until someone from the outside introduces the necessary technology to even the odds. Trying to build up a working system in the Western United States after a Nuclear Apocalypse just sounds like a really bad idea. You need a lot of stuff to make California what it is today. Throw some nukes on it, and it would be like trying to build a civilization in central Libya. Good luck. But on the East Coast, we see green. We see stuff is growing. There is life. On the East Coast, the Brotherhood could so easily serve as the Norman Knights of the setting. Asking them to be Templars is more difficult. The Templar organization rose as every other basic need was already established, which allowed for a very different type of organization to form. First you need the Norman Knights. Then you can get the Templar Knights. ------ I apologize for any typos or out-of-whack sentences. I have been awake for a very long time. It is too warm. And I spent two hours sprinting after two loose calves. I couldn't help not to comment immediately once I saw the video. These are my kind of topics.
I remember reading segments of the Domesday Book many years ago. Quite thorough. It’s always interesting discussing economic systems because it starts with defining terms. I admit to defining feudalism and capitalism in terms heavily influenced by marxist academia. (I use small-m marxist for purely analytical models as opposed to capital-M Marxist for the politically motivated variety, it’s my own little convention) So I would argue that Russia did have feudalism in the basic sense of vassals working the land for nobles who are in turn bound to a monarch through tithes, service, and webs of social obligation; though Russian feudalism, English feudalism, and French feudalism for example had major differences in practice. That said, I did neglect “trading time” and will think on that further. Having always been an urban creature to some extent I’ve not had a lot of experience with communities at that level of personal interconnection. As always, you give much to consider.
Americans settling midwest first time in history when people could generate their own capital is just absurd...dutch republic, venice, MFkng british empire and americans stealing the british technology to kickstart their industry.
Advice on dealing with calves or any other animal, .. food condition train them with sound. Cheap plastic recorder flute, each note is whistled for a given treat. My aunt taught a mean as hell horse to strut & flirt for a given treat. Also That Horse had a history of head butts to the chest popping ribs out of place, I receive more than a few frontal skull head concussions from Him. Unless you are a woman don't try to ride him, otherwise he just sat down & roll over on top of you. But I am from what seems the last generation that got fly swatter as grade schoolers. The adult yells, " If you keep running you just get it harder & for longer ! " Since we were tried of trying to run a straight line or separate from the group and hope the adult go after another child instead of you/me. We charge forwards and run circles around the adult until they drop from exhaustion. 2.) I did groom trained 6 bull calves as a teenager, my family spray painted grain cellos, barns and other buildings, along with carpentry/roofing. In a way we knew people ... I/ we learned what .. rough housing like baby bulls .. means. Summertime us teenagers went on a week camping trip sleeping out of a van, as the adults spray paint barns. Us teens ran the feed lines and kept the equipment full & running. We even brough the dogs with us. So when my little sister friend comes to visit for a few days, she brings her dogs, and sometime a calf to hang out on my grandparent's acreage. When granny woke up from her room and open the door to the living room, she was used to ravens/crows sitting on her book shelves, bob cats and coyotes sitting on the couch. But what was the Cow doing in her living room ? Grandpa patted the bull calf on the head sitting next to his chair and said, " This is a bull and not a heifer." At that moment granny didn't care what it was, Why was it in her house ?! Half the animals just fled the room out the front door, the others sat ready to see how this is going down. Granny daughters, grandchildren, and their fathers stood outside of the house looking in through the front widows. At any given time or weekend, granny could have twenty teenagers running through her house. We trained a couple of bulls and a few cows to pick up and carry baskets with their mouths, and to functions as draft animals. Keeping in mind oxen are bulls that are at least three years old to mellow out along with their balls cut. A dozen male teenagers with a great Dane playing football and wrestling trained a yearling bull with his balls to patrol the " yard " in the morning with the dogs as the boys train morning military jog, light bump/push wrestle, follow with a brushing and finish with a grain treat breakfast. Then after school/work, play train the bull yearling, with a log pull, then have a nightfall walk before bed. Spring, summer, fall, and the farmer bought the bull yearling back for the winter so the calf could have a bit more social life. Along with watching cattle interaction, needless to say his wife and daughters claim a new pet. ( .. you're so will behave, yes you are.) Following spring six farmers sent me a bull calf yearly from their stud beef bull " so they said," to see if I could train another five at the same time. Two where on a level of .. just stupid .. I could not explain in words, you just had to see to believe it. Those two were made into beef that winter. The other four were used during winter to help pull people's cars & trucks from snow drifts back on to the roads. After a couple of years one just prefer to be a stand-offish bull and not cuddle nap, and way to alpha to keep around as a stud. So he was turn to beef. The remaining three were kept around till they started to have hip pain from age. They were novelty bulls since currently they are not needed as draft animals. But they died with their balls.
Given the small numbers of people I encounter in the cities and on the farms, I think that a lack of population is a major impediment to economic development around Boston (Fallout 4). Economic specialization requires a decent population size to be viable, and economies don't really grow without high levels of specialization. The sheer amount of salvage still lying around 200 years after the war ended tells me that the population must have been even smaller in the past, so there just weren't enough people for an economy to develop. Things don't look like they'll get any better anytime soon either since I encountered very few children relative to the number of adults in the population. Perhaps the radiation has reduced fertility. In addition, the staggering levels of crime and violence would make it very difficult to build up the capital required for serious economic development.
@@feralhistorian I feel that now, as we are approaching a Post-Boomer world, the currency of time is becoming a thing people consider again. With Feminism having reached its peak, people are again starting to consider the economic value of a wife staying home. A sort of, "Post-Feminism". With people such as John Adams. John Adams is one of the greatest men America every produced. But there is no John Adams without Abigail Adams. She tended to the farm when he was away to the Continental Congress or to France. She worked as his assistant and editor, as they would go through his writings together and in essence work together as one. Even though it was his name attached to it, and he the one who got the credit, they were as One Flesh. But gradually in the Post-Victorian world, and especially after WW2, people threw it aside as it had no direct monetary value attached to it. No direct number attached to it. Capitalism, as I described in the original comment, had now taken over culture completely. And so women got jobs. And we built kindergartens, expensive. We built decade long institutional schooling, expensive. We drive for miles and miles every day, expensive. We build office buildings, expensive. We buy takeout and processed food and TV-dinners, expensive. And in most of the West, guaranteed maternity-leave, which is super-expensive for both the business and the State. Ineffective supplements to a problem we manufactured for ourselves. So I am glad seeing that more and more people are starting to consider the currency of time. I just hope it sticks around and fully manifests. The wife staying home with the kids. Tending to the vegetable garden. Tending to the chickens. Keeping home, property, and clothes clean. Cooking meals from scratch. Assisting the husband in his work/writing/art/business. Is a dream to be had. And a dream that we as a people of the Western world could and should strive for. And with technology such as Starlink and Hydroponics, we have the necessary means to make it happen. ----------- And on Fallout and making the Brotherhood of Steel into Norman Knights. Edward Longshanks (Grandson of King John, brother of Richard Lionheart). Who is the King in the movie Braveheart, where he suffers a complete character assassination. He is recorded as having been a fantastic husband. First having an incredible marriage with his first wife. Then she died. And somehow, he was able to have a second very happy marriage. Anyway. During his reign was when England truly gave birth to their Parliament. And this system over time became a bicameral body. It would have been really interesting to see this happen in Fallout. - The Norman Brotherhood of Steel comes along and takes over someplace East. Perhaps in the Ohio Valley. - With their Power Armor and flying machines, they are able to completely take over the whole thing. - Officers of the Brotherhood, with their Power Armor, can easily take on a group of bandits. Especially if a couple men of the community assists him. Truly making these new Barons the central figures of the local community. - The Brotherhood establishes forts throughout the conquered lands. Just as the Normans did. Just as the US Army did 150 years ago. These forts becoming central to the local community. For trade, for safety, for handling legal disputes. - The Brotherhood establishes a Parliament where the Officers of the Brotherhood of Steel, now transformed into Barons with Power Armor, now have a Legislature. With the top General of the Brotherhood most likely becoming an elected position over time. An elective Monarchy of sorts, as there was in Scotland, probably elected by their version of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. - With the modern technology, modern methods, and books and such from Old America. The region is reborn and altered. - Legal system changes. With local customs and such having taken over the Wasteland. The Brotherhood would bring back pieces of Old American law. Merging together as it did in Norman England. - Language changes. Language would have changed a lot after a few generations in the Wasteland. Then, with Old American returning with the Brotherhood. It would be fun to see such an interaction. Wasteland slang together with Formal American interacting. - Then, after a while of growth and sophistication. The Parliament is separated into two bodies. With the Brotherhood of Steel holding the Upper House. Either getting their seats from the military sides, as you get a seat once you reach a certain rank in the military structure of the Brotherhood. Or, through an inherited seat. Or, perhaps both, having some landed seats and having some military seats. (depends how Feudal or how modern you would like it to be and feel). And then the ordinary people would get the Lower House. ------- I love world-building too much. Too much. I think I have an addiction.
A lot of apocalyptic games and fiction pass that over for convenience. My mates joked that refined petroleum would go bad so fast that the motor gangs of Mad Max would be better off driving around collecting bikes.
@@LukeBunyip Who said he hikes back? I have heard rumors of a feral man roaming the Dakota wilderness. People who hike in the region often tell stories of rustling and rumblings beyond their tents at night, whispers and mumblings in the dark, something about Two Eagles and something about a Ninti's Gate.
I mean I get it. When I have some weird thing I want to yap about, I know talking to people in every day society would be a waste as I’d just seem weird. The woods is far enough away that I can really get into a tear about my BS.
@@potatogun2845 The only truly good factions are the Responders (who probably don't exist anymore in 2296) and the Followers of the Apocalypse (Who may also be gone)
@@enclaveofficer2305 I would say that's not true. I think the followers of the apocalypse are one of the last truly good factions in the wasteland. They actually want to proliferate old world knowledge and arcade Gannon is looking into new ways of production for medical supplies. The issue with a lot of these factions is that they're not trying to make a new society. The brotherhood of steel doesn't want to create a new government they just want to steal all the old world technology and hoard it. The enclave want to create a one-to-one replica of the older United States. Even if that means killing everybody who doesn't fit the mold. Followers of the apocalypse just want to help people but they don't want to rule them. There's a lot of factions that could fill the void but we only ever get to see conflict between the enclave and the brotherhood nowadays. The institute had real legs, but they were just plain evil if I don't understand how replacing people was going to help them, but they thought it was a good idea I guess.
The idea of the world not developing after the Great War of 2077 is only a problem on the East Coast. The West Coast is a post post-apocalypse where nations have risen and carved out frontiers. The NCR to the West, the Legion to the East, and Vegas in the middle. P.S. I remember reading something that said the Brotherhood destroyed the NCR’S gold reserves which led to the NCR adopting a fiat currency. Can you do a video on Mr. House?
@@feralhistorian If i remember correctly in lore the BOS did quite literally destroy their reserves. Like they used thermite or something else to melt the gold and make it unusable.
@@MrCombatcarl That's my understanding of the lore too, that they slagged the NCR's gold reserves. I have to think of it metaphorically. I mean, you melt a pile of gold bars and you end up with a big chunk of really dirty gold. Remelt it, scrape the filth off the top, cast into new bars.
I always interpreted it as the BoS literally made the gold unusable. Maybe it was pulverized with energy weapons to the point that it was impossible to reforge into ingots. Because otherwise I don't see where the gold could have gone. The NCR has no neighboring nation whit whom it could trade for resources. And if any private company (like the Gun Runners) supplied the NCR with weapons for their campaign to the point that they obtained all their gold, then they would be a much more power influence in the wasteland. It's mentioned that the brahmin barons have control over the government, but if they had all the gold that belonged to the NCR I think it would have been explicitly mentioned. It's a really big detail. I searched the wiki and it says that the BoS raided the gold reserves, stealing a lot of it and destroying the rest. But all of this section is based on comments made out of the game by the developers, so it isn't strictly canon.
@@AgusSkywalker I think it really comes down to game writing not always making sense. They need the NCR to have no gold and didn't have a plausible way of transmuting an element into something else.
A lot of fruit farmers in the central valley are moving away from monoculture to blocks of trees. So, instead of 100 acres of one type of peach (where they can lose the entire crop due to a late frost, they plant 10 acres of 10 cultivars with different ripening dates. Not only does this reduce risk, it can reduce cost because they can hire migrant labor for the season rather than an intense 2 week period. Then, they can get more for their crops because there are more buyers for 10 acres of fruit at a time than 100. It's a curious inversion of expected market forces.
There is one problem. In the terminal entries in Fallout 4, it is revealed that the Brotherhood took the power supply from Rivet City to power their airship. They took the electricity supply from the largest and most functional economic unit in the DC area to make a weapon that is based on the Hindenburg. The Brotherhood is definitely pillaging the civilian economy to support military campaigns.
The Shandification of fallout truly was prophetic. It is a video that is well over a decade old and I still think about "where do they eat" and now that is the crux of the last 2 games and part of the show.
A farmer cooperative would be fun in here. Farmer cooperatives sometimes start to function as insurance, spreading risk. The cooperative can invest in central plants and keep them in their control. You can negotiate as a group with distributors. A whole slew of financial systems exist to spread the risk of agriculture.
I love this sort of logical analysis applied to apocalypse stories. Very rarely are they ever well thought out, economically and anthropologically speaking
Honestly I'm just glad to come across another content creator who understands the lore, watched the show and understood that the Fall of Shady Sands was more complicated than just "it was nuked". Fortunately that argument has pretty much died off now.
The chalkboard is handled poorly from a writing perspective. If it refers to widespread decay of ncr it should be called "NCR depression" or something, because we don't call the great Depression as "1928 fall of Washington DC", no? We don't call Russian Revolution "fall of Petersburg" etc. You get the idea. If that is writers intent they should have made their point clear, and used common language instead of ambiguous nonsense they have.
Of all the videos on the socioeconomic, governmental reforms, city-states and market-value estimations regarding supply-and-demand in Fallout, this is definitely in the top 10. Joking aside, I thoroughly enjoyed this. I dislike the Fallout TV series but, this video was well thought out and if I might mention one correction, there _are_ some farms in F4 that specialize their crops. That's just a small picking on an otherwise awesome video by someone who clearly knows, and loves fallout. Thank you sir.
8:17 I know it has nothing to do with the subject matter of the video, but this part where you methodically try to get that MG-34 reloaded as a raider sprints at you with a tire iron is just hilarious to me.
Why has humanity forgotten what a broom is? People live with skeletons and bones in their houses. It's bad world building that's why. Same reason for why no one lives near fresh water or grows crops, or why the largest settlement is a shanty town in Fenway.
Rad storms probably make any cleaning pointless as the Shack walls aren't going to keep out much dust and debris. Clean water would be a must, but the games emphasize that the only real way to get some is through purifiers as all sources are too irradiated to drink from.
@@Toxic_Korgi Still living with bones in your house for 200 years is strange, unless it’s become a religious thing, also they will have turned to dirt about 120 years before fallout 4.
NCR is an interesting example of an accelerated timeline of a merchant republic formed as a democracy sliding to a capitalist system in which the largest capital holders owner's interest became the dominant interest group. This lead to a lot of the poor decisions and need for constant expansion as well, as outsourcing and expanding markets is cheaper for them than investing in reducing labor needed to work their holdings (there is a lot of overlap with feudalism like you mentioned, but without the investment in freeing labor's time from menial work and investment in skilled labor they are stuck in that mode of production).
I would like to make the case for The Minutemen as a way for the economic future of the commonwealth. for starters: 1. When it comes to nation-building or making settlements they are the best. Preston every five minutes goes, "I'll mark it on the map." This nation-building is really good and the trade that is happening between the farmer/settler is good. I(The general of the Minutemen) Give you three things: defense, water, and a roof. You give me some food, ammunition, and loyalty. The con of this is that the minutemen once the lone survivor dies it is a weak government/army. The Minutemen established a feudalism that could make money 2. The minutemen could become an economic powerhouse with the form of feudalism they have. The minutemen could dominate food supplies since they help farmers out from raiders. They would have a monopoly over the agrarian sector of the post-apocalyptic wasteland, and with that stranglehold over crops, a lot of people would join them. 3. their supply lines could be good. Depending on how many settlements you make the supply lines of each could be really good. The scrap from all of the settlements could be loaded on a settler and make him a traveling merchant. He will then sell this scrap for caps and, if the player chooses to add stalls for trading, he can then stimulate the local economy of a settlement. 4. You can set up shops to make a market among your settlements. There are cons like the minute men are weak and the lone survivor are the only things holding them together, but I put the future up to them.
My first Fallout 4 playthrough was with the Minutemen, largely for similar reasons. They're widespread, they're building communities from the ground up instead of imposing them top down. They have the potential for the best recovery of the available options if stable trade and a clear, accepted succession process can be established. But the odds are against them. Having imploded before and now held together solely by the General, there's a lot that can go wrong.
@@feralhistorian The Minutemen representing the mispotential of Fallout4 tbh. A faction that can easily become the most interesting both gameplay AND narrative wise, ending up being a "players playground" faction. I think it is way, WAY more interesting if the Minutemen actually just.......doesn't build a nation-state at all and basically becoming an anarchistic organization with the corresponding trading and manufacturing capabilities of such, while the NPC has advanced enough AI to actually shift through their activity and decision. Kinda like how some of the old school open world AI act (STALKER AI comes to mind). But that's probably a task too tall to ask Bethesda tbh.
12:00 the "quotas" applied to the farmers in New Vegas IIRC are a payment for being provided fresh water, land, and settlement; kind of like a company town. However, that water in particular is irradiated and you have to choose who to save: the farmers or the people trapped in the vault.
Swedish Mutant embraces that phase. New nations are rising, infrastructure and organisations at edwardian level are being introduced. There was cities.
They kinda did. They just moved their games on the East Coast where distance and different historical events did the thing. In Fo3 level of destruction and pollution are such severe that there is still barely any civilization besides River City I guess. There also are some shenanigans during the development. Originally it was supposed to be much earlier before or around the same date as in Fo1 but then somebody decided that they can't have 3rd mainline game be chronologically before previous games. In Fo4 Institute is behind stagnation. Is this stupid? Yes, but this won't be the only stupid thing they do or what has happened historically or even still happening today. F76 is actually so early, that we can deal with people who actually were living before the war or first post-war generation.
5:45 what you're saying would be true in this context because it's a person to person exchange. There isn't a central market in a capitalist economy. The theory of labor value only describes value under capitalism where there is a market that establishes a medium value. This doesn't mean the theory isn't true, just that it can't be applied to a single transaction. Of course cost fluctuates between transactions. If I was a merchant in the Capital Wasteland I could sell my goods at whatever price I want, since there isn't a central authority saying that 1000 caps is too much for a single stimpak. But trying to do that in New California where a central market is much more developed would mean that my potential buyer would go to whatever merchant is selling stimpaks closer to its real market value, which is determined by the work needed to produce. Of course if I have the monopoly of stimpak production I can set whatever price I want, but that is an inflated price and not its real value.
The only 'real value' is what people will pay. Sure, they can hike back to Shady Sands to get a cheaper stim pack, but that involves making a trip there and back, and the wasteland trader has their stim packs right here, right now. You're not just paying him to haul the stim packs out there, either; he had to brave the raiders and wildlife to get to you, and there was no guarantee anyone there would actually want his stim packs. It's not price gouging to value those risks, nor the knowledge that there was even something out that way to trade with.
The thing is, there is a lot going on within the market. Even if you were a merchant in the Capital Wasteland, and you brought goods that no other merchant has. You still have the reality of peoples willingness to pay your insane prices. You will not be able to sell your goods at whatever price you want, you can only set your price to whatever you want. And then, within the free market, people will make the personal choice whether that price is worth it or not. Or, they just don't have access to the wealth that you are demanding for the product. Travelling as a merchant is not cheap. And so if you were to travel to a region with your product, set an insane price to achieve an 800% markup, but nobody buys your thing? You're in trouble. You have now spent a lot of time, wealth, and resources on travelling with your product that nobody wants. Putting you in the clear red. Which means you need to lower the price to a realistic level to have a chance at selling it. Firmly placing you within the realm of "Supply and Demand". Also, there is the reality of having good business relations with customers and other businesses that you would be interacting with as a Travelling Merchant. You need connections with mechanics, you need connections with local security, you need connections with suppliers. All of which requires you advertising yourself well, and placing you in a position where people like you and want to do business with you. The image of a business is vital. If you deal in "Price Gouging", people will not like you and will try to avoid your business to the best of their ability. Even being willing to pay more to other merchants just to avoid doing business with you. And even going to far, that if the local security or local law does not like you, you can be in real trouble if they decide that protecting you and working tightly with you is not worth it anymore. And going onwards to the political side. If you have a good and clean image, politicians will be much more willing to work with you, giving you access to government contracts, big and small. If everybody hates you, you lose out on this. Again, the image of the business is vital to long-term survival. Yes, of course you can be a Snake Oil Salesman. You travel to town and scam and trick as many people that you can before you escape. But you can't return there, so good luck making a business out of it. And if you hold too tight on to your Stimpak monopoly within the NCR. You run the risk of the State Nationalizing your business. That's the worst-case scenario. Most likely they would make the patent for your Stimpak's public. And/or "break the trust", carving up your business empire. There is a lot going on in a vibrant free market economy. A lot. And no system of Market Control or Planned Economy has ever been able to even get close to managing the whole thing successfully. In another comment to this video I used the example of the Soviet Union and their century long problem of making something as simple as shoes. A free people making free choices with what they personally think they want or personally think they need, creates an absolutely enormous and an infinitely vibrant system, that includes: the cost of materials, the cost of transportation, cost of infrastructure, cost of protection, business image, perceived want, perceived need, long term planning, short term planning, very short term fun, competition, Governmental protection and security, Governmental environmental regulations, Governmental requirements with things such as marking on the can what is in the food, Governmental involvement in infrastructure to promote National Unit, Governmental Antitrust laws. Governmental taxation to pay for the military and for basic infrastructure. And much much much more. You have a million things from all around that feed into a Free Market.
I'll take exception to the assertion that the Brotherhood charging for the clean water of the Purifier would foster innovation. We are talking of a literal magic technology; the only people that fully understood it dead or worse by the end of Fallout 3. Giving away this water not only gives the BoS legitimacy, it creates the beginning of a social safety net. People can afford to take risks - on new crops, tools, business models - knowing they won't have to offer themselves as slaves or beg for water if it fails.
I really should have been much more specific with that. I wasn't arguing so much that the BoS should charge for water (though it would avoid some of the problems) but that if they set it up as a public good it needs to be in a way that's stable enough to have long-term positive effects. If they went the cost-prohibitive route and built an irrigation system, aqueducts or canals, to take water inland it would allow for a resurgence of agriculture. If they just gave water away at the Memorial while providing a wide security perimeter, they would get a trading hub building up in the area and the farmers and merchants would work out ways of transporting water. Either way leads to long-term changes in the socioeconomic conditions built on a stable and water supply. But instead they distributed it as widely as they could, in the most inefficient way available, at a cost they can't sustain and will shortly have to abandon.
@@feralhistorian I think I see the argument now. A wide water distribution network that will eventually collapse without the intervention of a shockingly talented individual and an entourage of lovable misfits is certainly far from ideal. The Brotherhood has been accused of many things over the years, but being practically minded sure isn't one of them. Thank you for taking your time to reply and clarify.
@@feralhistorianTrading water is a lot more hassle than games make it out to be. Carrying water using manpower for even a small distance to feed the need of a village is a lot of work. Using a motor vehicle is possible, if you have those.
@@rubinelli7404I'm used to the older BoS that was so isolationist that they barely grasped events in the larger wasteland. The BoS was barely large enough to control the area around their bunker. The Dweller had to break them out of it enough to deal with super mutants and the Enclave. They had limitations to their reach like all other groups.
"Webs" of civilization, trade and production are *incredibly* complex and take a great deal of _time_ (decades, centuries!), population and effort to create. Most folks today simply have no CLUE about this, my great grandad talked about how he saw the early steam trucks on the roads, farms worked by steam traction engines, and the grim reality of war in the trenches (burning lice in the hem of their kilt's using candle flames). etc etc
Except.... that's not what the game creators, the showrunners, or the execs want. The wasteland is the thing. You can present all sorts of good arguments, plans, data, and economic models but what they want is that daily struggle with the environment, that feeling that nothing will change or get better. That dog eat dog world where only the strong or clever survive but never quite prosper. Mad max ad naseum
Yea, but in canon, the Power Armor is overpowered. Once you have a group of people like that introduced to the Wasteland, they would monopolize force in their region. Their presence would end the dog-eat-dog world. And once you solidify, you become the power in the region. And you will have transitioned beyond Tribalism.
That seems to be the case. Graham Wagner basically said that the existence of a faction like NCR goes against his view of what fallout should feel like. That's why they have such a low presence in their core territory and why Shady Sands was nuked.
I mean, it’s honestly a tricky wicket. Because the devs are CORRECT from a gameplay stance, that “endless Mad Max” is the most interesting space to play a game in from the perspective of a single character RPG. From a top level strategy game or civilization builder game (such as even Fallout Shelter) the long term development of civilization can be interesting to play with. But from the “create a character and go on an adventure “ aspect, you want the lawlessness and disorder of the wasteland. Due to ludic reasons, essentially, the Fallout world is doomed to endless resets.
Markets help a lot with development but with these kinds of backwaters (and no foreign support) like the waste you NEED some heavy state involvement like in Singapore. The brotherhood needs to provide protected housing, control of the land to guarantee rights, their own controlled businesses to help guide the market and of course their own healthcare system for people. Without this then the whole system will never progress
Korea, Japan, Vietnam etc all had versions of this. They wanted to go from farming to heavy industry, and waiting for farmers to accumulate capital was no option. A product of this is the keiretsu. The government supported national cartels.
You earned a new subscriber! I'm preparing to run a post-apocalyptic campaign, and having some ideas around how the economy should function & what the world would look like in this post-post apocalypse is interesting & helpful.
@@feralhistorian Oh, definitely. I'd love to see a video exploring the economies of post-post apocalyptic society and what that might look like in general, as in something a bit divorced from Fallout's setting.
Friend, the NCR also has a war economy like Cesar's legion, it needs to be constantly growing to justify military investments, but internally it works like Mexico Or like Brazil, here we have large state-owned companies and corrupt companies that make great use of politics to establish economic dominance in some of the markets and help politicians to launder money, If you are interested, look for cases from Odebrecht, JBS, Here we live in war taxes, paying more than 1/3% of common income in annual taxes, as the level of entertainment is right something closer to New Vegas it is possible to charge up to 50% of paralyzing Individual growth, but drastically increasing the size of the state.
I always imagined the Brotherhood as some kind of top-down Libertarian state. Providing defense and some other basic services but beyond that leaving the settlements of the wasteland to their own devices.
The BoS in the old games were isolationist, not libertarian. They left you alone because they were secretive dudes sitting in a bunker and hoarding. They allowed traders from the Hub to show up. They tried to send scouts to spy out other settlements.
Wouldn't the Legion also be classified as a nation state just like the NCR, they have their own currency, manufacturing which isn't as advanced as the NCR given most of their troops use bladed weapons, but they do still have firearms which have to be maintained, territory and settlements. Not trying to be a Legion fan boy here cause they are definitely horrible in their own right as a group of people, BUT they are definitely close to if not on par with the NCR in terms of being a nation state, whether they have all the same amenities as the NCR is beyond me though.
Certainly a case to be made. I always see the Legion more as on par with something like Alexander's army; establishing administrative centers for the purpose of taxation but mostly existing to keep moving, conquering new territory like a compulsion. A really big gang. It's not strictly a nation-state in the modern Westphalian sense, but they definitely resemble older forms like Rome, obviously.
It’s difficult to say this with accuracy since we never got to go to an actual Legion town or the Van Buren version of Fallout 3 which would have had several settlements in these regions of Arizona and New Mexico.
I've been giving that a lot of thought lately. I'm planning a broad "space feudalism" video fairly soon, with maybe a deep look into what can be gleaned from the Dune books later on.
If I have to choose between the people who can build a water treatment plant and the blokes who argue about the most ideologically pure water plant I must go with the former. Water plants are a sort of natural monopoly. A town might not have two competing water companies. In that situation, a private water company would soon become a private water monopoly. Without a way to move stuff, there might be more local monopolies or cartels. There is a few bike repair shops, a mill etc in town, and you are dependent on them. Going to the next town over is an increasingly prohibitive cost.
I still need to hear a real argument why capitalism incentivises anything that is productive for more people than the capitalist. Holding up capitalism for raising living standards is like holding up a sheep for eating the wheats, in the garden, once in a while. Capitalism is a necessary step in dramatically increasing effectivity through industrialisation. But when the wheats run out, the sheep wont stop before the crops. We can watch capitalism run us into the ground right now, outside our windows. And Fallout shows us how that development might climax. In the next world we should make lamb ragout before the garden is dead and empty.
Well, to answer the question first, everyone in a market economy is a "capitalist", and their incentive is to produce more wealth for themselves. But they can only really do that by trading with other people in the market, exchanging what they have a surplus of for what they have a scarcity of. Everyone benefits from this system of comparative advantage, trading what they have more of for what they want or need more of. It's not difficult. Oh, but what happens when resources run out? People simply find alternatives, or get better at using what they have. The scenario you're suggesting is called a Malthusian problem, after Thomas Malthus, who theorized that Britain would run out of resources and suffer mass starvation. Obviously, that didn't happen, because production got better, more efficient, more flexible, and Britain's trade network grew enough to fuel a massive Empire. Well, for a while, anyway. They didn't practice the free market quite so well in most colonies, and then the colonies actually cost them real wealth. Contrast this success to, say, socialism. What's the incentive to get better at utilizing resources or even work? You get wealth distributed to you regardless, and the government apportions it, so why would you innovate? True to form, socialist societies tend to go broke VERY quickly, even when they're mixed with market societies. You say capitalism is running us into the ground right now, but that's certainly not true in the US. Instead, Social Entitlements are two-thirds of the budget and the single largest unfunded liabilities we have. No market created those, the government did. Take those away, and the US is even more economically dominant than it currently is.
The incentive for workers is two-fold, the positive push to seek better pay, but more strongly the negative "incentive" of market dependency. In a capitalist economy you need to make money to buy essentials and if you try to drop out, the State comes after you with taxes, fines, and various other legal coercions to get you back in the game. That's why I don't think anarcho-capitalism is a real thing. If you have no enforcing State, it isn't capitalism, it's just some weird kind of mutualism. I'm certainly not arguing that capitalism is the Greatest and Final System Ever, but as you say it was a necessary step to industrialization. What replaces it is the question. I don't think state socialism is better, but something has to change before it completes the transformation into whatever techno-feudal monstrosity we have now.
@@arcdecibel9986 It works as long as there are increased wealth coming. Capitalist propaganda in 1950 could rightfully point to increasing wages, lower working hours and things like vacation. This falters when we tell people "just get a third job lol" when they fear a stagnating wage. Or when some fanboys really hammers in how Koch owning the whole fertilizer industry is peak freedom. I am a fan of FDR, sometimes a little socialism is needed to save capitalism.
@@SusCalvin Okay, and how much wealth does government actually produce? What incentive does it have to be profitable, and why aren't any governments profitable despite literally having the power to dictate their own profit? The fact of the matter is that they don't have any incentive for profit, just incentive to remain in power at everyone else's expense. That's where you get the wealth drain that requires two or three jobs. No company naturally does this, because if they ever did, they'd be massacred by companies that re-invest their profits in real wealth creation. But governments are the other side of the coin. They have to spend on power, because if they don't, they won't be in power for long. Thus, you strictly limit and decentralize the power of a government, like the US originally did, and you become a beacon for wealth. If you go the FDR route, which now accounts for two thirds of our unfunded liabilities and national debt, you're just making yourself do all that extra work for nothing.
@@SusCalvin I am not a fan of FDR, stuffing the courts, his NRA had fascist fellow travelers, greenlit Operation Keelhaul, the probability he would have been a fascist dictator or figurehead if the "Business Plot" succeeded. From what I see, this neo corporatism we have today is the problem, not the solution FDR put forward
Fallout: a game about(among other things) the hypocrisy of capitalism and its consequences. This guy: You know what this place needs? More capitalism of course!
I mean from a Marxist perspective, that's not too crazy. Marxists generally believe that Socialism can only truly form in an Industrial Capitalist society, developing Socialism in a Feudal society is very difficult, just ask the Soviets. Though the irony is still funny, I'll give you that.
@@tomfriendly2412 Correct, to a degree. Initially it's very progressive but after a while infinite growth becomes unsustainable in a finite world, so the further prosperity of those in power comes at the cost of us workers. Pay cuts, rising prices, outsourcing labor to poorer countries, and Union busting are all good signs of this.
The New California Republic really didn't have a choice on the fiat standard, the destruction of its Gold Reserves by the Lost Hills BoS forced the change - resulting in the complete devulation of the NCR Dollar. As for 2277, Shady Sands wasn't destroyed before New Vegas, but that year marked the turn to the decline of the NCR. While they won the first battle of Hoover Dam, the I-90 route was utterly destroyed by the Divide when a Courier that would become far more important later dropped a package off - ruining its supply route.
This is cool. Now that you've done the capitalist perspective next, you should do the communist perspective next, then the anarchist perspective. If you think you can handle it ( :
I don't think feudalism and capitalism are necessarily separate. After all, mercantile economies grew in the Middle Ages, well before the Industrial Revolution. That's not to say they coexist simultaneously, either, but there can definitely be overlap between the two systems. The description of the Crimson Caravan reminds me of the East India Company or the Hudson Bay Company.
Social trust. I don't think most people appreciate it. Trust doesn't have to be morally thinking good things about people. It rarely is. Trust is simply knowing something will go down a certain way, seeing reliability, having predictive power over your environment. If you have that, you have a foundation for pro-social behavior. The monopoly on violence does humanity a huge amount of good when it's used regularly instead of arbitrarily, and a stable currency is the most obvious indicator that a relationship with the authority has become normalized.
I can't say I agree with your assessment of the NCR economy. The strength of the legion denarius has always been suspect to me. The legion have negligible to no industrial capacity; everything they have is either cobbled together from scrap or outright salvage and a custom made helmet is Lanius's big reward, something made from steel and brass. Transport is either by brahmin or on the backs of slaves, both being relatively crude and limiting to logistics. Trade also tends to be rather insular, with merchants having to have the sponsorship of Caesar in the form of his mark or risk being killed and enslaved by his soldiers and what ones who do have sponsorship seldom venturing outside it. Legion troops seem to have little to spend their wages on - rations are foraged, alcohol and chems are forbidden under pain of death, entertainment seems non-existent, sex is a non-issue and equipment is provided for - unlike the Roman army of old which has been described by some historians as "a crude by vigorous pump" for the local economy what the Legion offers people nearby is non-existent due to their lack of needs. Above all is why a currency of precious metal should have any more worth than any other form in the post apocalypse. Caps being backed by water is utilitarian; water is something with ready value in the wastes, the cap meanwhile is a worthless chit that holds value because it represents something else that does. Wastelanders would be concerned with more utilitarian displays of power, a pre war condition machine gun or suit of combat armour is going to be worth more to a warlord than their weight in gold, a clear display of their ability to employ violence. Precious metals have little practical use outside of complex electronics (which seldom few know how to repair let alone make) and even for decorative work require skilled artisans that are few and far between. Conspicuous consumption is something stated to be peculiar only to the NCR and the people within it, to be able to indulge in such impractical displays of power, Caesar meanwhile is the only member of the Legion to wear something decorative, his gold brooch, everyone else, his elite bodyguard and even his top general only wear and wield purely practical equipment unlike their "historical" counterparts. Without this conspicuous consumption, gold is in effect nothing more worthwhile than cowrie beads. The NCR dollar meanwhile have a relatively developed economy backing them. The NCR has significant industry, enough to equip the bulk of their army from scratch made goods using post war resources including firearms. Transport includes rail, a mechanized division and vertibirds alongside cruder forms like brahmin towing wagons (which the legion seem to lack for some reason) giving them a significant logistical edge. Trade meanwhile is far reaching with NCR based operations ranging far afield and back home giving their domestically produced goods and surpluses a far larger market whilst also being receptive to outside traders. The NCR rank and file make good customers, good enough to figure into House's economic plan, and people who's needs can't be ignored; a merchant turning up their nose at NCR dollars is going to lose out on a significant market, especially one able to lay in the boot with extraneous "tolls" or outright violence if they feel mistreated. If Vegas decided to not accept NCR paper or only at a prohibitive return, then competition from Reno based casinos would see travellers go there instead and troops in the region frequent other competitor businesses. NCR paper money is in an odd position. It changed between 2 and FNV from coinage to paper; the Brotherhood war eliminating the gold reserve wouldn't be an issue if it was still minting coinage as the coins would still hold their material value and they'd need a steady supply of gold anyway to continue minting. Paper money being moved to a fiat currency roughly 15 years prior seems to have produced economic uncertainty and in the process of adjusting. The government that backs it has enough economic and military clout to say it's worth something within its territory; forcing anyone dealing with the government to deal in official money should be enough to support it. The Legion denarius meanwhile seems oddly overvalued. The economy behind it is terribly insular and rather minute and the government that issues it had little need for it bar as an attempt at legitimising especially as taxes are negligible inside Legion territory. Value outside the territory is questionable as tender due to the severely limited utility and no backing system bar self worth. Caps also have an issue. With the capture of the damn and the proliferation of water the backing them, wouldn't caps have seen a massive devaluation? Something similar was seen with the Spanish conquests of the Americas and the massive glut of gold devaluing the currency. Overall I don't trust the depiction of the economy in game to be realistic given the various factors in action nor do I believe it to be likely that economic decline killed the NCR (if for no other reason that from a Doyalist perspective it's to "boring" and "mundane" for the shows tone). ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ A side note is the "NCR taxes on farmers is feudal" is wrong. The farmers near New Vegas are sharecroppers, paid by the government to move to Nevada and work on state owned farms; the crops are by default government property. The farms are part of government bill designed to truncate supply lines (note the bases in the region don't lack for basic food), take advantage of its immediacy to Lake Mead and put down roots not unlike old Roman colonia. Feudal would imply far longer and more binding contracts as well as an outright lack of pay for the farmers. Other farmers are not covered by the Thaler act and not subject to quotas, contrary information to the opposite it would seem they pay in paper the same as everyone else rather than in kind.
How are they ment to pay taxes with currency that losses value as you said if they deal only in another currency. Converting your caps to bills is a waste of time if you convert when it's time for taxes and converting before taxes are dew is a waste of money.
I’d like to see your take on Robert House’s take on how to restart the wasteland economy. Well, he has more or less a bullet pointed list. But Regardless, I am intrested to see. Earned my sub because I run fallout games as a DM. And society building is a tasset thing I do causually, and like to do willy nilly.
@@feralhistorian To Quote: “I have no interest in abusing others, just as I have no interest in legislating or otherwise dictating what people do in their private time. Nor have I any interest in being worshipped as some kind of machine god messiah. I am impervious to such corrupting ambitions. But autocracy? Firm control in the hands of a technological and economic visionary? Yes, that Vegas shall have.” His own strategies and decisions are largely based on mathematical calculations, and he is confident in his own ability to succeed.[28] He styles himself as an "autocrat," viewing New Vegas as his rightful dominion, and is dismissive of other factions vying for control, comparing them to "two snarling dogs fighting over a curve of bone." He further disparages both groups as nothing more than "regurgitations of the past" drawing parallels between the two as attempts to revive past civilizations rather than offer a palpable future. He derides the NCR as a "society of customers" led by scheming leaders who wish to take Vegas out from under him, while showing disgust at the Legion's practice of slavery, technophobia and general brutality. Some of his quotes go as thus: "You see that you and I are of a different stripe, don't you? We don't have to dream that we're important. We are."Icon sound trigger "Success depends on forethought, dispassionate calculation of probabilites, accounting for every stray variable."Icon sound trigger "Nothing to impede progress. If you want to see the fate of democracies, look out the windows." [Question: How would you describe Mr. House's Ideology? I know that he's rather authoritarian when it comes to political freedoms, but what about on economic issues? He was my favorite character in the game, and whoever wrote him did an outstanding job.] He's also authoritarian on economic issues within certain boundaries. In the same way that a fascist government would exert authority on the various production/capital resources involved in a market, Mr. House exerts his authority on The Strip's operation. Ultimately, he wants The Strip to be (extremely) profitable and to retain independence from NCR/CL. However, he does not want the families to be independent from his authority, so he does what he can to keep them under his thumb. He doesn't want to micromanage what they do, but he also knows that allowing them to do whatever they want could eventually lead to the downfall of his authority or fighting between the families (which would also undermine his authority). Really, the main area in which Mr. House is "liberal" is in personal consumption and behavior. As long as it makes him money and doesn't create instability or feuding on The Strip, he allows it.”
The planned ecconomy took a backwater famine ridden serfdom land in a frozen wasteland, won a civil war that was decimating, then a won ww2 which was decimating. had some famines because it was a totally new form of organizing an ecomony so mistakes were made, and then it became a world super power rivaling the US. It never overtook the US, but that was impossible when understanding the basic distribution of resources and people on earth. It wasnt a perfect society. Also the state actually innovates better than private market forces.
That's a very selective version of the Soviet industrialization story. It overlooks how dependent the Soviet Union was on American industry during its industrialization. The Soviets were obsessed with American production methods, Taylorist management theory, they hired American machinists and architects to build their factories, the first Soviet car factory that wasn't mostly a semi-handicraft operation was bought in its entirely from Ford. And while the Red Army bore the brunt of WWII in terms of manpower, they got to Berlin in American lend-lease trucks. A lot of Soviet progress was despite the planned economy more than because of it.
Soviet Union wasn't the first to implement planned economy. Planned economy first test was during ww1 where all major countries implement it. Soviet union based their planned economy on state command economies of ww1 experience and American expertise, as well as massive amounts of loans they took... United Kingdom during ww1 showed that you can implement command economy and avoid food failure.
Go nomad! First rule of pastoralist is do not be there when things go bad, or zima is being sold again, and be somewhere else good, where proper brewing artistry is being practiced. I get it though this is about civilization coming back, but being a nomadic tribal band does lead back to other things. Once the neo Khanate is reformed.
For those looking for more economic/political analysis of “the apocalypse” I need to suggest World War Z the book (the movie is kinda unrelated but uses the same name). It’s amazing and shows actual thought and analysis on the apocalypse rather than just gang warfare!
"Capitalism, more than any other system, rewards innovation and *punishes stagnation* ." Exactly! Do we have enough sane, non-ghoul people left to survive punishing stagnation as a species?! Also, will the new capitalism have any kind of care for the elderly, new parents, or their children? If that can't be guaranteed, why would anyone want to go backwards?!
Ah, but Feral, all the real communists don’t hold with the labour theory of value (which was always more of an anarchist idea) and embrace the use-value, going back even to Marx himself! So once again, you’re more in agreement with those filthy reds than you know 😉 Great video once again, and makes some salient points about the fundamental weakness of the NCR that even I as a certified NCRhead have to concede
I freely admit to using marxist analytical models fairly often. His analysis of 19th Century capitalism was quite good, it's just the offered solutions I find deeply flawed. I'm going to do a "rebuilding the wasteland through central planning" video before long, trying to give a fair assessment of the strengths and weaknesses. I expect angry comments from all sides on that one.
@@feralhistorian Excited! As a side note, I’ve always wondered what happened to the socialist nations of the world after the bombs fell. Like, what is East Germany up to? Or Cuba? Or Laos?
@@feralhistorianAlso, pretty much all Marxists will agree that capitalism is what caused huge economic growth and the industrial revolution. Marxists view capitalism as being progressive over feudalism, which is why you often see Marxists, especially in the past, supporting capitalism when it was replacing feudalism. We just argue that eventually, capitalism itself will become a hindrance to even further growth. I also enjoyed this video as a Marxist. I agree with your analysis that the NCR is essentially a feudal country that is trying to be capitalist.
@@thehistorian1232 in more or less official lore the ussr become something akin to today china (in some lore pieces the ussr is said to be ruled by "neo-bucharinists". Bukarin was a Soviet leader that wanted to continue the NEP). Also, the ussr allied with the US against China and it seems they didn't participate in the resource wars, since they have a lot of gas and oil themselves.
@@samirnodormir3097 More evidence for the “the rest of the world is kinda chilling, America is just like that” theory of the post-apocalypse. Would be really funny if the socialist bloc was peacefully thriving absent US pressure while America is still a blasted wasteland
The only one that has consistently been in my load order for years is . . . Diverse Cats. Otherwise I like a lot of modern weapon mods, the QBZ-91 has oddly become a favorite. And of course the remake of America Rising is a must at least once, even if some of the early missions are a bit tedious in their design.
I did kind of an odd one, th-cam.com/video/dwCXSyB3vA8/w-d-xo.html but I haven't gotten around to a full look at the series yet. Planning to, but there's a lot to cover there.
I'm always surprised at how docile the people are in fallout, they act like utterly helpless lambs at all times. I would expect you average post apocalyptic farmers to think and act like ancient German tribesmen or vikings, armed dangerous homebound and extremely capable of and willing to engage in violence to protect their assets.
Really understanding Marx's labor theory of value requires understanding that he needed it (with its vague and flexible "socially necessary labor" specifically) to give a scientific veneer to an essentially philosophical argument. Some of what he wrote is brilliantly incisive analysis of the socioeconomic conditions of his time. Some of it is nonsense.
14:25 If it’s reasonable to say that the NCR has a military industry it wouldn’t be out of the realm to produce farm equipment like tractors or even plows, also farms outside New Vegas are in the heart of a desert how did they think that crops would be efficient there?
I am partially with you, but Industrialization and capitalism aren't necessarily synonyms. You referenced Soviet Russia, was their economy capitalist? Stalin would say state capitalism is socialism. Mao would talk about the national bourgeois while Deng would talk about capital development zones with tightly controlled market socialism. If industrial capital is capitalism, then the Soviet Union, the DPRK, and China have been capitalist since industrialization.
Nah, it isn't communism is not state capitalism. The system itself removes the need to compete (there's often apparent competition but it's there just for the show and usually introduced artificially), negatively selects for loyalty, and punishes achievers. Mind you, state capitalism (as in Russia at the moment) is not capitalism and shares the same problems. It's just communism without the socialist parts, plus elements of feudalism. Capitalism is a horror, but it's a working and more or less productive system, unlike communism/state "capitalism". Something tells me nothing better will surface until scarcity is reduced/removed, and/or general ai is developed. Then what's likely to emerge will be something akin to what is describe in the Culture series or the Strugatsky's Midday universe, though both skimp on details of how their economies work.
It's often overlooked how much of the Soviet Union's rapid industrialization was simply buying machinery and expertise from the US and Western Europe. That time Ford sold them an entire factory is certainly the most dramatic.
You need capital for capitalism, and sufficient demand to maintain such capital, boston would most likely not develop capitalism for decades, due to its low population itd be much harder to make viable, i believe a more cooperative economy would form first, then capitalism, and then after we run out of scarcity, a newer systen
I liked this video I will say any leftie criticizing the idea that capitalism is exceptionally productive and historically progressive hasnt read their Marx.
I think the greatest threat to capitalism is people standing on top of nonsense and loudly proclaiming that this crap is truly pure capitalism, and THE ONLY ALTERNATIVE IS COMMUNISM. I have to apply Occam's razor. If a group of people are not following marxist ideals, do not call themselves marxist, do not read Marx and aren't implementing any marxist practices I have to start concluding that they might not be marxist. Maybe some social-liberals or posing centrists. And then I start to question why a nebulous marxist threat is necessary.
I don't even count the Fallout TV show as canon. There's no way to work that timeline into the existing lore, and no circumlocutions make it fit. Let's just accept that the writers screwed up the dates, like they screwed up the location of Shady Sands. And everything else about the NCR. And the entire west coast.
Head Canon always trumps Corporate Canon. In my Fallout: New Vegas, where I was Good Karma and sided with the Legion. The Legion conquers the Hoover Dam and New Vegas, and pushes the NCR out of the region entirely. After the game ends, the Courier takes over the Legion after Caesar (Edward Sallow) dies. And the Legion under the Good Karma Currier, continues marching the Legion to the Pacific Coast, conquering the NCR completely. Bringing the lands from Baja California and all the way up north to Washington and Oregon under the Legion. Solidifying the entire western side of the Rocky Mountains, including the fertile Central Valley, under Legion control. Then, when there are no more lands to conquer. And culture has been unified. It would be time for political reforms. Creating a Federal system with a Senate to secure stability and longevity.
Will probably be canon, they can just retcon all they want. Timeline might not be wrong, could just be a small oversight. Sort of like when people intend a sign to be read one way but people read it a different way. Anyways in a very fallout theme way the NCR collapsing does sorta make sense, i mean societies have been having collapses since before written history.
It was confirmed weeks ago that the 2277 date marks the beginning of the fall of Shady Sands, with the nuke dropping some time after the events of New Vegas. The timeline is fine
@@Hugebull what does this even mean? You know that's just the nature of open ended games right? With sequels eventually one of the possible endings has to be chosen over all the others
From a meta perspective, I've written Bethesda IPs off as purely Disney-tier products, shuffled along in a zombified state to sell merch. So whatever more sophisticated speculation a video like this can offer, all I see in the TV show is Bethesda's SUPER EPIK BADAYAS favourite faction, the East Coast Brotherhood, magically having as many resources as the writers need them to have so they can endlessly waffle between a faction of fantasy heroes and "deeper" "more flawed" lunatic techno-fascists also depending on what the writers need for a specific story. I doubt moving forward that anything resembling coherent worldbuilding will survive the next few main Fallout products, likely the next season of the show and subsequent numbered sequel game. Basically everything Bethesda has made since Skyrim has showed they've transitioned from a company that cares about the minute nerdy details of their games to some extent, into a media factory that pays as much lip service as necessary to keep a large enough segment of the fanbase distracted with Memberberries and not an ounce more.
You are correct. For the Fallout franchise, the 3D success of the series is entirely tied to Fallout: New Vegas. Nobody remembers anything about Fallout 3. Running after Liam Neeson so our vault can get some clean water, is not that interesting. Nothing memorable. Compared to the NCR, Caesar's Legion, Mr House, and the Hoover Dam. I feel that the Brotherhood only exist because they look cool. Anything beyond that, is beyond the abilities of Bethesda or Amazon.
I cant watch the whole video atm you might’ve mentioned the west coast economy (my point goes shit ways with the tv show but thats after fo4 and the latest canonical point)
Your very argument that capitalism is engine of progress compared to communism or socialism as whatever you may calm it is fallacious as you apply double standards. While also rely on omissions of planned obsolescence and intentionally compromised working lifespan of products that is core pillars of capitalism which lead to resource wars in Fallout universe. Your complaint about Brotherhood of Steel distributing water freely is not an argument and is nonsense because you intentionally do not state obvious. Which is that it reduces cost of any labor and production as its effectively subsidized due to requiring less capital to start and conduct economic activity such as farming. Hence more people could join that sector to process more land that has been untouched for centuries when post apocalyptic population is tiny fraction in size compared to population that there was before the nuclear apocalypse. Your perspective that water has to be monetized is outright counter productive even in capitalist sense as demand would not be saturated even remotely close to capacity of pre-war machinery. All you do is demonstrate your obsession in proving leftists wrong which you an American have American standard detached from basically rest of the world as even center right of European standard would be seen as far left which is evident with by American media whenever Bernie Sanders ran for president and he is supporter of Israel and Zionism.
Just to be clear, I haven’t argued that capitalism is the “Best Thing Ever” with no flaws. It has serious problems, both in theory and practice. I’m making an essentially Marxist argument actually, that the capitalist phase is a necessary step on the road to something else. The problem with the Brotherhood giving away water is that they do it in a way that is unreliable, inefficient, and dependent on them actively delivering it. If they gave it away at the Project Purity site it would lead to a trading hub and then a town. If they built aqueducts or some other infrastructure it would allow for permanent farms. But instead they put it in barrels and lug it across the wasteland, which they’ll get tired of doing and stop at some point.
@@feralhistorian BoS is a military organization focused on military technology aside from the some branches that go beyond core tenants of BoS yet they do not have technology nor machinery to manufacture large pipes nor to excavate ground for it nor to build aqueducts as power armors are not that precise although there is a member of BoS that controls Pittsburg hence capacity to manufacture the necessary pipes to construct infrastructure for water delivery. Also BoS in Capital Wasteland patrols considerably beyond Pentagon and with victory would control entire Washington DC thus can deliver water to whatever settlement and farm is in vicinity and along their patrol routes. Problem is with any discussion as such is Bethesda is they will set up narrative, lore and setting that creates stagnation along it is clear that they won't revisit previous areas for their sequels as they do not for Elder Scrolls as then they would have to make a choice to show progress rather than set up in general vague picture of outcome.
Depends on your definition of Capitalism. And it depends on if you can describe the Modern United States as having Capitalism. And it depends on if you can describe the United States of the Fallout universe as having Capitalism.
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As someone who has moved in 'prepper' circles for years, I'm amazed at the lack of basic societal knowledge there. It's either "I'm going run off to the woods and lone wolf it" or they're wannabe warlords. When I tell them that the best chance is to be part of small community with a variety of skills, they look at me like I've sprouted an extra head.
Post apocalyptic pinata. In gaming terms, they're just setting themselves up as XP and loot sources
That's just what they want you to think
Your alternative sounds sensible to me.
@@careypridgeon Nuclear weapons don't destroy bunkers 50 miles away from their targets.
Those wannabe warlords are the type to run away when things get hard, or they will be one of the many skulls the actual warlord sits on when they sit on thier throne of skulls.
There’s one massively overlooked detail in discussions about the NCR: they have a standing army and their towns are policed. When you think about it from the perspective of a wastelander who can’t fight and just wants to survive, the taxes and governmental corruption doesn’t seem all that bad. Your alternatives include signing up to more cultish factions or facing the radscorpions alone.
I treat laws and policing as assumed from what we see of the NCR (can't have conscription or taxes without laws and people to enforce them) but yes, stating it plainly would go long way for people that don't overthink this stuff.
@@feralhistorianactually in Fallout 3 do you think the BOS giving free water is a way to get more people to show up in the capital wasteland allowing the BOS to build up the area with increase population?
@@Alex-pj8nzits probably not that deep and is just meant to show that things change when the story progresses and that the BoS are good
@@Alex-pj8nz It's actually a much better way to do propaganda and gaining recruit than just making Rivet city a trade hub. Simply put: the BoS want to build a nation state, which means they need to have A) legitimacy of power (this is what that water distribution stuff does), B) manpower (relaxed recruit policies and training) and C) Technology (which is why they go towards Boston and Massachusetts, where the Institute is located). Maxon has the other 2, but only gain legitimacy through force, and as such will probably be very easily lose it when either another faction is there to challenge it or the locals just flat out NOT accepting that and staged a guerrilla war under a front or "protecting our community" (and Fallout4 even alluded to that possibility by having the Minutemen, basically Bostonian home grown anarchist society that actually worked until they got betrayed)
@@Alex-pj8nzHow does the free water work? What is the alternative to Brotherhood water?
Water, plumbing, power is the sort of basics that become necessary.
Fallout 1 Brotherhood worked exactly like the Atom Cats, people came to them and bartered with them in exchange for their technical expertise.
It almost feels like the bad ending for the Brotherhood is canon.
@Thagomizer Not really no. The canonical ending for the BoS in Fo1 is that they assist the Vault Dweller in fighting the Masters army and then also assist the other human communities. They introduce technology back into Californianallowing thongs like the NCR to exist. The NCR named a state after Roger Maxson for the Brotherhoods assistance.
@@Thagomizer In the TV show they have basically become the steel plague now.
I remember them as much more isolated too. BoS does not interact willingly with people. They are effectively a militant monastic order.
Yup. It’s extremely sad that a lot of the “pointing out this thing in Fallout is a bit odd or silly” mostly stems from Bethesda just ignoring the solid worldbuilding done in FO1, 2 or NV.
The real market is in adhesives.
Aluminum farm go brrrr
Also fertiliser and lubricants. Medieval age was in constant undersupply of both.
Fertilizer and plastic. Jesse, wee need to COOK!
Mr. McGuire: I want to say one word to you. Just one word.
Benjamin: Yes, sir.
Mr. McGuire: Are you listening?
Benjamin: Yes, I am.
Mr. McGuire: Plastics.
Benjamin: Exactly how do you mean?
Mr. McGuire: There’s a great future in plastics. Think about it. Will you think about it?
When William the Conqueror conquered England in 1066 with a bunch of knights, there were three significant things he did.
1. His knights took over the entire top of the Power structure. Completely.
2. He had to figure out what he had actually just conquered. And so, he sent out some of his men to survey and find out. It was a census. And a really good one at that. Number of villages, number of people, you name it, it was really thorough.
3. He organized the entirety of England into "Hides". One hide produced one pound (a pound was worth a lot more back then).
Also, each hide would pay 1/10th of their produce to the King. 1/3 of the produce during time of need and/or war.
And each hide would provide one laborer for public projects. Digging ditches, standing guard, you name it.
This worked pretty well.
With the overwhelming power of the Norman Knights, they were able to take total control over England.
Replacing the entire leadership of the Kingdom, secured a new culture and a long period of needed stability.
The new leaders came from a more sophisticated background, bringing a higher level of sophistication in governmental structure and economic activity over the previous.
This was when England started getting stone castles. Completely changing local security, and with it changing culture.
There was a new legal system, melding with the local customs and bringing in a higher level of sophistication to it.
In number 3, we see a fundamental aspect of economics that I feel you left out. Trading time.
Of course, this is very geographically dependent.
But once you have villages and agricultural communities with bare-bones technology, you trade time with your neighbors. You need help with a fence, and so you offer to help your neighbor with his roof for a day. Trading time for time.
Everybody talks about a barter economy, but exchanging time dominated the Pre-Industrial Capitalist system.
Note:
When I say Capitalist system, I mean the system that developed when the Americans settled west of the Appalachian Mountains, settling in the Midwest. Where for the first time in human history, ordinary normal people could generate their own personal capital.
Thanks to dirt-cheap land and dirt-cheap transportation on the Mississippi River system (which has more interconnected navigable waterways than the rest of the world combined), allowed for ordinary people to generate their own money, changing culture forever.
Before then, exchanging goods and exchanging time was the dominant currency.
So, back to Pre-Capitalism.
And so, villages and small communities based on perhaps 100 people would already have a vibrant economic system going on, but time was the currency.
This is also why culture and community was so incredibly strong before Industrialism. Because when time is the dominating currency, you need a fundamentally different thing going on compared to the modern world.
A psychopath in the Feudal structure of Northwestern Europe, would be the nicest and most hardworking man you would ever meet. Because his own personal safety and prosperity would be bound to how people liked and dealt with him.
Virtue had a direct and immediate benefit. if everyone liked you, they will help you during winter when food gets tight.
Sin had a direct and immediate pain. If nobody liked you, you would be left with nothing when you needed it the most.
Feudalism is extremely dependent upon Geography.
The ancient world with civilization set in the desert along a river, never had Feudalism.
Russia never had Feudalism.
China never had Feudalism.
Nowhere in Africa did they ever have Feudalism.
India never had Feudalism.
But in France, England, and Germany, it came naturally with the climate and geography and the technology.
Also.
In Europe, we have all four seasons. The work you do completely changes through the year. During winter, not much to do. Which means you start fiddling with things.
And so, "Middle Class Artisanship" came naturally to the climate and geography.
If you have a civilization in the desert with access to water, you produce insane levels of food. There is a reason why the Crade of Civilization was where it was. And there is a reason why California produces an absolutely silly level of food stuffs today in real-life. But it is constant labor. Without modern technology, you develop a labor class of people who are essentially slaves, dominated by an overpowering top-heavy structure.
But then you place this in the Nuclear Apocalypse.
I don't know the canon population density for Fallout. But you do have the Brahmin Barons.
But are they Feudal Lords?
Or are they more like Prairie Ranchers?
Very different things.
Does Fallout have a bunch of villages and hamlets with populations 50-200 spread throughout the landscape? If they do, specialization would already be happening, both within the villages as well as between villages. One gunsmith would serve all the nearby villages.
Or, is the wasteland entirely covered by independent homesteads locked to a single family? If so, good luck getting any sort of economic of scale going on. And your system would be forever stagnant until someone from the outside introduces the necessary technology to even the odds.
Trying to build up a working system in the Western United States after a Nuclear Apocalypse just sounds like a really bad idea.
You need a lot of stuff to make California what it is today. Throw some nukes on it, and it would be like trying to build a civilization in central Libya. Good luck.
But on the East Coast, we see green. We see stuff is growing. There is life.
On the East Coast, the Brotherhood could so easily serve as the Norman Knights of the setting.
Asking them to be Templars is more difficult. The Templar organization rose as every other basic need was already established, which allowed for a very different type of organization to form.
First you need the Norman Knights.
Then you can get the Templar Knights.
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I apologize for any typos or out-of-whack sentences. I have been awake for a very long time. It is too warm. And I spent two hours sprinting after two loose calves.
I couldn't help not to comment immediately once I saw the video. These are my kind of topics.
I remember reading segments of the Domesday Book many years ago. Quite thorough.
It’s always interesting discussing economic systems because it starts with defining terms. I admit to defining feudalism and capitalism in terms heavily influenced by marxist academia. (I use small-m marxist for purely analytical models as opposed to capital-M Marxist for the politically motivated variety, it’s my own little convention)
So I would argue that Russia did have feudalism in the basic sense of vassals working the land for nobles who are in turn bound to a monarch through tithes, service, and webs of social obligation; though Russian feudalism, English feudalism, and French feudalism for example had major differences in practice.
That said, I did neglect “trading time” and will think on that further. Having always been an urban creature to some extent I’ve not had a lot of experience with communities at that level of personal interconnection.
As always, you give much to consider.
Americans settling midwest first time in history when people could generate their own capital is just absurd...dutch republic, venice, MFkng british empire and americans stealing the british technology to kickstart their industry.
Advice on dealing with calves or any other animal, .. food condition train them with sound.
Cheap plastic recorder flute, each note is whistled for a given treat.
My aunt taught a mean as hell horse to strut & flirt for a given treat. Also That Horse had a history of head butts to the chest popping ribs out of place, I receive more than a few frontal skull head concussions from Him. Unless you are a woman don't try to ride him, otherwise he just sat down & roll over on top of you.
But I am from what seems the last generation that got fly swatter as grade schoolers.
The adult yells, " If you keep running you just get it harder & for longer ! "
Since we were tried of trying to run a straight line or separate from the group and hope the adult go after another child instead of you/me. We charge forwards and run circles around the adult until they drop from exhaustion.
2.) I did groom trained 6 bull calves as a teenager, my family spray painted grain cellos, barns and other buildings, along with carpentry/roofing. In a way we knew people ... I/ we learned what .. rough housing like baby bulls .. means.
Summertime us teenagers went on a week camping trip sleeping out of a van, as the adults spray paint barns. Us teens ran the feed lines and kept the equipment full & running. We even brough the dogs with us. So when my little sister friend comes to visit for a few days, she brings her dogs, and sometime a calf to hang out on my grandparent's acreage.
When granny woke up from her room and open the door to the living room, she was used to ravens/crows sitting on her book shelves, bob cats and coyotes sitting on the couch. But what was the Cow doing in her living room ?
Grandpa patted the bull calf on the head sitting next to his chair and said, " This is a bull and not a heifer."
At that moment granny didn't care what it was, Why was it in her house ?!
Half the animals just fled the room out the front door, the others sat ready to see how this is going down. Granny daughters, grandchildren, and their fathers stood outside of the house looking in through the front widows.
At any given time or weekend, granny could have twenty teenagers running through her house.
We trained a couple of bulls and a few cows to pick up and carry baskets with their mouths, and to functions as draft animals.
Keeping in mind oxen are bulls that are at least three years old to mellow out along with their balls cut.
A dozen male teenagers with a great Dane playing football and wrestling trained a yearling bull with his balls to patrol the " yard " in the morning with the dogs as the boys train morning military jog, light bump/push wrestle, follow with a brushing and finish with a grain treat breakfast. Then after school/work, play train the bull yearling, with a log pull, then have a nightfall walk before bed. Spring, summer, fall, and the farmer bought the bull yearling back for the winter so the calf could have a bit more social life. Along with watching cattle interaction, needless to say his wife and daughters claim a new pet. ( .. you're so will behave, yes you are.)
Following spring six farmers sent me a bull calf yearly from their stud beef bull " so they said," to see if I could train another five at the same time. Two where on a level of .. just stupid .. I could not explain in words, you just had to see to believe it. Those two were made into beef that winter. The other four were used during winter to help pull people's cars & trucks from snow drifts back on to the roads.
After a couple of years one just prefer to be a stand-offish bull and not cuddle nap, and way to alpha to keep around as a stud. So he was turn to beef. The remaining three were kept around till they started to have hip pain from age. They were novelty bulls since currently they are not needed as draft animals. But they died with their balls.
Given the small numbers of people I encounter in the cities and on the farms, I think that a lack of population is a major impediment to economic development around Boston (Fallout 4). Economic specialization requires a decent population size to be viable, and economies don't really grow without high levels of specialization.
The sheer amount of salvage still lying around 200 years after the war ended tells me that the population must have been even smaller in the past, so there just weren't enough people for an economy to develop. Things don't look like they'll get any better anytime soon either since I encountered very few children relative to the number of adults in the population. Perhaps the radiation has reduced fertility.
In addition, the staggering levels of crime and violence would make it very difficult to build up the capital required for serious economic development.
@@feralhistorian I feel that now, as we are approaching a Post-Boomer world, the currency of time is becoming a thing people consider again.
With Feminism having reached its peak, people are again starting to consider the economic value of a wife staying home. A sort of, "Post-Feminism".
With people such as John Adams. John Adams is one of the greatest men America every produced. But there is no John Adams without Abigail Adams.
She tended to the farm when he was away to the Continental Congress or to France.
She worked as his assistant and editor, as they would go through his writings together and in essence work together as one. Even though it was his name attached to it, and he the one who got the credit, they were as One Flesh.
But gradually in the Post-Victorian world, and especially after WW2, people threw it aside as it had no direct monetary value attached to it. No direct number attached to it. Capitalism, as I described in the original comment, had now taken over culture completely.
And so women got jobs.
And we built kindergartens, expensive. We built decade long institutional schooling, expensive. We drive for miles and miles every day, expensive. We build office buildings, expensive. We buy takeout and processed food and TV-dinners, expensive. And in most of the West, guaranteed maternity-leave, which is super-expensive for both the business and the State.
Ineffective supplements to a problem we manufactured for ourselves.
So I am glad seeing that more and more people are starting to consider the currency of time.
I just hope it sticks around and fully manifests.
The wife staying home with the kids. Tending to the vegetable garden. Tending to the chickens. Keeping home, property, and clothes clean. Cooking meals from scratch. Assisting the husband in his work/writing/art/business.
Is a dream to be had.
And a dream that we as a people of the Western world could and should strive for.
And with technology such as Starlink and Hydroponics, we have the necessary means to make it happen.
-----------
And on Fallout and making the Brotherhood of Steel into Norman Knights.
Edward Longshanks (Grandson of King John, brother of Richard Lionheart).
Who is the King in the movie Braveheart, where he suffers a complete character assassination. He is recorded as having been a fantastic husband. First having an incredible marriage with his first wife. Then she died. And somehow, he was able to have a second very happy marriage.
Anyway.
During his reign was when England truly gave birth to their Parliament.
And this system over time became a bicameral body.
It would have been really interesting to see this happen in Fallout.
- The Norman Brotherhood of Steel comes along and takes over someplace East. Perhaps in the Ohio Valley.
- With their Power Armor and flying machines, they are able to completely take over the whole thing.
- Officers of the Brotherhood, with their Power Armor, can easily take on a group of bandits. Especially if a couple men of the community assists him. Truly making these new Barons the central figures of the local community.
- The Brotherhood establishes forts throughout the conquered lands. Just as the Normans did. Just as the US Army did 150 years ago.
These forts becoming central to the local community. For trade, for safety, for handling legal disputes.
- The Brotherhood establishes a Parliament where the Officers of the Brotherhood of Steel, now transformed into Barons with Power Armor, now have a Legislature. With the top General of the Brotherhood most likely becoming an elected position over time. An elective Monarchy of sorts, as there was in Scotland, probably elected by their version of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
- With the modern technology, modern methods, and books and such from Old America. The region is reborn and altered.
- Legal system changes. With local customs and such having taken over the Wasteland. The Brotherhood would bring back pieces of Old American law. Merging together as it did in Norman England.
- Language changes. Language would have changed a lot after a few generations in the Wasteland. Then, with Old American returning with the Brotherhood. It would be fun to see such an interaction. Wasteland slang together with Formal American interacting.
- Then, after a while of growth and sophistication. The Parliament is separated into two bodies. With the Brotherhood of Steel holding the Upper House. Either getting their seats from the military sides, as you get a seat once you reach a certain rank in the military structure of the Brotherhood. Or, through an inherited seat. Or, perhaps both, having some landed seats and having some military seats.
(depends how Feudal or how modern you would like it to be and feel).
And then the ordinary people would get the Lower House.
-------
I love world-building too much. Too much.
I think I have an addiction.
I'll never get over them salvaging wood that would have rotted away decades ago.
A lot of apocalyptic games and fiction pass that over for convenience.
My mates joked that refined petroleum would go bad so fast that the motor gangs of Mad Max would be better off driving around collecting bikes.
I love the fact that this guy hikes miles into the wilderness just to give us great content. 🤩
I'm impressed he bothers to hike back so he can upload
@@LukeBunyip Who said he hikes back? I have heard rumors of a feral man roaming the Dakota wilderness. People who hike in the region often tell stories of rustling and rumblings beyond their tents at night, whispers and mumblings in the dark, something about Two Eagles and something about a Ninti's Gate.
I mean I get it. When I have some weird thing I want to yap about, I know talking to people in every day society would be a waste as I’d just seem weird. The woods is far enough away that I can really get into a tear about my BS.
Calling it now, the Brotherhood is going to fumble the bag again.
Brotherhood ain't the good guys. There's just no real alternative.
@@potatogun2845 Because Bethesda lacks the imagination to give us one.
@@potatogun2845 The only truly good factions are the Responders (who probably don't exist anymore in 2296) and the Followers of the Apocalypse (Who may also be gone)
@@enclaveofficer2305 I would say that's not true. I think the followers of the apocalypse are one of the last truly good factions in the wasteland. They actually want to proliferate old world knowledge and arcade Gannon is looking into new ways of production for medical supplies.
The issue with a lot of these factions is that they're not trying to make a new society. The brotherhood of steel doesn't want to create a new government they just want to steal all the old world technology and hoard it.
The enclave want to create a one-to-one replica of the older United States. Even if that means killing everybody who doesn't fit the mold.
Followers of the apocalypse just want to help people but they don't want to rule them.
There's a lot of factions that could fill the void but we only ever get to see conflict between the enclave and the brotherhood nowadays.
The institute had real legs, but they were just plain evil if I don't understand how replacing people was going to help them, but they thought it was a good idea I guess.
@enclaveofficer2305 The Minutemen in the west are somewhat good in 4, but thats mainly a byproduct of being one soldier and 4 settlers.
The idea of the world not developing after the Great War of 2077 is only a problem on the East Coast. The West Coast is a post post-apocalypse where nations have risen and carved out frontiers. The NCR to the West, the Legion to the East, and Vegas in the middle.
P.S. I remember reading something that said the Brotherhood destroyed the NCR’S gold reserves which led to the NCR adopting a fiat currency.
Can you do a video on Mr. House?
Don't forget New Canaan and the Khan Empire in Wyoming.
Nation-States just rise and fall like nothing in the West.
@@evanthompson7494 Very true.
Yeah the new show kinda introduces this problem to the west
@@flintson2268 True unfortunately. Which is why I just consider it a separate entity from the games entirely.
My main gripe with the East coast is that culturally people still act like the bombs just detonated 10 years prior
The NCR switched to a fiat currency when the brotherhood destroyed their gold reserves
I interpreted it as the gamified version of "the war with the Brotherhood cost us all out gold."
@@feralhistorian If i remember correctly in lore the BOS did quite literally destroy their reserves. Like they used thermite or something else to melt the gold and make it unusable.
@@MrCombatcarl That's my understanding of the lore too, that they slagged the NCR's gold reserves.
I have to think of it metaphorically. I mean, you melt a pile of gold bars and you end up with a big chunk of really dirty gold. Remelt it, scrape the filth off the top, cast into new bars.
I always interpreted it as the BoS literally made the gold unusable. Maybe it was pulverized with energy weapons to the point that it was impossible to reforge into ingots.
Because otherwise I don't see where the gold could have gone. The NCR has no neighboring nation whit whom it could trade for resources. And if any private company (like the Gun Runners) supplied the NCR with weapons for their campaign to the point that they obtained all their gold, then they would be a much more power influence in the wasteland.
It's mentioned that the brahmin barons have control over the government, but if they had all the gold that belonged to the NCR I think it would have been explicitly mentioned. It's a really big detail.
I searched the wiki and it says that the BoS raided the gold reserves, stealing a lot of it and destroying the rest. But all of this section is based on comments made out of the game by the developers, so it isn't strictly canon.
@@AgusSkywalker I think it really comes down to game writing not always making sense. They need the NCR to have no gold and didn't have a plausible way of transmuting an element into something else.
A lot of fruit farmers in the central valley are moving away from monoculture to blocks of trees. So, instead of 100 acres of one type of peach (where they can lose the entire crop due to a late frost, they plant 10 acres of 10 cultivars with different ripening dates. Not only does this reduce risk, it can reduce cost because they can hire migrant labor for the season rather than an intense 2 week period.
Then, they can get more for their crops because there are more buyers for 10 acres of fruit at a time than 100. It's a curious inversion of expected market forces.
There is one problem. In the terminal entries in Fallout 4, it is revealed that the Brotherhood took the power supply from Rivet City to power their airship. They took the electricity supply from the largest and most functional economic unit in the DC area to make a weapon that is based on the Hindenburg. The Brotherhood is definitely pillaging the civilian economy to support military campaigns.
The Shandification of fallout truly was prophetic. It is a video that is well over a decade old and I still think about "where do they eat" and now that is the crux of the last 2 games and part of the show.
Good ol’ MrBTongue. His videos were YUGE.
This is the content I crave, fresh and not just explaining basics of FO series, hight tier stuff for veterans
A farmer cooperative would be fun in here. Farmer cooperatives sometimes start to function as insurance, spreading risk. The cooperative can invest in central plants and keep them in their control. You can negotiate as a group with distributors. A whole slew of financial systems exist to spread the risk of agriculture.
I love this sort of logical analysis applied to apocalypse stories. Very rarely are they ever well thought out, economically and anthropologically speaking
You might read A Canticle for Liebowitz.
Honestly I'm just glad to come across another content creator who understands the lore, watched the show and understood that the Fall of Shady Sands was more complicated than just "it was nuked". Fortunately that argument has pretty much died off now.
The chalkboard is handled poorly from a writing perspective. If it refers to widespread decay of ncr it should be called "NCR depression" or something, because we don't call the great Depression as "1928 fall of Washington DC", no? We don't call Russian Revolution "fall of Petersburg" etc. You get the idea. If that is writers intent they should have made their point clear, and used common language instead of ambiguous nonsense they have.
Of all the videos on the socioeconomic, governmental reforms, city-states and market-value estimations regarding supply-and-demand in Fallout, this is definitely in the top 10.
Joking aside, I thoroughly enjoyed this. I dislike the Fallout TV series but, this video was well thought out and if I might mention one correction, there _are_ some farms in F4 that specialize their crops. That's just a small picking on an otherwise awesome video by someone who clearly knows, and loves fallout. Thank you sir.
"Which im going to call the capitalist progress threshold, mostly to annoy the reds"
Marx would agree with your point!
Yes! I'm surprised at how many missed that I was making an essentially Marxist argument.
The charge card is actually accepted by one (1) vendor in far harbor!
Now I want a fallout themed RTS city builder where you can rebuild civilization from scratch.
seeing a new video dropped never fails to bring a smile to my face
8:17 I know it has nothing to do with the subject matter of the video, but this part where you methodically try to get that MG-34 reloaded as a raider sprints at you with a tire iron is just hilarious to me.
Why has humanity forgotten what a broom is? People live with skeletons and bones in their houses. It's bad world building that's why. Same reason for why no one lives near fresh water or grows crops, or why the largest settlement is a shanty town in Fenway.
Rad storms probably make any cleaning pointless as the Shack walls aren't going to keep out much dust and debris. Clean water would be a must, but the games emphasize that the only real way to get some is through purifiers as all sources are too irradiated to drink from.
@@Toxic_Korgi Still living with bones in your house for 200 years is strange, unless it’s become a religious thing, also they will have turned to dirt about 120 years before fallout 4.
@@mininoble2253 No argument here on that part.
100%. Every major issue along this thoughtpath can be summed up with “Bethesda forgot/ignored something Black Isle already thought of.”
NCR is an interesting example of an accelerated timeline of a merchant republic formed as a democracy sliding to a capitalist system in which the largest capital holders owner's interest became the dominant interest group. This lead to a lot of the poor decisions and need for constant expansion as well, as outsourcing and expanding markets is cheaper for them than investing in reducing labor needed to work their holdings (there is a lot of overlap with feudalism like you mentioned, but without the investment in freeing labor's time from menial work and investment in skilled labor they are stuck in that mode of production).
I would like to make the case for The Minutemen as a way for the economic future of the commonwealth. for starters:
1. When it comes to nation-building or making settlements they are the best. Preston every five minutes goes, "I'll mark it on the map." This nation-building is really good and the trade that is happening between the farmer/settler is good. I(The general of the Minutemen) Give you three things: defense, water, and a roof. You give me some food, ammunition, and loyalty. The con of this is that the minutemen once the lone survivor dies it is a weak government/army. The Minutemen established a feudalism that could make money
2. The minutemen could become an economic powerhouse with the form of feudalism they have. The minutemen could dominate food supplies since they help farmers out from raiders. They would have a monopoly over the agrarian sector of the post-apocalyptic wasteland, and with that stranglehold over crops, a lot of people would join them.
3. their supply lines could be good. Depending on how many settlements you make the supply lines of each could be really good. The scrap from all of the settlements could be loaded on a settler and make him a traveling merchant. He will then sell this scrap for caps and, if the player chooses to add stalls for trading, he can then stimulate the local economy of a settlement.
4. You can set up shops to make a market among your settlements.
There are cons like the minute men are weak and the lone survivor are the only things holding them together, but I put the future up to them.
My first Fallout 4 playthrough was with the Minutemen, largely for similar reasons. They're widespread, they're building communities from the ground up instead of imposing them top down. They have the potential for the best recovery of the available options if stable trade and a clear, accepted succession process can be established.
But the odds are against them. Having imploded before and now held together solely by the General, there's a lot that can go wrong.
@@feralhistorian The Minutemen representing the mispotential of Fallout4 tbh. A faction that can easily become the most interesting both gameplay AND narrative wise, ending up being a "players playground" faction.
I think it is way, WAY more interesting if the Minutemen actually just.......doesn't build a nation-state at all and basically becoming an anarchistic organization with the corresponding trading and manufacturing capabilities of such, while the NPC has advanced enough AI to actually shift through their activity and decision. Kinda like how some of the old school open world AI act (STALKER AI comes to mind). But that's probably a task too tall to ask Bethesda tbh.
12:00 the "quotas" applied to the farmers in New Vegas IIRC are a payment for being provided fresh water, land, and settlement; kind of like a company town. However, that water in particular is irradiated and you have to choose who to save: the farmers or the people trapped in the vault.
fallout tom scott. This was actually very fascinating and well done. should have more views
It's almost like Bethesda never understood that by Fallout 2 the franchise is a Post-Post-Apocalypse.
Swedish Mutant embraces that phase. New nations are rising, infrastructure and organisations at edwardian level are being introduced. There was cities.
They kinda did. They just moved their games on the East Coast where distance and different historical events did the thing.
In Fo3 level of destruction and pollution are such severe that there is still barely any civilization besides River City I guess. There also are some shenanigans during the development. Originally it was supposed to be much earlier before or around the same date as in Fo1 but then somebody decided that they can't have 3rd mainline game be chronologically before previous games.
In Fo4 Institute is behind stagnation. Is this stupid? Yes, but this won't be the only stupid thing they do or what has happened historically or even still happening today.
F76 is actually so early, that we can deal with people who actually were living before the war or first post-war generation.
Dude i could listen to to your voice for hours. Honestly could you do an audio book for the Road or Blood meridian. Great video btw.
I know you probably put a disclaimer but it is hilarious hearing
Shady Sands fell in 2077
this is a very unique video, fallout seen through and analyzed through real economics
You are my favorite channel at the moment, love your videos
5:45 what you're saying would be true in this context because it's a person to person exchange. There isn't a central market in a capitalist economy. The theory of labor value only describes value under capitalism where there is a market that establishes a medium value. This doesn't mean the theory isn't true, just that it can't be applied to a single transaction. Of course cost fluctuates between transactions. If I was a merchant in the Capital Wasteland I could sell my goods at whatever price I want, since there isn't a central authority saying that 1000 caps is too much for a single stimpak. But trying to do that in New California where a central market is much more developed would mean that my potential buyer would go to whatever merchant is selling stimpaks closer to its real market value, which is determined by the work needed to produce.
Of course if I have the monopoly of stimpak production I can set whatever price I want, but that is an inflated price and not its real value.
The only 'real value' is what people will pay. Sure, they can hike back to Shady Sands to get a cheaper stim pack, but that involves making a trip there and back, and the wasteland trader has their stim packs right here, right now. You're not just paying him to haul the stim packs out there, either; he had to brave the raiders and wildlife to get to you, and there was no guarantee anyone there would actually want his stim packs.
It's not price gouging to value those risks, nor the knowledge that there was even something out that way to trade with.
The thing is, there is a lot going on within the market. Even if you were a merchant in the Capital Wasteland, and you brought goods that no other merchant has. You still have the reality of peoples willingness to pay your insane prices. You will not be able to sell your goods at whatever price you want, you can only set your price to whatever you want. And then, within the free market, people will make the personal choice whether that price is worth it or not. Or, they just don't have access to the wealth that you are demanding for the product.
Travelling as a merchant is not cheap. And so if you were to travel to a region with your product, set an insane price to achieve an 800% markup, but nobody buys your thing? You're in trouble.
You have now spent a lot of time, wealth, and resources on travelling with your product that nobody wants. Putting you in the clear red.
Which means you need to lower the price to a realistic level to have a chance at selling it.
Firmly placing you within the realm of "Supply and Demand".
Also, there is the reality of having good business relations with customers and other businesses that you would be interacting with as a Travelling Merchant.
You need connections with mechanics, you need connections with local security, you need connections with suppliers.
All of which requires you advertising yourself well, and placing you in a position where people like you and want to do business with you.
The image of a business is vital.
If you deal in "Price Gouging", people will not like you and will try to avoid your business to the best of their ability. Even being willing to pay more to other merchants just to avoid doing business with you.
And even going to far, that if the local security or local law does not like you, you can be in real trouble if they decide that protecting you and working tightly with you is not worth it anymore.
And going onwards to the political side. If you have a good and clean image, politicians will be much more willing to work with you, giving you access to government contracts, big and small.
If everybody hates you, you lose out on this.
Again, the image of the business is vital to long-term survival.
Yes, of course you can be a Snake Oil Salesman. You travel to town and scam and trick as many people that you can before you escape. But you can't return there, so good luck making a business out of it.
And if you hold too tight on to your Stimpak monopoly within the NCR. You run the risk of the State Nationalizing your business. That's the worst-case scenario. Most likely they would make the patent for your Stimpak's public. And/or "break the trust", carving up your business empire.
There is a lot going on in a vibrant free market economy. A lot.
And no system of Market Control or Planned Economy has ever been able to even get close to managing the whole thing successfully. In another comment to this video I used the example of the Soviet Union and their century long problem of making something as simple as shoes.
A free people making free choices with what they personally think they want or personally think they need, creates an absolutely enormous and an infinitely vibrant system, that includes: the cost of materials, the cost of transportation, cost of infrastructure, cost of protection, business image, perceived want, perceived need, long term planning, short term planning, very short term fun, competition, Governmental protection and security, Governmental environmental regulations, Governmental requirements with things such as marking on the can what is in the food, Governmental involvement in infrastructure to promote National Unit, Governmental Antitrust laws. Governmental taxation to pay for the military and for basic infrastructure.
And much much much more. You have a million things from all around that feed into a Free Market.
I'll take exception to the assertion that the Brotherhood charging for the clean water of the Purifier would foster innovation. We are talking of a literal magic technology; the only people that fully understood it dead or worse by the end of Fallout 3. Giving away this water not only gives the BoS legitimacy, it creates the beginning of a social safety net. People can afford to take risks - on new crops, tools, business models - knowing they won't have to offer themselves as slaves or beg for water if it fails.
I really should have been much more specific with that. I wasn't arguing so much that the BoS should charge for water (though it would avoid some of the problems) but that if they set it up as a public good it needs to be in a way that's stable enough to have long-term positive effects.
If they went the cost-prohibitive route and built an irrigation system, aqueducts or canals, to take water inland it would allow for a resurgence of agriculture. If they just gave water away at the Memorial while providing a wide security perimeter, they would get a trading hub building up in the area and the farmers and merchants would work out ways of transporting water. Either way leads to long-term changes in the socioeconomic conditions built on a stable and water supply.
But instead they distributed it as widely as they could, in the most inefficient way available, at a cost they can't sustain and will shortly have to abandon.
@@feralhistorian I think I see the argument now. A wide water distribution network that will eventually collapse without the intervention of a shockingly talented individual and an entourage of lovable misfits is certainly far from ideal. The Brotherhood has been accused of many things over the years, but being practically minded sure isn't one of them. Thank you for taking your time to reply and clarify.
@@feralhistorianTrading water is a lot more hassle than games make it out to be. Carrying water using manpower for even a small distance to feed the need of a village is a lot of work. Using a motor vehicle is possible, if you have those.
@@rubinelli7404I'm used to the older BoS that was so isolationist that they barely grasped events in the larger wasteland. The BoS was barely large enough to control the area around their bunker. The Dweller had to break them out of it enough to deal with super mutants and the Enclave. They had limitations to their reach like all other groups.
"Webs" of civilization, trade and production are *incredibly* complex and take a great deal of _time_ (decades, centuries!), population and effort to create.
Most folks today simply have no CLUE about this, my great grandad talked about how he saw the early steam trucks on the roads, farms worked by steam traction engines, and the grim reality of war in the trenches (burning lice in the hem of their kilt's using candle flames). etc etc
Except.... that's not what the game creators, the showrunners, or the execs want. The wasteland is the thing.
You can present all sorts of good arguments, plans, data, and economic models but what they want is that daily struggle with the environment, that feeling that nothing will change or get better. That dog eat dog world where only the strong or clever survive but never quite prosper.
Mad max ad naseum
Yeah, even Fallout 2 had to write in the Enclave for there to be an existential threat to the wasteland
Yea, but in canon, the Power Armor is overpowered. Once you have a group of people like that introduced to the Wasteland, they would monopolize force in their region. Their presence would end the dog-eat-dog world. And once you solidify, you become the power in the region. And you will have transitioned beyond Tribalism.
That seems to be the case. Graham Wagner basically said that the existence of a faction like NCR goes against his view of what fallout should feel like. That's why they have such a low presence in their core territory and why Shady Sands was nuked.
I mean, it’s honestly a tricky wicket. Because the devs are CORRECT from a gameplay stance, that “endless Mad Max” is the most interesting space to play a game in from the perspective of a single character RPG.
From a top level strategy game or civilization builder game (such as even Fallout Shelter) the long term development of civilization can be interesting to play with. But from the “create a character and go on an adventure “ aspect, you want the lawlessness and disorder of the wasteland.
Due to ludic reasons, essentially, the Fallout world is doomed to endless resets.
Markets help a lot with development but with these kinds of backwaters (and no foreign support) like the waste you NEED some heavy state involvement like in Singapore. The brotherhood needs to provide protected housing, control of the land to guarantee rights, their own controlled businesses to help guide the market and of course their own healthcare system for people.
Without this then the whole system will never progress
Korea, Japan, Vietnam etc all had versions of this. They wanted to go from farming to heavy industry, and waiting for farmers to accumulate capital was no option.
A product of this is the keiretsu. The government supported national cartels.
Because economics, economics never changes.
You earned a new subscriber! I'm preparing to run a post-apocalyptic campaign, and having some ideas around how the economy should function & what the world would look like in this post-post apocalypse is interesting & helpful.
I'm hoping to have the communist counterpoint to this up in a few weeks, for an alternative set of pros and cons you might find interesting.
@@feralhistorian Oh, definitely. I'd love to see a video exploring the economies of post-post apocalyptic society and what that might look like in general, as in something a bit divorced from Fallout's setting.
Friend, the NCR also has a war economy like Cesar's legion, it needs to be constantly growing to justify military investments, but internally it works like Mexico Or like Brazil, here we have large state-owned companies and corrupt companies that make great use of politics to establish economic dominance in some of the markets and help politicians to launder money, If you are interested, look for cases from Odebrecht, JBS, Here we live in war taxes, paying more than 1/3% of common income in annual taxes, as the level of entertainment is right something closer to New Vegas it is possible to charge up to 50% of paralyzing Individual growth, but drastically increasing the size of the state.
The Feral Historian talking like The head scribe the BoS needs to create an ideal society
The BoS is pretty crappy at soft sciences. They were just barely spying on nearby towns, and caravans from the Hub came to them.
I always imagined the Brotherhood as some kind of top-down Libertarian state. Providing defense and some other basic services but beyond that leaving the settlements of the wasteland to their own devices.
The BoS in the old games were isolationist, not libertarian. They left you alone because they were secretive dudes sitting in a bunker and hoarding. They allowed traders from the Hub to show up. They tried to send scouts to spy out other settlements.
Wouldn't the Legion also be classified as a nation state just like the NCR, they have their own currency, manufacturing which isn't as advanced as the NCR given most of their troops use bladed weapons, but they do still have firearms which have to be maintained, territory and settlements. Not trying to be a Legion fan boy here cause they are definitely horrible in their own right as a group of people, BUT they are definitely close to if not on par with the NCR in terms of being a nation state, whether they have all the same amenities as the NCR is beyond me though.
Certainly a case to be made. I always see the Legion more as on par with something like Alexander's army; establishing administrative centers for the purpose of taxation but mostly existing to keep moving, conquering new territory like a compulsion. A really big gang.
It's not strictly a nation-state in the modern Westphalian sense, but they definitely resemble older forms like Rome, obviously.
It’s difficult to say this with accuracy since we never got to go to an actual Legion town or the Van Buren version of Fallout 3 which would have had several settlements in these regions of Arizona and New Mexico.
Damn, just found this channel. Incredible
"Economics. Economics never changes".
I don't play the games, but learned a heck of a lot. Thank you.
This was interesting, thanks man.
Excellent video as always. I’d be really interested in your opinion of the economics systems in Frank Herbert’s Dune novels.
I've been giving that a lot of thought lately. I'm planning a broad "space feudalism" video fairly soon, with maybe a deep look into what can be gleaned from the Dune books later on.
If I have to choose between the people who can build a water treatment plant and the blokes who argue about the most ideologically pure water plant I must go with the former.
Water plants are a sort of natural monopoly. A town might not have two competing water companies. In that situation, a private water company would soon become a private water monopoly.
Without a way to move stuff, there might be more local monopolies or cartels. There is a few bike repair shops, a mill etc in town, and you are dependent on them. Going to the next town over is an increasingly prohibitive cost.
I still need to hear a real argument why capitalism incentivises anything that is productive for more people than the capitalist.
Holding up capitalism for raising living standards is like holding up a sheep for eating the wheats, in the garden, once in a while.
Capitalism is a necessary step in dramatically increasing effectivity through industrialisation.
But when the wheats run out, the sheep wont stop before the crops.
We can watch capitalism run us into the ground right now, outside our windows. And Fallout shows us how that development might climax.
In the next world we should make lamb ragout before the garden is dead and empty.
Well, to answer the question first, everyone in a market economy is a "capitalist", and their incentive is to produce more wealth for themselves. But they can only really do that by trading with other people in the market, exchanging what they have a surplus of for what they have a scarcity of. Everyone benefits from this system of comparative advantage, trading what they have more of for what they want or need more of. It's not difficult.
Oh, but what happens when resources run out? People simply find alternatives, or get better at using what they have. The scenario you're suggesting is called a Malthusian problem, after Thomas Malthus, who theorized that Britain would run out of resources and suffer mass starvation. Obviously, that didn't happen, because production got better, more efficient, more flexible, and Britain's trade network grew enough to fuel a massive Empire. Well, for a while, anyway. They didn't practice the free market quite so well in most colonies, and then the colonies actually cost them real wealth.
Contrast this success to, say, socialism. What's the incentive to get better at utilizing resources or even work? You get wealth distributed to you regardless, and the government apportions it, so why would you innovate? True to form, socialist societies tend to go broke VERY quickly, even when they're mixed with market societies. You say capitalism is running us into the ground right now, but that's certainly not true in the US. Instead, Social Entitlements are two-thirds of the budget and the single largest unfunded liabilities we have. No market created those, the government did. Take those away, and the US is even more economically dominant than it currently is.
The incentive for workers is two-fold, the positive push to seek better pay, but more strongly the negative "incentive" of market dependency. In a capitalist economy you need to make money to buy essentials and if you try to drop out, the State comes after you with taxes, fines, and various other legal coercions to get you back in the game.
That's why I don't think anarcho-capitalism is a real thing. If you have no enforcing State, it isn't capitalism, it's just some weird kind of mutualism.
I'm certainly not arguing that capitalism is the Greatest and Final System Ever, but as you say it was a necessary step to industrialization. What replaces it is the question. I don't think state socialism is better, but something has to change before it completes the transformation into whatever techno-feudal monstrosity we have now.
@@arcdecibel9986 It works as long as there are increased wealth coming. Capitalist propaganda in 1950 could rightfully point to increasing wages, lower working hours and things like vacation.
This falters when we tell people "just get a third job lol" when they fear a stagnating wage. Or when some fanboys really hammers in how Koch owning the whole fertilizer industry is peak freedom.
I am a fan of FDR, sometimes a little socialism is needed to save capitalism.
@@SusCalvin Okay, and how much wealth does government actually produce? What incentive does it have to be profitable, and why aren't any governments profitable despite literally having the power to dictate their own profit?
The fact of the matter is that they don't have any incentive for profit, just incentive to remain in power at everyone else's expense. That's where you get the wealth drain that requires two or three jobs.
No company naturally does this, because if they ever did, they'd be massacred by companies that re-invest their profits in real wealth creation. But governments are the other side of the coin. They have to spend on power, because if they don't, they won't be in power for long.
Thus, you strictly limit and decentralize the power of a government, like the US originally did, and you become a beacon for wealth. If you go the FDR route, which now accounts for two thirds of our unfunded liabilities and national debt, you're just making yourself do all that extra work for nothing.
@@SusCalvin I am not a fan of FDR, stuffing the courts, his NRA had fascist fellow travelers, greenlit Operation Keelhaul, the probability he would have been a fascist dictator or figurehead if the "Business Plot" succeeded. From what I see, this neo corporatism we have today is the problem, not the solution FDR put forward
that graph is the transatlantic slave trade genius
Fallout: a game about(among other things) the hypocrisy of capitalism and its consequences.
This guy: You know what this place needs? More capitalism of course!
I mean from a Marxist perspective, that's not too crazy. Marxists generally believe that Socialism can only truly form in an Industrial Capitalist society, developing Socialism in a Feudal society is very difficult, just ask the Soviets.
Though the irony is still funny, I'll give you that.
It’s just as he said. There’s no better vessel for progress and prosperity.
@@tomfriendly2412 Correct, to a degree. Initially it's very progressive but after a while infinite growth becomes unsustainable in a finite world, so the further prosperity of those in power comes at the cost of us workers. Pay cuts, rising prices, outsourcing labor to poorer countries, and Union busting are all good signs of this.
The ncr functions very similar to the American economy. That is to say it’s a controlled economy not a true capitalist system.
Have you ever read Day of the Triffids?
The New California Republic really didn't have a choice on the fiat standard, the destruction of its Gold Reserves by the Lost Hills BoS forced the change - resulting in the complete devulation of the NCR Dollar.
As for 2277, Shady Sands wasn't destroyed before New Vegas, but that year marked the turn to the decline of the NCR. While they won the first battle of Hoover Dam, the I-90 route was utterly destroyed by the Divide when a Courier that would become far more important later dropped a package off - ruining its supply route.
This is cool. Now that you've done the capitalist perspective next, you should do the communist perspective next, then the anarchist perspective. If you think you can handle it ( :
I don't think feudalism and capitalism are necessarily separate. After all, mercantile economies grew in the Middle Ages, well before the Industrial Revolution. That's not to say they coexist simultaneously, either, but there can definitely be overlap between the two systems. The description of the Crimson Caravan reminds me of the East India Company or the Hudson Bay Company.
Social trust. I don't think most people appreciate it.
Trust doesn't have to be morally thinking good things about people. It rarely is. Trust is simply knowing something will go down a certain way, seeing reliability, having predictive power over your environment. If you have that, you have a foundation for pro-social behavior. The monopoly on violence does humanity a huge amount of good when it's used regularly instead of arbitrarily, and a stable currency is the most obvious indicator that a relationship with the authority has become normalized.
I can't say I agree with your assessment of the NCR economy.
The strength of the legion denarius has always been suspect to me. The legion have negligible to no industrial capacity; everything they have is either cobbled together from scrap or outright salvage and a custom made helmet is Lanius's big reward, something made from steel and brass. Transport is either by brahmin or on the backs of slaves, both being relatively crude and limiting to logistics. Trade also tends to be rather insular, with merchants having to have the sponsorship of Caesar in the form of his mark or risk being killed and enslaved by his soldiers and what ones who do have sponsorship seldom venturing outside it. Legion troops seem to have little to spend their wages on - rations are foraged, alcohol and chems are forbidden under pain of death, entertainment seems non-existent, sex is a non-issue and equipment is provided for - unlike the Roman army of old which has been described by some historians as "a crude by vigorous pump" for the local economy what the Legion offers people nearby is non-existent due to their lack of needs.
Above all is why a currency of precious metal should have any more worth than any other form in the post apocalypse. Caps being backed by water is utilitarian; water is something with ready value in the wastes, the cap meanwhile is a worthless chit that holds value because it represents something else that does. Wastelanders would be concerned with more utilitarian displays of power, a pre war condition machine gun or suit of combat armour is going to be worth more to a warlord than their weight in gold, a clear display of their ability to employ violence. Precious metals have little practical use outside of complex electronics (which seldom few know how to repair let alone make) and even for decorative work require skilled artisans that are few and far between. Conspicuous consumption is something stated to be peculiar only to the NCR and the people within it, to be able to indulge in such impractical displays of power, Caesar meanwhile is the only member of the Legion to wear something decorative, his gold brooch, everyone else, his elite bodyguard and even his top general only wear and wield purely practical equipment unlike their "historical" counterparts. Without this conspicuous consumption, gold is in effect nothing more worthwhile than cowrie beads.
The NCR dollar meanwhile have a relatively developed economy backing them. The NCR has significant industry, enough to equip the bulk of their army from scratch made goods using post war resources including firearms. Transport includes rail, a mechanized division and vertibirds alongside cruder forms like brahmin towing wagons (which the legion seem to lack for some reason) giving them a significant logistical edge. Trade meanwhile is far reaching with NCR based operations ranging far afield and back home giving their domestically produced goods and surpluses a far larger market whilst also being receptive to outside traders. The NCR rank and file make good customers, good enough to figure into House's economic plan, and people who's needs can't be ignored; a merchant turning up their nose at NCR dollars is going to lose out on a significant market, especially one able to lay in the boot with extraneous "tolls" or outright violence if they feel mistreated. If Vegas decided to not accept NCR paper or only at a prohibitive return, then competition from Reno based casinos would see travellers go there instead and troops in the region frequent other competitor businesses.
NCR paper money is in an odd position. It changed between 2 and FNV from coinage to paper; the Brotherhood war eliminating the gold reserve wouldn't be an issue if it was still minting coinage as the coins would still hold their material value and they'd need a steady supply of gold anyway to continue minting. Paper money being moved to a fiat currency roughly 15 years prior seems to have produced economic uncertainty and in the process of adjusting. The government that backs it has enough economic and military clout to say it's worth something within its territory; forcing anyone dealing with the government to deal in official money should be enough to support it.
The Legion denarius meanwhile seems oddly overvalued. The economy behind it is terribly insular and rather minute and the government that issues it had little need for it bar as an attempt at legitimising especially as taxes are negligible inside Legion territory. Value outside the territory is questionable as tender due to the severely limited utility and no backing system bar self worth.
Caps also have an issue. With the capture of the damn and the proliferation of water the backing them, wouldn't caps have seen a massive devaluation? Something similar was seen with the Spanish conquests of the Americas and the massive glut of gold devaluing the currency.
Overall I don't trust the depiction of the economy in game to be realistic given the various factors in action nor do I believe it to be likely that economic decline killed the NCR (if for no other reason that from a Doyalist perspective it's to "boring" and "mundane" for the shows tone).
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A side note is the "NCR taxes on farmers is feudal" is wrong. The farmers near New Vegas are sharecroppers, paid by the government to move to Nevada and work on state owned farms; the crops are by default government property. The farms are part of government bill designed to truncate supply lines (note the bases in the region don't lack for basic food), take advantage of its immediacy to Lake Mead and put down roots not unlike old Roman colonia. Feudal would imply far longer and more binding contracts as well as an outright lack of pay for the farmers. Other farmers are not covered by the Thaler act and not subject to quotas, contrary information to the opposite it would seem they pay in paper the same as everyone else rather than in kind.
How are they ment to pay taxes with currency that losses value as you said if they deal only in another currency.
Converting your caps to bills is a waste of time if you convert when it's time for taxes and converting before taxes are dew is a waste of money.
Well done, take my sub!
I’d like to see your take on Robert House’s take on how to restart the wasteland economy.
Well, he has more or less a bullet pointed list. But Regardless, I am intrested to see.
Earned my sub because I run fallout games as a DM. And society building is a tasset thing I do causually, and like to do willy nilly.
I do want to dive into how House's plan might actually play out. Need to do another New Vegas playthrough, it's been awhile.
@@feralhistorian To Quote:
“I have no interest in abusing others, just as I have no interest in legislating or otherwise dictating what people do in their private time. Nor have I any interest in being worshipped as some kind of machine god messiah. I am impervious to such corrupting ambitions. But autocracy? Firm control in the hands of a technological and economic visionary? Yes, that Vegas shall have.”
His own strategies and decisions are largely based on mathematical calculations, and he is confident in his own ability to succeed.[28] He styles himself as an "autocrat," viewing New Vegas as his rightful dominion, and is dismissive of other factions vying for control, comparing them to "two snarling dogs fighting over a curve of bone." He further disparages both groups as nothing more than "regurgitations of the past" drawing parallels between the two as attempts to revive past civilizations rather than offer a palpable future. He derides the NCR as a "society of customers" led by scheming leaders who wish to take Vegas out from under him, while showing disgust at the Legion's practice of slavery, technophobia and general brutality.
Some of his quotes go as thus:
"You see that you and I are of a different stripe, don't you? We don't have to dream that we're important. We are."Icon sound trigger
"Success depends on forethought, dispassionate calculation of probabilites, accounting for every stray variable."Icon sound trigger
"Nothing to impede progress. If you want to see the fate of democracies, look out the windows."
[Question: How would you describe Mr. House's Ideology? I know that he's rather authoritarian when it comes to political freedoms, but what about on economic issues? He was my favorite character in the game, and whoever wrote him did an outstanding job.]
He's also authoritarian on economic issues within certain boundaries. In the same way that a fascist government would exert authority on the various production/capital resources involved in a market, Mr. House exerts his authority on The Strip's operation. Ultimately, he wants The Strip to be (extremely) profitable and to retain independence from NCR/CL. However, he does not want the families to be independent from his authority, so he does what he can to keep them under his thumb. He doesn't want to micromanage what they do, but he also knows that allowing them to do whatever they want could eventually lead to the downfall of his authority or fighting between the families (which would also undermine his authority).
Really, the main area in which Mr. House is "liberal" is in personal consumption and behavior. As long as it makes him money and doesn't create instability or feuding on The Strip, he allows it.”
Please do something about Farcry2 and its narratives
The planned ecconomy took a backwater famine ridden serfdom land in a frozen wasteland, won a civil war that was decimating, then a won ww2 which was decimating. had some famines because it was a totally new form of organizing an ecomony so mistakes were made, and then it became a world super power rivaling the US. It never overtook the US, but that was impossible when understanding the basic distribution of resources and people on earth. It wasnt a perfect society. Also the state actually innovates better than private market forces.
That's a very selective version of the Soviet industrialization story. It overlooks how dependent the Soviet Union was on American industry during its industrialization. The Soviets were obsessed with American production methods, Taylorist management theory, they hired American machinists and architects to build their factories, the first Soviet car factory that wasn't mostly a semi-handicraft operation was bought in its entirely from Ford. And while the Red Army bore the brunt of WWII in terms of manpower, they got to Berlin in American lend-lease trucks.
A lot of Soviet progress was despite the planned economy more than because of it.
Soviet Union wasn't the first to implement planned economy. Planned economy first test was during ww1 where all major countries implement it. Soviet union based their planned economy on state command economies of ww1 experience and American expertise, as well as massive amounts of loans they took... United Kingdom during ww1 showed that you can implement command economy and avoid food failure.
Go nomad! First rule of pastoralist is do not be there when things go bad, or zima is being sold again, and be somewhere else good, where proper brewing artistry is being practiced. I get it though this is about civilization coming back, but being a nomadic tribal band does lead back to other things. Once the neo Khanate is reformed.
For those looking for more economic/political analysis of “the apocalypse” I need to suggest World War Z the book (the movie is kinda unrelated but uses the same name). It’s amazing and shows actual thought and analysis on the apocalypse rather than just gang warfare!
"Capitalism, more than any other system, rewards innovation and *punishes stagnation* ."
Exactly! Do we have enough sane, non-ghoul people left to survive punishing stagnation as a species?! Also, will the new capitalism have any kind of care for the elderly, new parents, or their children? If that can't be guaranteed, why would anyone want to go backwards?!
Ah, but Feral, all the real communists don’t hold with the labour theory of value (which was always more of an anarchist idea) and embrace the use-value, going back even to Marx himself! So once again, you’re more in agreement with those filthy reds than you know 😉
Great video once again, and makes some salient points about the fundamental weakness of the NCR that even I as a certified NCRhead have to concede
I freely admit to using marxist analytical models fairly often. His analysis of 19th Century capitalism was quite good, it's just the offered solutions I find deeply flawed.
I'm going to do a "rebuilding the wasteland through central planning" video before long, trying to give a fair assessment of the strengths and weaknesses. I expect angry comments from all sides on that one.
@@feralhistorian Excited!
As a side note, I’ve always wondered what happened to the socialist nations of the world after the bombs fell. Like, what is East Germany up to? Or Cuba? Or Laos?
@@feralhistorianAlso, pretty much all Marxists will agree that capitalism is what caused huge economic growth and the industrial revolution. Marxists view capitalism as being progressive over feudalism, which is why you often see Marxists, especially in the past, supporting capitalism when it was replacing feudalism. We just argue that eventually, capitalism itself will become a hindrance to even further growth. I also enjoyed this video as a Marxist. I agree with your analysis that the NCR is essentially a feudal country that is trying to be capitalist.
@@thehistorian1232 in more or less official lore the ussr become something akin to today china (in some lore pieces the ussr is said to be ruled by "neo-bucharinists". Bukarin was a Soviet leader that wanted to continue the NEP). Also, the ussr allied with the US against China and it seems they didn't participate in the resource wars, since they have a lot of gas and oil themselves.
@@samirnodormir3097 More evidence for the “the rest of the world is kinda chilling, America is just like that” theory of the post-apocalypse. Would be really funny if the socialist bloc was peacefully thriving absent US pressure while America is still a blasted wasteland
TBH it’s just Bethesda writing.
Amazing Video 🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥
What are your favorite mods?
To make New Vegas more yellow and to make Fallout 3 more green.
The only one that has consistently been in my load order for years is . . . Diverse Cats.
Otherwise I like a lot of modern weapon mods, the QBZ-91 has oddly become a favorite. And of course the remake of America Rising is a must at least once, even if some of the early missions are a bit tedious in their design.
@@Hugebull Fallout 4 more Red s-AW-ks
@feralhistorian the lack of real-world weapons in FO4 is a massive missed opportunity
Have you done any Battlestar Galactica videos?
I did kind of an odd one, th-cam.com/video/dwCXSyB3vA8/w-d-xo.html but I haven't gotten around to a full look at the series yet. Planning to, but there's a lot to cover there.
@@feralhistorian if it helps I’ll send a case of Zima and a copy of Kritik der reinen Vernunft. 😆
Paladin Marxson?!
I'm always surprised at how docile the people are in fallout, they act like utterly helpless lambs at all times. I would expect you average post apocalyptic farmers to think and act like ancient German tribesmen or vikings, armed dangerous homebound and extremely capable of and willing to engage in violence to protect their assets.
They are shockingly mellow, considering.
ugh the video was going ok until you absolutely misunderstood the labour theory of value
Really understanding Marx's labor theory of value requires understanding that he needed it (with its vague and flexible "socially necessary labor" specifically) to give a scientific veneer to an essentially philosophical argument.
Some of what he wrote is brilliantly incisive analysis of the socioeconomic conditions of his time. Some of it is nonsense.
14:25 If it’s reasonable to say that the NCR has a military industry it wouldn’t be out of the realm to produce farm equipment like tractors or even plows, also farms outside New Vegas are in the heart of a desert how did they think that crops would be efficient there?
Funny enough, slightly north of Vegas is a green valley for farming in real life, though it's nowadays been turned into suburbia.
Somehow I've heard of this. Blake Abernathy sort of looks like Chuck Norris.
And sounds like Bill Burr
I am partially with you, but Industrialization and capitalism aren't necessarily synonyms. You referenced Soviet Russia, was their economy capitalist? Stalin would say state capitalism is socialism. Mao would talk about the national bourgeois while Deng would talk about capital development zones with tightly controlled market socialism.
If industrial capital is capitalism, then the Soviet Union, the DPRK, and China have been capitalist since industrialization.
Nah, it isn't communism is not state capitalism. The system itself removes the need to compete (there's often apparent competition but it's there just for the show and usually introduced artificially), negatively selects for loyalty, and punishes achievers.
Mind you, state capitalism (as in Russia at the moment) is not capitalism and shares the same problems. It's just communism without the socialist parts, plus elements of feudalism.
Capitalism is a horror, but it's a working and more or less productive system, unlike communism/state "capitalism".
Something tells me nothing better will surface until scarcity is reduced/removed, and/or general ai is developed. Then what's likely to emerge will be something akin to what is describe in the Culture series or the Strugatsky's Midday universe, though both skimp on details of how their economies work.
@BoraHorzaGobuchul you could say capitalism does same with monopoly. What are the top universities for physicis and engineering at this time?
Fun Fact: There western business men who actually did business with the USSR. Henry Ford set up a couple of factories there even.
It's often overlooked how much of the Soviet Union's rapid industrialization was simply buying machinery and expertise from the US and Western Europe. That time Ford sold them an entire factory is certainly the most dramatic.
@@feralhistorian Sold a factory to them that’s right. I knew it had something to do with a factory.
You need capital for capitalism, and sufficient demand to maintain such capital, boston would most likely not develop capitalism for decades, due to its low population itd be much harder to make viable, i believe a more cooperative economy would form first, then capitalism, and then after we run out of scarcity, a newer systen
I liked this video
I will say any leftie criticizing the idea that capitalism is exceptionally productive and historically progressive hasnt read their Marx.
Exactly.
I think the greatest threat to capitalism is people standing on top of nonsense and loudly proclaiming that this crap is truly pure capitalism, and THE ONLY ALTERNATIVE IS COMMUNISM.
I have to apply Occam's razor. If a group of people are not following marxist ideals, do not call themselves marxist, do not read Marx and aren't implementing any marxist practices I have to start concluding that they might not be marxist. Maybe some social-liberals or posing centrists. And then I start to question why a nebulous marxist threat is necessary.
Where is the new news??
Hey profligate you forgot the other civilization out west! Ave, True to Caesar!
The currency is 200 year old bottle caps. It is a great metaphor for a decaying antiquated forgotten capitalist world.
10:25 classical pronunciation! None of that Medieval Latin crap
hey
I almost passed on this video because of the title, glad i didn't
Fallout is great; but, to me it feels like a game version of books "Deathlands" by James Axler. A seriously underrated book series.
I feel like the show retconned the NCR into being Marxist.
What lies between fedated cities and fedated stars
Honoured to be the first here!
He said it! He said the thing! (The game was rigged from the start)
lmao That AI generated Soviet mess of a thumbnail
I don't even count the Fallout TV show as canon. There's no way to work that timeline into the existing lore, and no circumlocutions make it fit. Let's just accept that the writers screwed up the dates, like they screwed up the location of Shady Sands. And everything else about the NCR. And the entire west coast.
Head Canon always trumps Corporate Canon. In my Fallout: New Vegas, where I was Good Karma and sided with the Legion.
The Legion conquers the Hoover Dam and New Vegas, and pushes the NCR out of the region entirely.
After the game ends, the Courier takes over the Legion after Caesar (Edward Sallow) dies.
And the Legion under the Good Karma Currier, continues marching the Legion to the Pacific Coast, conquering the NCR completely.
Bringing the lands from Baja California and all the way up north to Washington and Oregon under the Legion.
Solidifying the entire western side of the Rocky Mountains, including the fertile Central Valley, under Legion control.
Then, when there are no more lands to conquer. And culture has been unified.
It would be time for political reforms.
Creating a Federal system with a Senate to secure stability and longevity.
Will probably be canon, they can just retcon all they want. Timeline might not be wrong, could just be a small oversight. Sort of like when people intend a sign to be read one way but people read it a different way. Anyways in a very fallout theme way the NCR collapsing does sorta make sense, i mean societies have been having collapses since before written history.
It was confirmed weeks ago that the 2277 date marks the beginning of the fall of Shady Sands, with the nuke dropping some time after the events of New Vegas. The timeline is fine
@@DPryce Just not the timeline for most players.
@@Hugebull what does this even mean? You know that's just the nature of open ended games right? With sequels eventually one of the possible endings has to be chosen over all the others
So vault tec was right. Capitalism always win
From a meta perspective, I've written Bethesda IPs off as purely Disney-tier products, shuffled along in a zombified state to sell merch. So whatever more sophisticated speculation a video like this can offer, all I see in the TV show is Bethesda's SUPER EPIK BADAYAS favourite faction, the East Coast Brotherhood, magically having as many resources as the writers need them to have so they can endlessly waffle between a faction of fantasy heroes and "deeper" "more flawed" lunatic techno-fascists also depending on what the writers need for a specific story.
I doubt moving forward that anything resembling coherent worldbuilding will survive the next few main Fallout products, likely the next season of the show and subsequent numbered sequel game. Basically everything Bethesda has made since Skyrim has showed they've transitioned from a company that cares about the minute nerdy details of their games to some extent, into a media factory that pays as much lip service as necessary to keep a large enough segment of the fanbase distracted with Memberberries and not an ounce more.
You are correct. For the Fallout franchise, the 3D success of the series is entirely tied to Fallout: New Vegas. Nobody remembers anything about Fallout 3. Running after Liam Neeson so our vault can get some clean water, is not that interesting. Nothing memorable.
Compared to the NCR, Caesar's Legion, Mr House, and the Hoover Dam.
I feel that the Brotherhood only exist because they look cool. Anything beyond that, is beyond the abilities of Bethesda or Amazon.
@@Hugebull Liberty Prime begs to differ, although that can certainly be argued to be as much because of cross-franchise memberberries...
The NCR fell because of the petty vengeance of an angry and stupid god.
The lowly Bethesda.
Pretty sure fallout 2 had a good economic system and nv had a shit one as the ncr were only starting out in the mojave and at war w the slave lads
I cant watch the whole video atm you might’ve mentioned the west coast economy (my point goes shit ways with the tv show but thats after fo4 and the latest canonical point)
Your very argument that capitalism is engine of progress compared to communism or socialism as whatever you may calm it is fallacious as you apply double standards.
While also rely on omissions of planned obsolescence and intentionally compromised working lifespan of products that is core pillars of capitalism which lead to resource wars in Fallout universe.
Your complaint about Brotherhood of Steel distributing water freely is not an argument and is nonsense because you intentionally do not state obvious.
Which is that it reduces cost of any labor and production as its effectively subsidized due to requiring less capital to start and conduct economic activity such as farming.
Hence more people could join that sector to process more land that has been untouched for centuries when post apocalyptic population is tiny fraction in size compared to population that there was before the nuclear apocalypse.
Your perspective that water has to be monetized is outright counter productive even in capitalist sense as demand would not be saturated even remotely close to capacity of pre-war machinery.
All you do is demonstrate your obsession in proving leftists wrong which you an American have American standard detached from basically rest of the world as even center right of European standard would be seen as far left which is evident with by American media whenever Bernie Sanders ran for president and he is supporter of Israel and Zionism.
Just to be clear, I haven’t argued that capitalism is the “Best Thing Ever” with no flaws. It has serious problems, both in theory and practice. I’m making an essentially Marxist argument actually, that the capitalist phase is a necessary step on the road to something else.
The problem with the Brotherhood giving away water is that they do it in a way that is unreliable, inefficient, and dependent on them actively delivering it. If they gave it away at the Project Purity site it would lead to a trading hub and then a town. If they built aqueducts or some other infrastructure it would allow for permanent farms. But instead they put it in barrels and lug it across the wasteland, which they’ll get tired of doing and stop at some point.
@@feralhistorian BoS is a military organization focused on military technology aside from the some branches that go beyond core tenants of BoS yet they do not have technology nor machinery to manufacture large pipes nor to excavate ground for it nor to build aqueducts as power armors are not that precise although there is a member of BoS that controls Pittsburg hence capacity to manufacture the necessary pipes to construct infrastructure for water delivery. Also BoS in Capital Wasteland patrols considerably beyond Pentagon and with victory would control entire Washington DC thus can deliver water to whatever settlement and farm is in vicinity and along their patrol routes.
Problem is with any discussion as such is Bethesda is they will set up narrative, lore and setting that creates stagnation along it is clear that they won't revisit previous areas for their sequels as they do not for Elder Scrolls as then they would have to make a choice to show progress rather than set up in general vague picture of outcome.
bro missed the part where capitalism caused the fallout
Depends on your definition of Capitalism.
And it depends on if you can describe the Modern United States as having Capitalism.
And it depends on if you can describe the United States of the Fallout universe as having Capitalism.
Corporatism is the more accurate term for what led to the Fallout.
Communist Chinese launched the nukes first according to Tim Cain.
@@darrenvanderwilt1258Corporatism is an inevitable result of capitalism
@@SpoopySquid alternatively, death and suffering in far greater numbers is the result of socialism/communism.