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[davros]

Commies like terrible Social Realism artwork.

As a commie, I'll just say I've always disliked it.

[agatharchides]

It was before my time (40d I think), but DF had economy implemented, and it was a total mess. Dwarfs had to pay rent for their rooms, and pay for their food and drinks. The result was a total mess. Those Dwarves that had some money, would generally spend it on trinkets, and forget to pay their rent. Some were too poor for that. The solution was either giving them 1x1 rooms with low quality beds, and no engravings or setting up homeless shelters. Probably both. Because they couldn't afford good quality food and drink, there had to be some unskilled breweres and unprocessed food around, as well as wells. This lead to less happy thoughts. Worst thing of all, Dwarves were spending most of their time hoarding coins. This in addition to having dozens of nobles was worse than sieges.

Now we have tribal economy with limited private property, and it works. In real world it also works for small isolated communities that struggle to survive. It collapses when they grow bigger, tough.

Yeah, the economy was around in 40d and it was a mess. The basic problem was that supply and demand had no impact on prices and the fixed prices were too high for anyone to afford anything. The result was that you have tons of stuff most people can't use. I usually turned it off because it was silly and frustrating. 

[Jacob/Lee]

The nobles and legendary dwarves also hoarded the most valuable crafts in the fortress. I remember when one of my legendary craftsdwarves was sitting in his 3x3 room with piles and piles of valuable gold crafts covering the entire floor.

[RanDomino]

Well, that explains how the player is able to see everything at all times- massive secret police network.

[Karlito]

Plus you'd Mint coins in stacks of 100, and they would quickly become 100 stacks of one coin with no way to combine them back together, and each time money changed hands there would be an item hauling job to go move around a bunch of coins.

[Bytyan]

It amuses me that this thread has gone from comparing dwarf mode to communism to gripping about dwarven capitalism. It seems very fitting.

[Necromunger]

I think that when we are assessing Dwarf Fortress on its political format, we cant see the expedition leader and other smiler dorfs as Noble's.

They have they're job just like everyone else, if you think about it its a better way a living and no one would be stressed.

Imagine that you could just go into the dining hall and have a break, eat as much as you want, do what ever you feel and then when you think you should get back to work on something.

And when you see a fellow dorf having a rest you don't have any feelings of reserve against him because he is resting and you are working.


SERIOUSLY if people lived like this in real life NO ONE would be over weight or have any other problems because of stress.

[Montague]

I think that when we are assessing Dwarf Fortress on its political format, we cant see the expedition leader and other smiler dorfs as Noble's.

They have they're job just like everyone else, if you think about it its a better way a living and no one would be stressed.

Imagine that you could just go into the dining hall and have a break, eat as much as you want, do what ever you feel and then when you think you should get back to work on something.

And when you see a fellow dorf having a rest you don't have any feelings of reserve against him because he is resting and you are working.


SERIOUSLY if people lived like this in real life NO ONE would be over weight or have any other problems because of stress.

If people had unlimited access to a wide variety of food and booze I'm certain obesity and health problems would still be a problem. If people worked as hard as dwarves do in the game, there would be plenty of stress. Could you imagine hauling boulders and bins full of lead bars for a living? That'd suck.

[Bytyan]

Hard labour doesn't have to be stressful, necessarily. If you don't hurt yourself, and you enjoy your company, it can be quite enjoyable.

[Maklak]

The biggest problem with 'work when you can, rest when you feel like it' is laziness. In a small community free riders can be ostracized. Not so in a city.

[Andal]

SERIOUSLY if people lived like this in real life NO ONE would be over weight or have any other problems because of stress.

This assumption would carry more weight if my dwarves weren't belarded monstrosities with hanging sacks of fat 90% of the time.

[Loud Whispers]

SERIOUSLY if people lived like this in real life NO ONE would be over weight or have any other problems because of stress.

This assumption would carry more weight if my dwarves weren't belarded monstrosities with hanging sacks of fat 90% of the time.

"Untold layers of fat."

From drinking water.

[Necromunger]

I know what im saying sounds weird lol but you know what i mean. In most western towns each family has a communal thing going on and they are just surviving parallel to other families.

If everyone worked to the greater good of the fortress a lot of things would be better.

[Montague]

Well, a small group of individuals like in the game ~20-100 people makes something like communitarian type systems work ok.

Dwarves issue out vicious beatings and executions and issue unreasonable mandates and demands, so I suppose it's not quite like a hippie commune, exactly.

[Sus]

Dwarven fortresses are quite communistic systems: all food, goods etc. belong to the fort and are in anybody's use. Dwarves usually own only their clothes, their apartments aren't actually owned by them, you can anytime kick that dwarf out of his bed and move it next to refuse pile.

And guess who is the comrade. You.

That's... not exactly how communism works. Or how it's supposed to work, anyway.
The concept of private ownership is still there in regards to consumer goods, housing and such, although how exactly those are assigned to individuals (bought from state store on state-paid wages, distributed based on "units of work" done, handed out according to need1) or whatever...) is a point of divergence within the communist ideology itself.
1) The problematic issue being the definition of "unit of work" or, indeed, "need".

Actually, the DF "economy" (or rather the lack thereof) is rather close to the Marxist ideal of "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need"; every Dorf works for the benefit of the fortress and is in turn provided with what creature comforts the fort has to offer. (Well, depending of course on what you as the evil overlord benevolent guardian of the fort deem fit...)
There are also certain elements of the feodal system in play, such as the nobility with their outrageous completely reasonable demands for ridiculously luxurious status-appropriate housing and summary punishments for violating their mandates, as well as the universal military conscription system (that usually sees the lowest-class peons unskilled workers assigned to FB-slaying duty).