fandomhigh | Nation Building and the Origin of Government, Period 5, Class 1, Thursday, 1-6

"Welcome to class," she said, flipping her files shut and glancing around the room. "My name is Assistant District Attorney Alexandra Cabot. You can call me Alex, or if you'd rather, Miss Cabot is fine. This class is called Nation Building and the Origin of Government."

"I had a whole detailed explanation for what I'd like to do with this class, what the topic means to me, and how we should think about government. I was going to start today by reading that off to all of you, but I've just changed my mind." She straightened up, walking briskly over to the chalkboard and drawing a squarish shape on it. "Instead, today we're going to dive in with a thought experiment. We'll deal with technicalities later on."

She turned around and tapped her knuckles on the board, in the center of the shape. "Congratulations," she said. "This is a country, and it has just been entrusted -- in its entirety -- to you. It's a decent size, and it even comes with its own population. However, there is absolutely no civic infrastructure. There are businesses, but all of those are privately run. What I'm trying to say is that there is no government whatsoever. No publicly funded services, no mayors or governors, and no organization. Except, of course, for you.

"In other words, you're running the show. You can declare yourself Grand High Emperor for Life, or El Jefe, or whatever strikes your fancy. You can rename the capital city after yourself. You can blow the whole of the country's limited funds on hiring harem girls or cabana boys to dance for you. You can even paint yourself naked and run down the street.

"Before you get carried away, I'd like to point out that doing the above won't leave you much time until someone more sensible assassinates you and does all of the things you were supposed to be doing. So let's take it as a given that you decide to be a responsible leader who gives a damn about your constituents. Which is good, because they're going to need a lot from you." She dusted her hands off. "So. What's first? I'd like you to tell me what your number one priority is, and why."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Outsourcing is a tricky matter," Alex agreed. "From a governmental standpoint, maybe we can incentivize the behaviors we'd like to encourage. Give business owners exemptions or breaks if they keep production in our country, or reward customers for buying domestic. Of course, that raises a new set of questions, which is, how much influence do we want the government to have, with business?"

"I think that depends on a lot of different factors," Warren mused. "I mean, what the businesses are in the first place, for starters. Like I said, the government has their little finger in the affairs of Worthington Labs pretty much all the time, but I don't think they'd take as much interest in a company that makes, like, shoelaces."

He pursed his lips a little, and then added, "And I'd have to be careful to not look like I'm taking away too much of a business owner's control, either. I think I'd sooner stick to offering incentives, so long as there's a good chance that we'll see a benefit from them somewhere down the road, instead of imposing regulations all over the place and just generally ticking people off."

Nation Building and the Origin of Government, Period 5, Class 1, Thursday, 1-6

Re: Discussion: Your First Priority - NAT01

Re: Discussion: Your First Priority - NAT01