The nation-state officially named the
Lyran Protectorate, or popularly known today as simply Lyras, is known for its military model: ‘stratocracy’ or ‘stratocratic’, ‘military democracy’ or ‘military state’, ‘
Longsword diplomacy’, ‘insert varying name here Arms’, and many other things inspired by the impressive Lyran legacy from late 2008 to early 2013. Without the Lyran Protectorate, there will not exist some of the most well-known nations of today; or, of course, the Hundred Days War and slavers’ wars through the years; or, of course, the Yohannes of today.
The successive governments of Yohannes have since 2010 looked up to the Lyran Protectorate, or Lyras, as their source of inspiration. But if the Lyran Model was to be known for its military, the
Yohannesian Model must make its mark somewhere else; something more inclusive, and perhaps more peaceful. The Bank of Yohannes; VMK manufacturing; Royal Beaufort overseas shipyards; foreign investment; internationalised manufacturing; shared wealth and prosperity with other nation-states — the economy. But they all did not come about historically from nowhere. Successive governments of the Nineteen Countries have since the early nineteenth century emphasised the importance of policy cycles to build the Yohannesian Model of today, just as the Lyran Protectorate did eventually complete its Lyran Model in 2010.
How should we explain the policy cycles which can be observed through the Nineteen Countries’ eight historical periods, and what is their relationship to the dynamism of the brand of capitalism known as the Yohannesian Model? It is easy to explain the effects of a nation’s historical economic policies (e.g. the nation of
Testlandia was an agrarian, uncivilised nation in 1900, but it industrialised to eventually become a rich, developed nation today in 2018), but much harder to explain what inspired the policies themselves (e.g. how did the nation state Testlandia achieve this; what were the internal and external forces which influence and affect these economic changes; how did the government of Testlandia formulate its policies).
The
Founding Monarchs and the early nineteenth century Yohannesian modernisers saw the regular ups and downs of the business cycle, generated by the Anglo-Saxon capitalist system of the thousands of
World Assembly nations which dominated the international community, as the pump which supplied the system’s dynamism by confronting entrepreneurs with continually changing problems and opportunities. Have policy cycles performed that function for the Nineteen Countries in Yohannes the continent, as it slowly modernised since the late eighteenth century to finally take its place as an industrialised, civilised nation-state today in 2018? With that question in mind, we will first review the eight periods, and then analyse some characteristics of the policy choices and the external and internal forces which made them.
It is convenient to anticipate one analytical device here, in order to streamline the historical review process. The numerous policy measures employed from time to time on the Yohannesian continent can be broadly separated as falling into two generalised classes, which we will call ‘policies for growth’ and ‘policies for efficiency’. Policies for growth are chosen when Yohannesian policymakers identify certain bottlenecks; that is, particular scarcities which limit the achievable rate of growth of the economy as a whole. Policies are then designed to improve the supply of the scarce resource — whether education, foreign exchange, raw materials, technology, a road or rail network, or, most importantly for an uncivilised, primitive, underdeveloped, or developing nation-state, capital. Policies for efficiency, meanwhile, aim to improve the efficiency with which available resources are being used. They may allocate resources between firms and industries, encourage or discourage competition, alter patterns of corporate size and market strength, or they may switch some resources to welfare services or income transfers. Many of the cyclic changes come about as bureaucrats switch from one approach to the other, or look for the right mix of the two. Some advocates of the Anglo-Saxon model of capitalism would assign redistributive and welfare policies to a third category of ‘policies for welfare’, but even among the more enlightened World Assembly nation-states, policies of these kinds were comparatively rare until recent decades; and they were regarded as policies of efficiency in that they were designed to improve the working of the productive system by reducing conflict and improving co-operation. Yohannesian policymakers believe that the productive system itself is the main source of the people’s welfare; that is, without a strong economy, there will not be strong provisions for the welfare of the people.
We will now summarise the stages of development in the Yohannesian Model’s road to industrialisation from the Yohannesian nation-state’s starting position in the early nineteenth century as an uncivilised young nation: to eventually catch up economically with
Automagfreek,
Knootoss and the rest of the older occidental nation-states beyond the
International Incidents.
1786-1871: the Second Amendment periodThe Founding Monarchs and early Yohannesian modernisers aimed to give the Nineteen Countries the roads and bridges, postal services, government offices and educated population, and infrastructure and starting capital which would identify the nation-state as an independent and civilised modern society; and to equip and finance the Yohannesian institutions and people by building and supplying a centralised, modern navy — the Commonwealth Navy. The efforts to industrialise were mainly by means of (i) building infrastructure; (ii) intensive foreign study of the more industrialised and civilised World Assembly nation-states from the Occidental communities and by adopting their technologies; and (iii) the creation of government-owned industrial enterprises (e.g. executive council body corporates, nation state owned enterprises). All three were policies of growth — to supply the economy with the infrastructure, technical knowledge, and entrepreneurs that it lacked. The eventual enactment of the
Second Amendment in 1871 marked the end of this period in Yohannesian history.
1872-1900: the Wilhelmine Restoration periodThe Wilhelmine Restoration Period, where legislative power slowly shifted from the
Realm Parliament to the
Electoral College (until it would be reversed once again in later periods), and the centralisation of policy decision-making from a confederation of nineteen monarchs to a federation with one elected emperor, was a period where successive Yohannesian governments and nation-state modernisers learnt from the mistakes of their predecessors. Financing infrastructure and government enterprises by printing money had been inflationary; and the Sixth Christian Democratic Executive Council finally deflated the currency, the Quertz russling, in 1872. The
Bank of Yohannes, with its public ownership of a number of strategic banks, was finally amalgamated, and a centralised banking system based broadly on civilised, occidental foreign models created, but with very strong bias towards industrial rather than other uses of savings. Plenty of technologies continued to be imported from the old world nation-states, but for economic philosophy and policy successive Yohannesian governments turned chiefly to its own creation — the Yohannesian Model.
Authority enterprises,
nation state body corporates, and public industrial enterprises gave way to aids for citizen sector enterprises and the predecessors of today’s
nation-state owned enterprises alongside the infrastructure, some non-tariff protective measures, government procurement (especially of naval supplies) at the imperial and national level, and a financial system to generate capital and credit for private industry and for a strong navy. The trunk lines of the government-financed Imperial Railway Corporation attracted citizen sector investors to build local rail networks, but the main stimulus was indirect: the developing infrastructure improved the conditions for profitable citizen sector enterprise. The short-lived authority companies and nation-state body corporates had bred some entrepreneurs. Mass education improved the quality of labour available to them — human capital. The eight leading public and private universities in Yohannes the continent equipped and encouraged their graduates to supply modernising leadership in government throughout the late nineteenth century; they filled the offices of the executive council, the hallowed halls of
parliament, and the sacred benches of the
justices of the peace. They sustained the expanding branches of the banks as well as the manufactory and merchant shipyards. They made possible the institutions of a confident, partially civilised young nation-state. The switch from government to citizen sector industrial management was a policy of efficiency; most of the others were policies of growth.
1901-1914: the Foreign Investment periodEconomic policy moved from being domestic to being expansionary as the Nineteen Countries started to expand its banking and manufacturing presence outside the continent of Yohannes while militarily it kept itself at bay from the many International Incidents and harmful
nation-states diplomacy. The Nineteen Countries strictly limited its involvement to supplying and financing the war efforts of other nation-states (for their imperialistic goals) with financial credit, industrial and military goods, as well as war and merchant ships. Domestically, the nineteen countries concentrated on increasing navy and merchant navy procurement (e.g. merchant ships to carry Yohannesian goods around the oceans and warships to guard their trade convoys), public investment (e.g.
quangos), and citizen sector industrial development. Together, these had a number of effects. Imports increased substantially, which produced a trade deficit. In 1903 the then Christian Democratic executive council responded by restraining government investment at the imperial level, and so in due course infrastructure provision lagged behind growing demand. Urban slums spread, labour began to resist harsh working conditions, and until 1908 employers resisted government efforts to introduce the first collection of labour statutes in Yohannes the continent.
Industrial growth was accelerating in a self-sustaining way and was reaching the scale in which it began to have appreciable effects on mass beliefs, lifestyles, and consumption patterns on the continent. The executive council encouraged the transformation from the imperial level, but it led to over-exploitation of land, forestry, fishing and other natural resources, and to increasing resistance and protests by the losers of industrialisation: the artisans and the specialised craftsmen (there were very few craftswomen in this period due to shameful sexism and other forms of gender discrimination). Successful growth policies, especially the restraining of government investment and imports, were creating an increasing need for policies of efficiency, including some which promised improvements in the field of social welfare.
1914-1925: the NSDP periodThe period of NSDP, which stands for ‘nationwide social development policy’, was a period largely dominated by policies for efficiency. Successive governments of the Yohannesian nation-state continued its policy of isolation from International Incidents as the nation continued to patiently build its economy by supplying overseas nation-states with financial and material resources. In this period the (still) industrialising Nineteen Coutries was able to take over some markets from the older occidental nations, become an independent shipbuilder and oceanic merchant carrier, and turn the trade deficits of the previous decades into acceptable export surpluses. Late in this period, price inflation provoked urban riots, as the proletariat demanded higher pay and the increasingly confident middle class demanded more representation in the seats of government; then the first of many such notable trough periods in the twentieth century brought about rural distress in the heartland countries (e.g. the Kingdom of Burmecia, Grand Duchy of Dali), and labour unions and politically left oriented organisations and parties (even more radical than the Social Democratic Party) sprung up throughout the continent. The Social Democratic executive council of the day responded by suppressing Leftist opinions and organisations, but diverted some government investment to improve urban and rural life. This was the economic expression of the NSDP period (the main political achievement of which was universal suffrage in parliament).
Once a newly elected Christian Democratic executive council assumed power in 1918, public investment towards facilities for industrial development once again became the focus, resulting in the creation of large early twentieth century industrial sites. The nation’s natural resources and industrial capacity were surveyed, and a modern system following World Assembly recommendation and civilised Occidental line set up to monitor them. From 1923 the then Christian Democratic executive council stepped up public investment in industrial transport as well as urban and rural infrastructure as a full employment strategy while extending its financial and banking control to channel government and citizen sector lending into heavy industrial development. With these policies, and increasing material imports from more trade partners overseas, the Nineteen Countries had been able to develop respectable self-sufficiency in first steel, then machinery, and then chemicals and finally arms manufacturing. There were thus three phases of policy making in the NSDP period: policies of efficiency from 1914 to 1917; a return to policies of growth from 1918 to 1923; and the reflationary full-employment culmination of the previous two phases which doubled as policies of efficiency (to employ all existing resources) and as policies of growth (to improve material standards of living while increasing nationwide military capacity for the future).
1926-1932: the Enabling Act periodIn developing and managing the merchant navy and trade-dependent economy, the bureaucracy brought its decades of collective experience and institutional apparatus to bear, and added considerably to the expansion of Yohannesian oceanic and merchant trade presence outside the continent. In supervising the expansion of overseas financial networks, manufactory and shipyards, and connecting them with the Yohannesian metropolitan economy; conscripting the citizen sector munitions industry managers to equip the Commonwealth Navy with its trade convoy formations; developing publicly franchised and directed but citizen sector owned and managed power, coal, petroleum and transport enterprises; sponsoring and controlling cartels in the citizen sector; coordinating the predecessors of the large nation state owned enterprises of today; and exercising overall control and allocation of scarce materials, the bureaucrats extended their skills and institutional repertoire. They were also led to reflect on perfecting the working principles of the early Yohannesian Model economy, and possible non-socialist alternatives to the predominant Anglo-Saxon capitalism model. Thus equipped, the younger ranks of nation-state modernisers were able to pass on their knowledge to the next generation of nation-state bureaucrats to create the backbone of self-sustaining human capital for an industrialised, modern Nineteen Countries. This period culminated in the passage of the Enabling Act 1933.
1933-1945: the Third Industrial Growth periodAs older nations and others discovered the gradually expansionary Yohannesian economic presence, there was a need to appease the older powers by giving out some concessions, lest their wrath be invited upon the nineteen countries. These half-hearted measures of appeasement were done under the guise of various reforms (e.g. economic liberalisation, land, labour and trade barrier reduction, commitment to international anti slavery cause), with the older generation of nation-state modernisers making way to the new generation of nation-state bureaucrats to lead the largely policies for efficiency period. This younger generation of economic policy makers and administrators used their extensive powers to oversee the third industrial growth period, which was marked by increasing concentration of available resources in the coal and steel industries, with assistance from a newly reformed Bank of Yohannes.
The successors to the Wilhelmine Restoration period oligarchs conducted another census of the nation’s productive resources, set up a comprehensive statistical system at the imperial level, and in 1941 (a good year for Yohannesian terms of trade) published the government’s first monthly parliamentary analysis archive report, which has since then continued to summarise the state of the Nineteen Countries economy. The yearly Monetary Target Consensus (MTS) and monetary policy report was published in 1945, with principles which held up to the present day; namely, that the nation-state of Yohannes and its administration in the international community was centrally an economic task (not military); that the government as embodied by the executive council of the day must unite and lead the people in that task; and that it should plan and guide the continuing expansion of the economy through international trade. The principles have held, but their application changes with the stages of growth. During the first four years of the period, the executive council issued its ‘recommendations’ for various leading domestic citizen sector financial and banking players to allocate their capital and productive resources to designated industries.
Over the next four years the Nineteen Countries slowly worked to break away from older nations’ strict anti-slavery policy by conducting profitable trade with infamous slaver nation-states of the international community (e.g. the Scandinvans, or Ralkovia, which was condemned by the World Assembly in 2012), while it tried to appease the old powers by generously funding such international organisations as
CAPINTERN and the
World Anti Slavery Organisation. The Nineteen Countries also worked to circumvent more established nations’ market presence by focusing potential export industries to produce large, strong, cost-competitive exporters in a few select market it knew it could compete in. The profit from financing and supplying various anti-slaver wars of friendly and allied nation-states were channeled to select industries and firms, which further increased market presence for the Nineteen Countries outside the continent. The ultimate objective of the Yohannesian government had changed from “being recognised as an equal, civilised nation-state by the older nation-states” to “becoming independent of western nations’ aid and procurement.”
1946-2016: the Economic Miracle periodThe executive council’s aim was to have the economy grow as fast as the balance of payments allowed. To achieve that, the Bank of Yohannes and other financial institutions were used to subsidise imports,and the exchange to buy them were rationed through the newly created Alleswerken trade agreement model to feed potential export industries as far as possible. Borderline unlawful (by World Assembly and conventional standards) extensive ‘stop-go’ macroeconomic efforts to restrain imports and excessive investment by dampening domestic demand were also undertaken covertly. The unexpected level of growth for much of this period allowed the policy emphasis to shift from import restriction to freer trade and foreign exchange and more reliance on export growth through the latter part of the period. The continually expanding
Ministry of Economy, Industry and Trade and its quangos (e.g. Bank of Yohannes,
VMK, Royal Beaufort) assisted designated industries and enterprises with subsidised information services, import licenses, financial resources and credit, and action to reduce excessive competition by generating very large ‘allied’ companies or cartel arrangements. These interventionist measures encouraged over-investment and surplus capacity which, however, may have stimulated innovation. Also, citizen sector entrepreneurial energy was so extreme that governments at the national level often found themselves trying to restrain investment, and directing foreign exchange to material imports for existing plant and technologies when investors would rather have spent it on new equipment and technologies.
Meanwhile, inflation was restrained by sometimes tense combinations of fiscal expansion for growth with monetary deflation for stability. For those and other reasons there is disagreement about the actual importance of the executive council contribution; in other words, what the likely rate and direction of growth would have been without it. Both the public and private sector may be criticised on two other grounds. The executive councils of the day did not require and the then leading citizen sector players did not apply reasonable environmental care. And although achieving full employment and reducing wage differentials as far as was practicably possible were the explicit aims of policy in this period, when they were achieved government at the imperial level and business leaders had failed to update or improve social welfare and environmental conservation programmes as far as they could have realistically done. It was only in the latter years of the period that the principle of growth with environmental care in mind would be adopted, and a wide range policies of efficiency implemented to lift up social welfare standard to keep up with growth.
By the 1970s and 1980s, pollution brought about radical environmental reforms (e.g. Resource Management Act 1973), and by the 1990s the
Blackhelm Confederacy series of oil shocks and oil conflicts (e.g. invasions of Blackhelm corporate assets by the old powers of the region of
Nova,
smoke on the water) prompted a radical review of growth policies. Although there were emergency administrative measures to cope with the extended period of oil shock, the Ministry of Economy, Industry and Trade acknowledged that the area of market allocation had greatly expanded and administrative guidance should henceforth be confined to areas of serious market failure. A systematic shift in the Yohannesian Model towards a more laissez-faire approach was temporarily adopted in this period, ironically kick-started and most ardently enforced by the successive left-leaning Social Democratic executive councils of the period. It was followed later by the sale and privatisation of authority companies and nation-state body corporates, including the Imperial Railway Corporation and Imperial Coal and Steel. The liberalisation was party to reduce ever-increasing executive council spending on its organisations and quangos, and partly to balance appropriation proposals put before an increasingly budget sensitive parliament in the face of lower economic growth.
By the 2000s, many executive council organisations had been slimmed and reorganised where public activities were deemed unnecessary. The Ministry of Economy, Industry and Trade was cut down in size considerably, in comparison to the previous century, and a less direct, less coercive mode of indicative planning as well as set of guiding economic and monetary principles adopted by both the executive council and Economic Palace. They proposed that future growth should be in clean, knowledge-intensive industries to improve both environmental quality and working conditions. Broadly, that has happened as recommended. Some heavy and polluting industries — mainly those located in the heartland countries — began to decline and some left the Yohannesian continent to set up shop elsewhere. Some were helped: as the newly elected Social Democratic executive council in 2010 had intensified its nation-states gunboat diplomacy and International Incidents participation, the Commonwealth Navy warships and other military procurement from its expeditionary force (i.e. land branch) and air operations outside the continent of Yohannes consumed an unprecedented level of citizen sector production previously targeted for the non-military sector of the economy. The invasion of Osthia in 2011; invasion of the slaver state
Greater Tedzrian by Lyras; Imperial League crisis; Incursus conflict in 2011; invasion of Hippostania in 2013; or the brief ACA crisis — from 2010 to 2014 the Nineteen Countries violated its strictly economy-focused nation-state management principles. Under the Social Democratic executive council of the day, the nation-state had acquired vast colonial outposts and direct territories, but it also lost the reputation of armed neutrality and non-direct military diplomacy it had built for so long since the beginning of its foundation as a nation-state.
The Economic Miracle period ended with the arrival of the disastrous
Gholgoth crises in 2012 and 2013, and subsequently the extended economic trough hitting the Nineteen Countries in 2014 and 2015. Although the previous Social democratic executive council was replaced by the Thirty-sixth Christian Democratic executive council in 2014, it was not until late 2017 that the effects of the newly elected government’s wide-ranging policies of efficiency were felt. They implemented extensive economic and fiscal reforms (e.g.
Budet Reform Act 2017) and reintroduced and extended the Yohannesian nation-state’s policy of armed neutrality by passing the
Exiting International Incidents and Nation States Gunboat Diplomacy Act 2016.
2017-present day: the Economic Rebuilding periodMuch of the gains and momentum from the previous period of Economic Miracle were lost when new powers beyond the International Incidents started to rise to take the mantle of leadership. From the military powerhouse nation-states of
DEUN,
SACTO and other like-minded alliances such as
IFC, to the religious and alternative socio-political non-occidental powerhouse of
Greater Nifon and the military giant of
Pharthan as well as other equally fast growing powers such as
Ghant and
New Edom making their own mark beyond the International Incidents, new external forces have been created while some from the old generation have become more threatening. Through it all the Yohannesian nation-state has, perhaps, found itself as but just one small wheel playing its (perhaps briefly historical) role in the continuously evolving and exciting realm of NationStates diplomacy and International Incidents.
The introduction of new external forces and growing threats to Yohannesian trade had shaped new policies and had terminated old ones. There is general privatisation of partial nation-state owned enterprises (e.g. Bank of Yohannes); growth can be left to the market for the time being, as the Thirty-sixth Christian Democratic executive council concerns itself with growing external forces and new threats, and with underlying rather than immediate welfare questions (e.g. social investment). As the old problems of the Yohannesian nation-state’s late-developing economy with meagre capital, resources and technology had receded into past history, questions of ‘policies for allocation and efficiency’ have reappeared to claim a high priority in the government’s nation-state planning.
There were the beginnings of new consensus among the Yohannesian Members of Parliament about new policy aims: the Nineteen Countries should respond to the aging of the population by continuing its recently introduced merit (point) based immigration policy (from non-occidental nation-states and others) and expand that policy further over the next few decades; search for safer supplies of oil and energy to avoid the debacles of the Blackhelm Confederacy-
ODECON-Nova Crisis years; formulate responsible domestic and international policies in support of the World Assembly and passed WA resolutions, now that Yohannes has achieved its financial and industrial goals; and further improve the quality of life of the Yohannesian people while ensuring that the Commonwealth Navy and its merchant navy ships are used strictly to protect Yohannesian trade — not for aggression or to participate in International Incidents abroad. These are things the current generation of Yohannesian bureaucrats will have to avoid if they want the Nineteen Countries on the Yohannesian continent to be a nation-state worth inheriting for our future generations.