User:Finium/Sandbox12
Services in Councilism are a broad categories of economic activity recognized by the state that do not directly contribute to the creation, distribution, or preservaton of material resources in the state. Not all activities are incorporated into this category, which is similar in scope to the service sector under capitalism, but Councilist states have historically attempted to include and organize many economic activities that capitalist states do not such as gender specific labor (ie child-rearing, housekeeping, private cooking) and suppressed activities (ie gambling, recreational drug distribution, prostitution). Services under Councilism take many forms, but the Kirenian ideologue and market coordinator Aive Must developed a model for further categorizing and regulating service sector activities in her 1940 white paper Vastus Mittestandardsete Koostöötegevuste Tekkimisele Finantsjuhtimissüsteemis, which was written in response to faltering economic growth, which Must believed was the result of the Aprilist suppression of common financial instruments.
History
Aprilism and De-Securitization
During the 1919 April Revolution in Kirenia, one of the first actions taken by the Pooldaja (union militias) was to seize manufacturing assets and assess their financial state, which quickly expanded to an aggressive, public investigation of the credit industry. The Pooldaja were primarily interested in cancelling debts associated with the assets they had recently appropriated, but as the revolution wore on, it became clear to many prominent figures that a Jubilee would not solve the long term problems of the banking industry. Several committees were formed at the regional and local levels to investigate banks, lending agencies, and stockholders for fraud. Under several disparate proclimations made by competining interests groups within the revolution, the act of lending money itself was considered illegal and, as a result, rampant criminal conspiracies were uncovered across Kirenia, necessatating the formation of a national committee in 1924.
The Väärtpaberite ja Vahetusvahendustasu was initially principally occupied with volunteers from the former Pooldaja, now members of the Kirenian armed forces, and they aggressively identified and charged thousands of financial service workers with criminal conspiracy. Most of these individuals served in a supervisory role at banks, counting houses, or private accounting departments. They were generally fined for enourmous sums, but some who were caught perjuring were later executed. By 1926, however, Emperor Leopold IV of Werania was expanding the network of nations opposed to the Entente and the most prominent military members of the national government were drawn away towards other priorities. The Pooldaja committee was slowly replaced by civil servants who were more concerned with eliminating the influences of private capital instead of arresting former capitalists. In 1928, the Väärtpaberite ja Vahetusvahendustasu began to issue edicts that eliminated private debts and shares of equity. The progressed in stages, beginning with mortgaged agricultural land and progressing to personal loans. Their stated objective, which was nominally achieved before 1935, was to eliminated the need for financial instruments in Kirenia. Although the committee continued to hold inquiries and issue indictments until 1946, most of revits activities were transitioned to either trade congresses, which continued to acquire capital assets and mutually regulate important exchanges, and to the Great Council, which now clearly operated with the public mandate.
Throught this period, the litigious revolutionary government employed thousands of lawyers and judges, many of whom had no formal legal education, to prosecute and adjudicate the various class criminals and counter-revolutionaries. Some of these jurists felt that the largest trade unions in the nation were expanding too rapidly, accumulating billions of paberrahas of resources only tangentially associated with their productive activities. By 1930, there was an obvious animosity between the "desecuritization" jurists and the trade union congressses, both of which were well represented in the Great Council. A tumultous debate erupted when the Harimisaareke Steelworkers & Casters cooperative forced 13 farmers in the vicinity to join their union, several of which were promptly deemed redundant and evicted. The grain on those farms was considered necessary to feed the factory workers and was therefore an acceptable action at the time, although extremely contorversial. In 1931, Kirenia finally joined the Great War, however, and these debates were quietly tabled as the focus of the public turned towards mobilization.
Great War
When Kirenia joined the Great War in 1931, Gaullica was already in a tenuous condition and Kirenia's arms buildup was primarily aimed at securing their position in post-war world. Although not prompted by existential fears, Aprilist doctrines greatly empowered the trade unions and their premier status was redoubled by the state's unquenchable need for more arms. The service sector, which had already been scoured of potential traitors, was almost nonexistant outside of government officials and many of these were also military officers commissioned to coordinate the war effort. The military driving economic growth was not uncommon in Euclea at that time, so there were few concerns about the longterm effects of establishing military agents as production planners. There was also some hope that the presence of military officers would help reduce the widespread embezzlement of public resources by patronage systems within large unions; several prominent figures were arrested for stealing particularly valuable resources, but little progress was made in stemming petty thefts.
Althought Kirenia's industrual base was rapidly expanding and agricultural technology was being distributed in the countryside, the state's trade capabilities were greatly warped by their efforts to demonetize the economy. Although many accounts were kept in the new paberrahas currency, relatively little money was actually printed or used in day-to-day life. Urban communities depended on ratio books and rural villages continued to share many of their resources without much oversight, currency transactions now mostly took place as adjustments to swaps between unions (ie trading cars for corn, with money making up the difference between total value). Fines were paid by individual mostly in the form of corvee, so there was seldom need for large cash reserves. At this point, goods moved across international borders regularly, but it was generally understood to be part of the war effort and accrued as debts to be settled later. A crisis emerged in October of 1932 when sugar beets crops in Peetreburi were destroyed by unseasonable weather, which immediately led to a shortage of sweeteners, already a very limited resource. Such events were not uncommon in the pre-revolutionary years and were solved by importing and subsidizing cane sugar to make up the production deficit. Under the new council economy, however, the state did not have large cash reserves to secure impromptu shipments from abroad or even substitutes from their allies in Werania. This combined liquidity and trade crisis prompted the formation of an investigative committee, but the problem went unsolved domestically. For Christmas of 1932, millions of confections were made by homemakers in Werania and shipped to the front, where they were delivered to Kirenian soldiers, a donation drive popularly known as Operation Cake.
Post-War Period
After the war ended in 1935, there were thousands of "Volitatud" or commissioned officers serving in roles that had been essential to the war effort, but were clearly civilian industries. There were initial fears of a wave of unemployment if the military was suddenly scaled down to peacetime levels, thus pressure was put on the Great Council to maintain and even expand the scope of military commissioned overseers in civilian administrative roles. There were also several major military objectives that the Kirenian public strongly supported, such as the support of Councilist movements in Miersa and Amathia. Military industries remained well supplied after the war, but over time the public became more resistant to the low quality of living associated with the emphasis on material production. The exploratory committee on trade was staffed with Volitatud officers and quietly shut down as the government launched a campaign of autarky to avoid further liquidity issues.
Because of stalled committee action on living standards, towns and local cooperatives formed to pool resources for sale and, especially currency, so they could afford to import basic niceties from abroad. These were often called "Sugar Councils" although they imported everything from literature to livestock. The Sugar Councils often had the support of union leaders, who disproportionately enjoyed imports, which made it difficult for the central government to dissuade this activity. Volitatuds implemented new currency controls and the government attempted to further reduce currency in circulation to stop materials from slipping across international borders. Aive Must, formerly a retired intelligence officer, was appointed to lead a special committee on the formation of the Sugar Councils, which were portrayed as profit-seeking private insitutions in the state media. In 1940, Must compiled the recommendations of her committee, the most incendiary recommendation being that grey markets, such as the sugar market, should be formalized since suppression mechanisms largely violated the gaurantee to spontaneously organize, a component of the Supplementary Declaration. Must's report brought about additional debates, but the public was at that time largely split and many important union leaders saw the lack of consumer goods as a shortterm deprivation in the ongoing international revolution.
Equalism
Kirenia's aggressive and constantly expanding war materials industry engaged the Councilist model in many conflicts, including the Amathian Civil War and the 1950 Kirenian-Weranian War. Although not universally successful, Kirenia's ability to rapidly arm and and mobilize latent Councilist sympthaizers anywhere in the world was a point of pride for the public and the hybrid military-civilian industriall leadership. The Amathian Council Republic took many features of the Kirenian government at this time, which once again reinforced their movement towards greater centralization and what Egon Lill, a Great Council member from 1956-1960 called "total unionization" of the workforce. In 1956, Amathian First Speaker Silvia Rutel, a household name in Kirenia, was unseated by an Equalist coalition and she was actually indicted, tried, pardoned, imprisoned, and retried in a series of scandals that stirred popular unrest in Kirenia. Union congresses, which were the largest amalgamations of authority and industrial assets, suddenly had their members pressing for the elimiation of the military-civilian Volitatud to be replaced by more reliable, union figures. In reaction to this, the military began to consolidate their powers and seek committee appointments. Since many of the most prominent committees were actively seeking solutions to a slow decline in living conditions, the presense of military figures, seen as the ultimate cause of the nation's problems, proved to be too much and widespread workstoppages took place.
Sugar Councils and rural communities, which had thus far failed to easily fit into the total unionization effort, openly advocated for market-based reform and were able to elect several members of the Great Council in the election of 1958. Polical deadlock between mainstream councilists, reformists, and military councilsts-cum-equalists ensued for several months until the formation of the Amathian Equalist Republic, which was quickly supported by both East Miersa and Champania. As the dominoes of the Councilst world fell into equalism over 1959, panic spread among the Kirenian public and the civil service. Several Volitatud were attacked and beaten, which prompted greater alertness from the military as tensions skyrocketed. The Great Council reached a majority agreement to halt the spread of panic, with a few military supporters. Military commissions were revoked enmasse and replaced with civilian commisions, transferring thousands of centrally appointed military planners and auditors to the civil service. Although Aive Must had again retired and did want to return to political office, her notes were released to the national media and sparked public support for reforms, but damaged the efforts to establish capital markets.
Types of Services
Ilma piisava avaliku toetuseta on riigiteenistus sunnitud muutuma sunniks.
Without adequate public support, the civil service is bound to become coercive. — Aive Must, Vastus Mittestandardsete Koostöötegevuste Tekkimisele Finantsjuhtimissüsteemis
The Must Committee identified three separate administrative needs in Kirenia that required specialized labor in the general economy: the public's trust in official sources and local leadership, provided by auditors; the state's interest in meeting the needs of the public, provided by safety and production inspectors; and the public's access to centralized resources, provided by distributors. During the war, these roles were generally combined into the Volitatud system, where a single commissioner within the military chain of command provided oversight, managed production, and acquired needed materials. Not only did this create the oppertunity for abuse, according to the Must Report, but it seldom correctly identified which organizations needed specific support capabilities and tended to neglect smaller organizations.
Commission
The most essential and basic form of public servant in Councilism is the commissioned agent, it is someone appointed by a higher authority to oversee or support a specific organization within a specific capacity. Early in Councilst economies, much of the process of the revolution must be undertaken by the conscious workers collectives and central organizers working together to ensure adequate support of the public interest, which Yuri Nemtsov called the "combination of supply and demand into the political particle of the council". As a result, Councilsts often believe that their administrative support must be requested or invited by the groups they organize and that acceptable organizers can emerge spontaneouslly from the available workers. As a result most commissions are "dual commissions," first the state trains and maintains a large pool of potential administrators based on their central economic plan, then individuals organizations such as collective enterprises, trade unions, and townships, will issue a commission for roles they need filled.
Not every administrative post is filled through dual commissions, but many positions that relate to public confidence, such as regional auditors or drug manufacturers, seek this form of administrator. Large organizations, such as hospitals and trade unions, typically have many internally selected administrators who may or may not seek a national accredidation as their career goal. Likewise, sometimes commissions are issued by the central government which have very little support from the individuals they are to support. A prominent example was the Kirenian agricultural reform in the Zingebirge Basin, an ethnically mixed region with a variety of farming traditions. The Kirenian commissioners attempted to entice collectivization of land by promising access to new machinery, but the effort had mixed results. Criminal investigations similarly take place under the supervision of a qualified, commissioned public servant, but seldomn include the subject as collaborator.
During the 1970s, many Kirenians were interested in consuming new pharaceutical products as recreational drugs, a behavior frowned upon strongly by the central government. Communities of "Narkomaans" emerged who selected drug distributors from among themselves and then requested narcotics and stimulants from the national pharmaceutical repositories using the same forms as hospitals and clinics. Initially this behavior was frowned on and even punished with corvee assignments, but after the Narkomaan Councils began to manufacture amphetimines without joining the pharmaceutical workers union, the regulations were relaxed and allowed recreational users to access pharmaceutical surpluses when available. The status of the Narkomaan Commissioners has waxed and waned over the years, although this type of administration was specifically mentioned by Aive Must as a necessary component of a totally unionized economy. Allowance for "vice commisions" as they are called more broadly have been used as a way to protect the public against overdoses and poisoning, although the rate of drug-related injuries remained higher in Councilst states.
Clerk
The positions of clerks and bookkeepers, while never actually destroyed by the revolution, were broadly considered suspect and condemned broadly by the Aprilists. The mobilization of the war economy, however, required thousands of records keepers at many levels of society. Legal clerks were a necessary component of the actual investigations into the behaviors of the capitalist class during the revolution, although these individuals were also later regarded as suspect during the jurist-unionist split of the 1930s. Trade unions continued to appoint clerks to manage their enterprises through the revolutionary period. Eventually these positions became a component of the Dual Commission system, with the commissioners taking on the local cooperative staff as their own. Some recordkeepers haev formed their own union and work on commission for other bodies, but the unionization of these roles has generally not been successful and trade unions prefer to appoint their older members to these positions.
Trust
Many public resources are not immediately consumed or distributed, some are not intended to be used at all, but instead fall under public ownership as the result of deaths, reorganizations, or donations. Often these resources have little to no material usefulness to the public and are assigned to "trustees", individuals who are responsibel for national properties. Museums, military assests (especially nuclear weapons) fall under this category of civil servant who is mostly not subject to the immediate oversight of a council or other cooperative body. Trusteeships are normally not drawn from the same pool of public servants as commissioners and instead are subject matter experts. Must, who was an intelligence officer during the Great War, did not believe that everything required public oversight, only the public trust, which could be achieved through trusteeship in special circumstances. Central banking under Councilism is mostly occupied with the management of trade deficits and currency reserves, this is a role delegated to trustees since it is in the general public interest, but is not collectivized in any meaningful council body.
Distributor
One of the key differences between the capitalist and councilst economies is the activities of distributors compared to the private purchaser/wholesaler/merchandiser/importer/salesperson. For cooperatives, the distinction between someone who sends resources away and requisitions resources in are ultimately the same economic activity and are almost always served by the same pool of professionals. Since there is no pressure to extract profit from exchanges and premiums for goods are provided by central planning, distributors work primarily in terms of numbers of units. Small villages communities typically have an honorary distributor who depends entirely on the reports of their neighbors to state the quanities produced.
Accessing state resources is more complex and is achieved through the Council system, although once resourced have been secured by a council, they are often then organized by a distributor. Some goods are rationed and will likely never stop being rationed such as gold leaf, amunition for private use, and controlled pharmaceuticals. Access to rationed goods is often determined on a case-by-case basis, since most goods that are rationed are also not commonly used. In instances that the national supply of some common resource is limited, however, such as the Chirpper "cinnamon challenge" craze in 2012, rations are issued on a per-person basis and managed by either the distributors for that good, or more commonly a neighborhood council.