Oxidentalist economics
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Oxidentalist economics (Rezese: Oxidentali Virurekai) is a political, social and economic philosophy that promotes more efficient and responsible regulation and usage of natural resources in order to drive economic growth and development in the long term. It combines elements of enviromentalism with capitalist thinking, progressivism, as well as providing for the social welfare of its working class. Within Sante Reze itself, this philosophy derives largely from traditional beliefs of the Tapizakuéra and Yacuyare peoples, and as such would be considered a form of conservatism, though this alignment may not hold true abroad.
Adherents often support high levels of environmental regulation, especially around key extractive industries like fossil fuel extraction, forestry, mining, as well as agriculture, manufacturing, and power generation in the interest of long-term sustainability for such industries. A central tenet of Oxidentalism is that future generations and their prosperity is the primary reason to pursue growth, and any institutions or practices which threaten future prosperity must be altered or stopped when they are recognized as dangerous; how this ends up operating in practice varies with the culture in which it appears.
Oxidentalism is manifested with various long-term regulatory movements toward slower and more sustainable methods of growth, a significant emphasis on the reduction of long-term environmental damage and decay, and a focus on the health and wellbeing of its components down to the individual worker in an attempt generate increased productivity over a longer span of time. Oxidentalism eschews the idea of growth for growth's sake, and recognizes the finite nature of available resources with the intent to make what is currently (and not what could become) available last in perpetuity.
Origins
The underpinnings of Oxidentalism are present in the cultural practices of the indigenous Tapizakuéra and Yacuyare peoples of northeastern Oxidentale. Its environmental conservationist aspects can be traced directly back to the stewardship of the rainforest as the center of life and prosperity for the Yacuyare, while the focus on future generations as being "more important" than current generations can be found throughout both cultures as well as in some west Scipian societies, which together formed what is now the Rezese creole people.
Aspects such as the acknowledgment and understanding of finite resources came relatively early, notably with the settlement of what are now the Nine Cousins. These settlements were built with the local peoples in mind to serve as trade ports or in some cases already existed and after voyages many sailors would settle and marry into the local populations, adopting many of their practices. This method was seen as preferential to warfare and colonization, which would certainly have an immediate positive affect in terms of land ownership but would have cost relationships with trade partners who could grow alongside them, and may have cost the existence of the Nine Cousins entirely within one or two generations.
Efficient land use can also be seen in early pre- and proto-Rezese civilizations of Oxidentale, but was refined particularly in the Nine Cousins which had limited land to work with across the Paraguasurun islands, the Scipian islands, and the mainland Scipian enclaves. With the ports' opposition to expansionism for the sake of their trade relations, they devised many practices to make the most use of what was available. These practices were helpful in the Oxidentali mainland as well, as the population there was growing but much land was either held in trust or by land owners which refused to develop unless they would profit dramatically in the short-term.
Philosophy
The primary and mandatory requirement of Oxidentalism is the refutation of the concept of endless growth (as described in a more modern treatise The Growth Myth [translated], 1977, Affene Cardiki and Ivan Kasmerov), and efficient, conservative, and careful use of all resources within the system including human labor. The methods by which these are pursued vary between types, and some are more effective in certain industrial or social sectors than others, and influential economic actors continue to disagree on what qualifies as efficiency, and what policies lead to better long-term results. At its core, Oxidentalism is a philosophy of long-term planning aimed at sustainable progress rather than short-term or destructive profit, and places emphasis on larger groups than the individual, though the size of these groups as economic units varies between different Oxidentalist schools of thought.
Unlike with capitalism, there is no inherent right or existence of private property, though it also is not banned; a more group-based ownership structure is valued, however, as an excess of capital assets and especially real property is considered a threat to generational prosperity. There is also no requirement for the implementation of wage labor. The existence of a class dependent on wages may occur but is not required under Oxidentalism; however, according to The Growth Myth, wage labor is ultimately unavoidable once the majority of the rest of the world has implemented it. Kasmerov argued that a world where many of the largest economic actors rely on it would inherently lead to some form of its implementation everywhere else, likening it to digestive flora having begun as invading parasites but are now necessary to the system's efficient function.
An important component of Oxidentalist systems is the purpose of surplus value and its legitimate use. Oxidentalism rejects the simple accumulation of capital as the goal of economic actions, and places less emphasis on pursuing profit. Surplus value generated is meant to enable further opportunity and stability for junior members and workers of the group, whatever divisions of the greater society may exist and generate value. In the Rezese system, this largely refers to the crivikeze and the houses which own and operate them. Such reinvestment is often used to further production of what would otherwise be unprofitable, thus pursuing a system of enterprise growth, and allows for the use of economic resources and labor to support production aimed at more abstract benefits than just the direct increase of income and assets.
Types
Ottonian Reytledian Economics
In Ottonia, contact with Rezese merchants and, consequently, ideas in the 1500's and 1600's would prove hugely influential as the region underwent a religious revival in the form of the faith of Reytled. Because of the ways in which the nascent neopagan faith emphasized the connection of persons to their environment and communities, this also prompted a larger appreciation of the need to preserve and nurture both nature and to center economic activity on the meeting of community needs rather than simple profit and growth in what would later be understand as a capitalist model. Even in areas where Reytled did not proliferate significantly as a religion, this paradigm shift would touch and affect the way in which people in the Ottonian cultural zone approached economics, and as industrialization reached the area in the latter half of the 1800's this would represent an ideological constraint on runaway industrialization and commercialization, even as Ottonian Futurists attempted to push back against the mindset and advance their own vision of a developed future.
The term "Reytledian Economics" is largely a historical label used to describe the influence of Oxidentalist economics and the way in which it hybridized with the Ottonian neopagan movement; in the present, there is no group that explicitly advances "Reytledian economics" due to the way in which the Oxidentalist influence seeped in at a foundational level to the Ottonian understandings of democracy and socialism. It is perhaps most accurate to say that the modern state ideologies of the Federation of Ottonian Republics are fundamentally a hybridization of Oxidentalist economic understandings along with communalist anarchism and more conventional Wernerist thought.
Rezese Western Market
In Sante Reze, the ideology is closely tied with the indigenous culture and born of its society. This variety is considered the original conceptualization, though it has evolved through each of the industrial revolutions, and is known academically as the Western Market (Rezese: Oja Oxal). The Western Market emphasizes community, careful use and treatment of resources (including labor) in all aspects of society, and prioritizes progress for the sake of future generations. Under these key foci, the Western Market leads to many labor-first policies including universal healthcare, universal housing, and policies restricting work hours and allowed wage gaps; environmental conservationism; slower economic growth aimed at providing better opportunities for the community and its children, rather than a drive for individual profit in the short-term; and a strong tendency to reinvest a plurality of corporate revenue back into the corporation.
The inefficient use of resources is considered to be destructive to the long-term health of society and the Western Market seeks to eliminate it alongside mitigating or outright preventing unpredictability in economic conditions. To this end, crivikeze are considered a central and necessary component to the Western Market; their cooperative ownership structure combined with their system of conglomeration helps to insulate these corporations from downturns in the global economy and financial crises, creating a more stable environment for both the companies themselves to operate within as well as ensuring a higher level of employment security. Likewise, the profit motive is not considered to be a valid central goal as businesses exist to improve the community from which they were created, not specifically and solely to "make money"; the Western Market does not specifically reject the concept of increasing its net worth, but that is not the primary motivator and is instead an additional reward for the proper stewardship of its resources and creation of durable systems which benefit community.
While other systems, both Oxidentalist and otherwise, have broadly rejected the concept of the crivikeze, or else made use of their basic structure with little regard for the cultural background or intent behind those structures, they are the central pillar of the Western Market infrastructure. To be a successful and deep-rooted crivikeze is to become a strong, inexhaustible social and cultural institution within the Western Market, and would in theory be a paragon of human virtue. In actual implementation, this is broadly not the case by many objective measures but domestically it is how behaviors of corporations, especially those set up as crivikeze, are judged; too much deviation from these expectations frequently results in a negative public response which often tests the ability for the crivikeze to absorb losses, and has led to the collapse of businesses operating without the benefit of conglomerate support.
Throughout the late medieval and early modern eras, many crivikeze were formed and were destabilized due to actions which turned public opinion against them. It was the earliest of these which led to trade guilds growing in size and importance, eventually allowing them to overpower the Rezese houses and take control of the country during the Ecclesiastical Republic era, while many of those which survived the transition attempted to compete with the guilds on their level; socially, many Ecclesiastical peasants viewed this as a betrayal, and those houses which pivoted in this manner lost their crivikeze by being consumed by others, or they were outright destroyed by the guild-controlled state government.
The excesses and kleptocracy of the trade guilds running the Rezese Ecclesiastical Republic for the 200 years of its existence led to a widespread movement codifying many of these practices as the Oja Oxal ideology which united the surviving houses of the former Kingdom of Sante Reze with the Ecclesiastical peasant class, and formed the basis of the Noble Republic in opposition to the mercantilist Eccelesiastical elite. In doing so, it solidified the principles by which the crivikeze lived and died, and their central place within the Western Market.
Velikoslavian Ecological Patrimonialism
The Velikoslavian variation of the system is known as Ecological Patrimonialism, which focuses heavily on the responsible extraction and management of natural resources. Efficient management and sustainability of the economic engine are key focuses, while other aspects such as worker welfare are not as heavily emphasized in Ecological Patrimonialism. In modern times, this has translated into planned quotas for the amounts of key resources that are extracted, such as oil, iron, and silicon. Sustainable farming practes began to be heavily emphasized after the population began to grow significantly in the 20th century. In the early 21st century, greater prosperity lead to an increased focus on worker welfare programs with new programs that provided housing and jobs for unemployed people, provided they were willing to work.
Velikoslavia's interest in adopting the system came after Alexis II read the four part volume written by Kayin Patapua and Amine Madinai in 1825. The ailing post war economy was feeling the effects of both the Thirty Years War and the Age of Rebellion under Tsar Aristophan II. Decades of rapid economic growth and irresponsible use of resources by the last Tsar along with the rapid shrinking of the economy as large numbers of new nations broke away resulted in an economic slump that would continue throughout much of the 19th century.
Upon taking the throne at the behest of the Council of Nine after the death of Aristophan II, Alexis II sought out and brought over Patapua, whom he employed at his court for several years to oversee what he called Ecological Patrimonialism and instituted a series of reforms that both subsequent members of his dynasty would continue, known as the Alexian Reforms. Chief among these was the abolishment of serfdom in 1835 as a way to combat rising republicanism in the nation. This was followed by a series of payments to the nobility who still possessed in the form of payments from serfs who inherited land from their lord. With many lords being nearly bankrupt from the war and the subsequent rebellion, the Council of Nine and other high ranking nobles came out in support of the move. This created a fertile ground for the new system to fully take hold as the recovery of the nation's industries were accompanied by the necessary reforms to the way resources were used, as aristocratic investors rebuilding industries and founding new ones did so under Alexis II's new laws and regulations.
After Sjolund I was deposed and replaced by Alexis IV of the House of Ivanov, Ecological Patrimonialism evolved under the climate of rapid militarization that was a Velikoslavian hallmark of the early 20th century. Resource quotas increased heavily, forcing the system to evolve to allow increased extraction. Directives were introduced that increased quotas but required more expensive investment in the sustainable extraction of resources. This resulted in Velikoslavia also seeking trade partners that could bring in additional resources for militarization, supplementing supplies until quotas could catch up. The system continued similarly up to the 21st Century, evolving further with the disarmament programs that followed the several treaties signed with Ludvosiya. Supplementary foreign trade became a staple of the Velikoslavian economy, permitting less resources to be extracted internally.
Yisraeli Herzogism
In Yisrael, Herzogism is a political philosophy centered around former Constitutional Liberal President Eitan Herzog (2004-2012), including his rise to the presidency, his presidential term, and the policies continued and promoted by his allies and supporters. Herzog came of age during the ascendancy of the Schwartz-Citron-era and the New Right, which emphasized economic growth, expanded economic freedoms, more focus on the individual (especially as an economic actor), and a program of tax cuts, deregulation, and privatization of Open Fifties-era state interventionism.
While attending King David University for political science in the early 1980s, he took a study abroad course in Sante Reze. As opposed to the prevailing conservative and individualistic ethic he saw at home, in the Noble Republic, he encountered a society focused on balancing long-term growth with profit-seeking and social liberalism. He took two classes with Professor Rakiye Ysyry at Ateze Provincial University, and become obsessed with learning the tenets and theoretical foundations of Oxidentalism. Upon his return to Yisrael and as he pursued a short career as a lawyer before running for office, he attempted to create and articulate an Yisraeli version of Oxidentalism. Herzog ended up developing a theory of metropolitans as the future core of national life, and fleshed out with futurist thinkers how to establish smart growth, planned, environmentally sustainable urban centers.
In 1990, at age thirty, he ran for and won a swing-seat in the Knesset in the Eastern District, his home region, with a Knesset constituency centered on a mixture of urban-suburban-exurban enclaves of the city of Modiin. While in office, he rejected the Con-Libs' old backbenchers who advocated a 1960s-style tax and spend liberalism and instead spoke forcefully to reform how the country taxes and spent its funds to create new incentives for ethical capitalism, with his ideas being labelled "Metropolitanism" by the political press. Herzog lost his seat after three terms when the Conservatives swept the presidency and Knesset in the 1996 elections.
In 1998, Herzog ran and won the Governorship of the Eastern District. He staffed his gubernatorial administration with a number of like-minded friends and allies, many of whom had helped expound on the emerging "Metropolitanism." With a spring coalition in the District legislature, Herzog began to propose and pass his new agenda, though it started unevenly. In his first year, his legislative allies passed the country's first District-wide smart growth plan concerning all new development, especially suburban sprawl, as well as mandate bike lanes and special "high occupancy lanes" on highways for vehicles with at least two or more passengers. In the next couple years, he introduced tax breaks for carpooling and utilizing renewable energy initiatives such as solar panels and monetizing carbon emissions inside the Eastern District. He soundly won re-election in 2002. While injecting a firm environmentalist focus in his policy view, he also - temperamentally and institutionally - reaffirmed market capitalism, couched his approach as being based in Torah, and generally upheld the socially conservative order, to the dislike and contempt of a new class of emerging social liberals on the party's left.
Following the Whirlwind Knesset of 2002 and the resignation of the scandal-plagued Naor Hillel, Hillel's Vice-President and successor, the Independent Ariel Halevi, declined to run for re-election, leaving the 2004 presidential election wide open. Amid his growing popularity among the center-left political establishment, Herzog ran in the Con-Lib primary, defeating several candidates to his left by championing his "Metropolitanism," though the press over the campaign season began to refer to his program as "Herzogism," which was adopted by friend and foe alike by Election Day.
Herzog narrowly won the presidency, and his Con-Lib-led spring coalition in the Knesset held a 5-seat majority. In his first years, he passed a raft of legislation, including a national version of his critic-derided "anti-commuter" policies of disfavoring cars and supporting more funding, legal privileges, and infrastructure for carpooling, public transit, highway HOV lanes, and a congestion tax. He created "Federal Overlay Districts" to coordinate intra-District metropolitan problems such as certain Royal Government-funded environmental programs and regulatory enforcement, though lawsuits and legal defeats in the Sanhedrin limited their power and reach. He placed a tax on mortgages and raised the downpayment requirements to disincentivize the ease of purchasing a home to slow down rapid urban sprawl around the biggest cities, whose suburbs soared in double-digit growth and expansion for most of the period between the 1955 and 2000. He also attempted to tax the 1990s tech boom to fund more programs without raising broad-based taxes, though his proposed taxes on stock buybacks, stock call options, and mergers and acquisitions were defeated in the Knesset due to the closely-divided composition after 2006 and a cohort of anti-tax suburban Con-Libs who grew to oppose many elements of his agenda.
His Oxidentalist paradigm was dominant, though not supreme, as the governing philosophy inside the Constitutional Liberal Party from his rise to the presidency in the early 2000s until the 2020 election, during which the Herzogist-oriented candidates lost to left-wing firebrand Yosef Kaduri, who advocated a return to 1960s-era leftism. In 2021, the century-old party broke apart, and one of its successors, the National Liberals, are believed to have continued the Herzogist spirit. His program was the ascendant view of the center-left for most of the first twenty years of the 21st century, and popular among urbanites, upscale progressives, environmentalists, and green liberals.