Any communist's countries in Shadowrun?
If so, how they look like?

Maybe like Russia in 1950's - Your Leader is your God.

Or maybe like in China right now - more cynical IMHO - economy is open to the world, but THE Party rules.

HOW IT (communism) LOOKED IN REAL?
I spend half of my life in communism (Poland until 1989).
It wasn't fun. Pretty boring.
Only one or two TV channels with propaganda stuff. (my favorite slogan: "We FIGHT for peace" ).
You are cut out from "free world".
Newspapers are lying about world outside. ("Capitalists are jealous and they want to destroy our communist paradise". Well to be honest they didn't use paradise .)
There are many restrictions. (particulary during marshall law: nobody can be outside when is dark. People cannot gather without permission.).
In kindergarten you're brainwashed. (Songs how good is communism. Apotheosis of soldiers.)
In school you SHOULD join to the young equivalent of communist party.
Poland was in "friendship" with Soviet Union - so everybody must learn russian since elementary school until you're end education.
You CAN'T complain about the system ("Communism is the best system in the world.". Period.).

What you think (or expect)?
Maybe in SoA there will be some about communist countries?
Leaks, anybody ?

Loose Alliances. Grab it. Understand ahead of time the chapter on Commies is written by a spastic 12 year old -- be ready -- but grab it.

Take note that what you are referring to is not true communism, it is a twisted form of socialism approaching fascism. The closest we've come to communism in real life is Cuba and the first decade of Maoist China. Everything else has degenerated into nationalist or authoritarian socialist regimes posturing as ideological communists.

Neo-Communism and its two main factions "institutional communists" and "utopists" are outlined in Loose Alliances (which also specifies that Russia 206x is a nationalist/neo-fascist regime masquerading as a state communism - a parallel to Stalinist Russia). Shadows of Asia (as will eventually SoLA) will cover some communist regimes and nations (including true communists and those who pose as communists).

Critias' evaluation is spot on. The voice used is grating and often irritating but he does cover the basics.

Communism can't work in groups bigger than 1 person. Its human nature, we survived as a species by alternating between being greedy little bastards and helping each other out, but selfishness will always occur.

Other than that, Loose Alliances is you canon source and one stop shop for information.

Just read "The Lord of the Flies." It is about a group of school boys descent into savagery after being shipwrecked.

LA lists five neo-communist countries.

Russia isn't one, but it is referred to elsewhere.

To be fair, one has to mention that capitalism isn't really working, either. I can't think of a single country that runs according to perfect capitalist ideals. If you look at the extent of corporate welfare in the world, you'll see that even the most gung ho of "capitalist" countries has on at least some level realized that the system just doesn't work. Here in the US, if we were running on a purely capitalist system, we wouldn't have bailed out the airlines after September 11th when they came whining for taxpayer money. Of course, then we'd have no airlines, and as super power with no airplanes, we'd be the laughing stock of the world, but you can't call it capitalism.

Even in SR, I don't see pure capitalism being implemented, because the megacorps will want some way to squeeze money out of people in addition to actually providing useful products or services, and if their subsidiaries are failing, they'll want some government around, even if its only function is to tax people and then bail out corporations with the proceeds. And it's hard for me to imagine any communist governments around in SR, because, well, we WERE trying to destroy communist countries during the cold war, and we were doing it for a reason. The megas would also try to destroy communist countries to open up new markets and teach existing governments that if you go around nationalizing things, the corps will mess you up. Communism in the 6th world might exist among certain cultures in places like Awakened Siberia, or one of those other parts of the world that have shunned what we think of as civilization, but as a government, I don't see it flying, because any place where people are using computers and cell phones, the corps are going to want to march in and give themselves monopolies on selling computers and cell phones.

Yes, but in SR North Korea and China have also disappeared, and Cuba ain't Castro's Cuba.

Sure, but that doesn't mean communism as an ideology has lost it's appeal. If anything, it will gain, due to the immense gap between haves and have-nots, the rampant corruption, the exploitation of people by the corps ... it's the 1890s all over again, in many ways.

Capitalism, as a pure ideology, doesn't fly. The combination of capitalism and some socialist ideas that is the Western model (yes, even the US' system has socialist elements) is what makes a market-based economy work best.

Eh ... I doupt that. I mean, how much chances do SINles people have of making it? Without becoming criminals? And how many are SINless ... 15% of the total population? That's not a tiny segment ...

I meant only a small part of the have nots are going to become pinko commie bastards. The rest, they'll deal drugs, steal and rob, run the shadows, sell their bodies, sell other people's bodies etc. to move up the ladder as best they can and sod the other guy. Becoming one of the haves doesn't have to take place within the law, it's probably easier outside it. Which sounds suspiciously like the Redmond Barrens wouldn't you say?

I dunno ... there's a lot of apathy there, too. All it needs is some sort of leader figure.

the funny thing is that in many ways a corporate enclave looks very similar to a soviet style communist state. you live in corp housing, you eat corp food, you work for mother corp

as for the people in the barrens, they will most likely do whatever it takes to survive. some (mostly the young and single) will do all kinds of crime, alone or in groups (similar to how young people with no future today join gangs and deal drugs ++ ). the older and those with family however will most likely band together to asist each other. most likely these groups will form based on communist/socialist ideas (ie what is mine is yours).

There is no Torgo. Torgo is just some sick freak's wet dream.

Oh, you're preaching to the choir on that one, except about the TSA.

But we're missing the point. There's no such thing as a real Communist country in SR, which is why they're called Neo-Communists.

My point about the TSA and capitalism is that it should be the individual airline's responsibility to provide security for their flights, not the government's.

The airports should be responsible for their own security, as well.

Same goes for Shadowrun. Notice that even Seattle has a contract for Lone Star to provide their security.

Let's say that you run an airline in the Shadowrun universe, for example. Which would you feel more comfortable with? Allowing the government to assign all of their screw-ups and rejects to your security detail, or hiring a company like Knight Errant to provide security?

But they didn't, and wouldn't, hire KE. They'd hire Bob's Discount Guards.

And you'd be lucky if Bob's Guards knew how to read, let alone recognize a MP-5 from a blow dryer.

But that's how SR would work, sure. I just don't think that's how RL should.

"Bob's Discount Guards"...

Now there's a name that strikes fear in the hearts of shadowrunners worldwide...

Remember that the paniced and unpredictable actions of an amatuer can be far more devestating than the calculable attack of a professional. You KNOW that sammie is going to be using a standard grip on his pistol and shooting at YOU. That paniced rent-a-guard might freak out and wind up shooting out the only light in the room. Or the high-pressure steam tank beside you. Or something.

In game mechanics, this means he rule of six'd his 6 Qck dice to fire the AR he has no skills for, and generated six successess, toasting your butt.


Or they could truely be so inept that you're only authorized to use nonlethal force against them, as a handicap.

I thought he was a historian, not an economist.

Either way, he made some gross assumptions (which may have made him an economist after all) that were in part compromised by ... compromise.

Actually, true capitalism and communism have some things in common, but what sets apart true capitalism is it's assumption that people will all have capital to invest (which is true when you consider the idea of human and intellectual capital). Capitalism values the investment and market economy whereas communism was focused on the alienation of modern man. If everyone could just do whatever hobby they love for a living while the jobs no one wants are done by someone (or thing) to compensate for that, then great. Otherwise, even working at a power plant can be alienating, let alone a chip processing facility. Capitalism doesn't respect or endeavor for monopolies, though, because they distort the free market, but without government intervention assumes someone (or rather, a group of someones) will join together to break any monopoly. The critical failure becomes one where negative externalities which might be untenable to a majority of people otherwise continue to exist so long as they do not have a pronounced effect on the market. This concept has been expressed by some critics of the current administration as (for example), "Faith-Based Environmentalism" for the perception that businesses will conserve and protect resources because it's in their and the market's rational interest to do so.

the thing about intelectual capital is that everyone is a copying machine. only way for it to work is that everyone sits in their own little box and thinks about ideas. problem is that the best way for a human to come up with something new is by studying and improving the ideas of others. see a contradiction?

allso, when rational thought and greed fight, greed allways wins...

Right, we go from Communism to fuedalism in one quick step.

under pure Marxism, the state disappears and people act the "right way" because it should be obvious to them. but of course no "communist" who ever seized power could then dismantle his organization because he would then have to face people who didn't support his system, Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Po-pot, Castro, Ho Chi Minh etc. instead to "defend" his system each became a totalitarian ruler who would tolerate no thoughts not in lnie with his "obviously right" form.

the titles change, the style stays the same...

S***. I didn't acquire info bout from DS Mailer .

Critias -> LA. That's tough for me . The only exception I'll make is SoA. I'm just too poor to buy new sourcebook. Welcome to postcommunist's reality.

hobgoblin -> My English too poor to answer... But your reply was nice
(one TV channel is more effective - it's like in Batman forever - everybody are tuned to the same message. Like in commercials: if you want to "escape", you change the channel. If you have one channel you can't escape, can not switch the channel).

Jrayjoker -> "Just read "The Lord of the Flies.""
Yes. That's good book. It shows how cruel are human beings are (children are NOT SO innocent), and explain in some way, how bolshevics hijacked the ideal of communism (but I still prefer democracy).

Somebody mentioned about corporatation. Yeah. When I read Shiawase description in Corporate Shadowfiles I felt like home . And coupon's - in Poland people got worthless money, but were looking for coupon's. For car, vodka, sweets, refrigirator.

Synner ->
Dictatorships? Boooring...
There is something about comparison between communism and nazis (That was National Socialist party.). But IMHO Hitler's bribe the German society to accept his plans (Jews and wars). He used occupied countries (Russia, Poland, Holland etc.) and made industry from Holocaust, and slave labor.
Communist's didn't fed on outside (not on this scale). Gros citizens of gulags were russians. Check N. Korea, and Cuba - despite of hunger and internal problems they're still on-it's-own formula.

But still I don't know, what kind of communist paradises gamers can meet in Shadowrun.
Maybe some luddism system?
Or back-to-the-roots Like in Pol Pot's Cambodia, or in China during cultural revolution?
Maybe some system based on anonymical party board (runners must find and kill all of them: "You must kill all 12 leaders").

Uh chummer, you do know that Chinas' great cultureal revolution and Pol Pot's acts resulting in no new golden age and only resulted in the deaths of millions of people. In Cambodia people were murdered because of their class, even if they went along with the plan, because they had been "contaminated" with education.

yes. that's an earmark of communism. not despotism.