The Gaming Den

After a period of legal and/or military struggle, you and your social group have persevered and been recognized as your own sovereign nation, with all the rights that entails, and a little patch of land somewhere that belongs exclusively to you.

...now, why does it suck to be you?

I'm playing with the concept of how you would simulate the pains of a new country entity in the current day, and how economic, political, and legal theory could help or hinder the process of developing a nation. I have a bunch of ideas on the concept, but I'm curious what other people think the most immediate requirements are for the new people-in-charge (we won't call it a government just yet), what problems they will face, and how they could prevent, avoid, or solve those problems.

The biggest problem will be compliance. There are a vazillion things you must comply with, and you will need a very good law team to keep up with the suits. Thats not even torts, that's just from whatever the modern equivalent of writs of mandamus is.

Also, you have various other government and quasi-government entities over the same area (HOAs, school districts, townships, cities, water boards, etc.)

That's plenty to keep you busy forever.

The scenario is too vague to even discuss. Since there is a period of legal or military struggle it is impossible to even speculate on the state of various institutions of society. It's those institutions that make or break a nation, not the guy in charge. He or she can only help or hinder those institutions.

You have utilities, you have services, you have a whole number of things. How were they run before, and who (if anyone) is available to run them now? Did they depend on the previous gvernment then, and do they depend on the current government now? Do they like you or hate you?

Do you have a "grand tradition" you can fall back on? Do you have a common identity you can rally around? Do you have a good PR guy?

(Lies are OK, it doesn't matter if you never confessed about chopping down a cherry tree as a kid, the people love it!)

Well, that's a start: what do you as Supreme Leader Of The Moment need to know to even plan your country? What problems do you expect to have to deal with immediately, and in the long term?

First question: What is the state of your economy (because you can't collect revenue if there is no revenue to collect) and if it isn't enough, do you have a rich "uncle." (Or in other words some other government/agency you can make nice and get them to give you money.)

Immediate Problems:

Revenue: Your government has to get money from somewhere to pay the people that do stuff (including you)
Utilities: How is utility service being provided to your people? Gas,Electric, Oil, heating,cooling, television, internet, gasoline
infrastructure maintenance: who builds roads, who maintains roads.
State Identification: Passports, IDs, Driver's Licenses.
Health and Safety: How do you make sure your food and drinking water is safe (or do you not) who makes sure that you're not using uranium to chalk line the baseball field.. etc. etc.
Law and order: Police, Military, Justice System, Laws.

sabs wrote:Immediate Problems:

Revenue: Your government has to get money from somewhere to pay the people that do stuff (including you)
Utilities: How is utility service being provided to your people? Gas,Electric, Oil, heating,cooling, television, internet, gasoline
infrastructure maintenance: who builds roads, who maintains roads.
State Identification: Passports, IDs, Driver's Licenses.
Health and Safety: How do you make sure your food and drinking water is safe (or do you not) who makes sure that you're not using uranium to chalk line the baseball field.. etc. etc.
Law and order: Police, Military, Justice System, Laws.

Also, power grabs/coups. There's plenty of room right at the start for all kinds of backbiting "No, what we really need is THIS".

you said "county" which made me think of "[EDITED]"

Oh! "Country", not "county". I wondered about that.

Look at the history of sealand. It's a pretty good test case.

Ancient History wrote:Well, that's a start: what do you as Supreme Leader Of The Moment need to know to even plan your country? What problems do you expect to have to deal with immediately, and in the long term?

The most important thing you need to know how to do is fill your cabinet with competent people.

The biggest mistake any dictator makes is paying off political and personal debts with important jobs. Nepotism and Cronyism do not produce good results. It shouldn't matter if you like your men or not, so long as they can do their jobs well. It shouldn't even matter if you trust them all that much, assuming that your system is stable for the moment.

If you're building a new government then you need to do it right.

If you're building a new government then you need to do it right.

with a systematic purge of dissenting voices?

...now, why does it suck to be you?

the lack of wealth. to get us started we'll have to rely on foreign corporations producing wealth in the region. I will invite businesses to open up factories and companies in the area so that the population is fully employed. assuming they leap to begin work in our free market paradise, we will have a steady stream of tax revenue to develop our society. we will engage with diplomatic relations with the surrounding territories, trading with them to expand our prosperity.

once we are on our feet, we will have to worry about cultural subversives. though we will protect free speech, any sort of neo-marxist protest will be met with tear gas and firehoses.

So, slave labor and thought police. You sound more like a communist every day, PR.

Psychic Robot wrote:

If you're building a new government then you need to do it right.

with a systematic purge of dissenting voices?

Absolutely not. An organization of yes men is the best and surest route to fail.

But you do need a purge of "not loyal" voices; loyalty to the nation, not to you. It's very good when you get passionate about your points of view but once all the points of view are discussed and a way is choosen everyone has to be onboard with that way, even those who originally argued against it.

yes, like the Republicans did.

Ancient History wrote:...now, why does it suck to be you?

Most likely your land is or is about to be overpopulated and won't be able to be food or energy independent, welcome to the 21th century.

Ressources.
Either you DON't have them, and you are in trouble . .
Or you DO have them . . and you are in trouble, if you have a neighbour like the usa for example . .

Water purification and distributation, food production and distributation, shelter construction and maintenance, national and civil defense, education, payroll, medical treatment, transportation infastructure creation and maintenance, electricity generation and distributation, industry creation and resource management; in that order.

Chances are high that the first two items are currently missing and that your neighboring countries want the acre of salted earth you call home. There will be bandits on roads not patrolled. There is at least one group (the old regime) that will attempt a coup, most likely there will be several based on religeon, race, politics, warlords, military officers, criminal syndicates, and because today is a thursday.

So basically you need to be the dictator from "Autumn of the Patriarch":

unwavering cult of personality
rumored immortality
perfect body double
loyal general & presidential guard
cabinet composed of deposed dictators
mound of corpses from the last coup attempt
ties with larger friendly empire
????
profit

Stahlseele wrote:Ressources.
Either you DON't have them, and you are in trouble . .
Or you DO have them . . and you are in trouble, if you have a neighbour like the usa for example . .

No, you should be good if you have a neighbor like the USA. The USA can deploy pretty much anywhere in the world, so you're competing with dozens of other nations to be the least convenient target, and only the bottom few end up getting invaded. It's a neighbor like the PRC you might want to be more wary of. Their options for "aggressive economic expansion" are pretty much limited to nations no more than a few hundred miles from their borders.