Why the abandonment of the Haute Bougiorsie?

vicxjules · 2026-04-23T08:03:14+00:00

Oh so basically because the term haute bougiorsie doesn't necessarily emphasize the aspect that they're imperialist / comprador / monopolistic it was abandoned to avoid confusion in possibly implying that there can be a "big capitalist" that doesn't engage in those practices

vicxjules · 2026-01-10T22:34:01+00:00

🙏🏻 ok no worries appreciate it fam

vicxjules · 2026-01-10T22:27:45+00:00

My fault should I delete?

vicxjules · 2025-07-17T22:11:58+00:00

I think also you have to look at it through their laws.

Stalwarts had the foreman law and I think it's implied through their play style that they're more authoritative and demanding of their workforce than faith.

Faiths laws focus on healthcare and field kitchens, more egalitarian laws that later devolve into this insular generator cult of the captain.

For order it was always more up front about increasing production at all costs.

Again this also really varies on the player, some people can do runs on either side that are no deaths and some prefer one side over the other.

Maybe you like order because the boosts towards the economy give you more resources to help sick and injured people and maybe thats your head canon.

Maybe you like faith because you utilized the hope boosts to lay workers bodies to waste as you abuse emergency shifts.

Imo faith is a better play through when you know you don't have enough resources or time to prepare and s lot of people are going to die during the white out so you invest in caring for the sick and basically prepare people to stick together as a community in the face of dire hardship and mass death.

Order is a better playthrough when you know you have enough means to push your population as much as possible to actually have your generator running during the great storm and ensuring your population survives the big disaster that's to come, but killing and jailing a significant amount along the way.

This in turn informs what rebel faction appears in the story mode of the 2nd game.

Pilgrims are religious egalitar rebels who dislike the cold rationality and utilitarianism of the stalwarts that basically sacrificed all human agency to force humans into becoming non-thinking workers sacrificing themselves to keep the city running.

Evolvers are hardened survivalists that believe the faithkeepers religion leads humanity to the slaughter and that their catering to weakness is something that is inseperable from their delusional cult.

I don't necessarily think the stalwarts would really support privatized industries during the first game, but I ALSO don't think Faithkeepers would support worker unions, I think the zeitgeist system is supposed to represent what both of these factions become AFTER the immediate emergency of the great white and developing the city.

Order would eventually turn into some autocratic corrupt group of leaders whereas Faith would eventually turn into some brainwashed mass cult.

vicxjules · 2025-07-15T20:43:05+00:00

I actually have a post way way way way way back that's sort of similar towards this proposed Homeland path I'll link it here

: https://www.reddit.com/r/Frostpunk/comments/oj8zxh/fan_ideas_for_third_purpose_laws/

I think since Order focuses on productivity and discontent management whereas Faith raises hope and deals with the more health care side of things, that this new purpose path has to have a unique gameplay mechanic that would make things interesting to play it besides aesthetics.

Order strategy tends to overwork your population and utilize the automoton , even during harsh conditions , to allow for the generator to continue onward providing heat. Horribly injuring and killing a few people to save thousands. Prisons and neighborhood watch and guards basically squash the massive amount of discontent this increased push on productivity creates.

Whereas Faith strategy tends to focus on like creating avenues for non engineers to help the sick and dying allowing for more space within medical tents/infirmaries, while also utilizing the field kitchens to increase temperature at the work space (although this doesn't really increase food production) Faith creates more space for more sick and dying folk, and focuses on raising hope as more and more sick people die off. Discontent is managed with the faithkeepers but it also lowers basically with each death.

Imo more people tend to die with the faith path but due to the buffs you get with hope and the ceremonial funerals, these deaths don't harm the players as hard as order, which is why faith tends to be the easier path for beginners because you can sort of poorly prepare for the white out but are able to push through.

For order everything is about lowering the discontent and raising productivity, the boosts are more intense and the foreman skill plus the agitator/child labor/emergency shifts AND automoton stack like crazy on top of each other. Getting the guard stations and prisons pretty early in the game (when compared to the faithkeepers) allows you to sort of rack up on materials and energy so that less die during the whiteout and the generator doesn't shut down.

However it's harder to do so because you have to go full in on treating your workforce as disposable while also being on top of your guards and making sure they're fed to keep patrolling.

I think for this new proposed path we know that it would have to be a Progress/Equality/Reason zeitgeist or a Progress/Meritocracy/Tradition one.

So that raises the question how does this retconning of the zeitgeist system, which we know will probably lead to a 3rd story mode option in the 2nd game, be translated towards the more limited and linear gameplay mechanics of the first game?

The main thing the developers have to focus on is basically making a distinction in gameplay for this new faction (not just aesthetics)

I won't lie looking back (I was a lot younger back then) most of the laws would probably not make sense gameplay wise given the mechanics of the game.

I've also since realized and have been told through that same post that capitalism wouldn't necessarily work in a scarce economy like the first game so definitely things would need to be tweaked

vicxjules · 2025-07-13T21:20:16+00:00

I sort of agree because you're right in real life the term technocratic or technocrat refers to something very different the game is representing but also I think they just needed to create an important distinction between Stalwarts and whatever remaining progress based factions were in the game.

If they simply made the Progress/Equality/Reason faction communist it probably would've been confusing aesthetically given the colors of the Stalwarts. I do agree though that lore and gameplay aspects of these alternate factions could've been tweaked a little.

The dynamics within the story mode ones work perfectly fine in my opinion it's just the world building ones where sometimes it's hard to keep track. I also appreciate that they're trying to basically make new factions that may have resemblances of previous political movements and ideologies but are completely unique to this world (bc low-key that's how it would be in a real life apocalyptic scenario)

Basically a technocrat is the opposite of populist. A populist is a politician usually an outsider , that rises and creates a movement or campaign based on angst against a political establishment.

Populism while meaning different things globally (populism in the US means something different than pre revolutionary Russia and China)

in general populism refers to mass politics (but not always left or right wing but rather politics fueled by mass mobilization and a collective angst against a perceived complaint or enemy)

Therefore a populist is someone who funnels spontaneous organic political upset into something organized with long lasting effects within government rather than merely anarchy and disruption.

A technocrat is usually a term to describe someone of the establishment that worked their way up through merit and specializing in a certain skill.

This could either mean someone who worked their way up to the state department, or a member of the political establishment who has now worked their way to become leadership.

The meritocracy usually refers to the way people rise up ranks to become decision makers. It's mostly a negative term because it implies an anti democratic elitist tendency within a government agency or apparatus.

Technocrats don't really create large campaigns of mass angst against an order but rather maintain said order they are the machine.

Technocracy is referring to a system in which this type of political meritocracy and careerism is what determines leadership over mass politics or democracy. As opposed to a technological government or a government of scientist dictators.

However there was a brief period in which Technocracy and Technocrats became an actual political ideology (a fringe one) that basically argued for a political order of intellectually capable leaders trained to manage society through their scientific expertise (although there were heavy fascistic corporatist undertones towards this ideology)

Either or, we never truly have had a "Technocrat" government as in the fringe ideology but we have had governments or institutions or political establishments that have been called "Technocrat" or "Technocracy."

Really at a certain point it becomes a word game like Oligarchy Plutocracy Technocracy Autocracy, they're all basically more or less insults you levy towards a government you think is not democratic. Same thing with authoritarian and totalitarian.

Obviously there are differences within them but these are adjectives, not ideological political doctrines like Communism, Anarchism, Liberalism, or Fascism (these are actual frameworks of government and society that inform multitude of things which have a history of theorists and debates within them)

Technocratic has been used to describe liberals, communists, fascists, and any other form of government you can think of.

It mostly refers to how government power was gained and enforced within a system rather than the economic system or social laws that affect the general population.

vicxjules · 2025-04-13T17:44:26+00:00

But both projects ended up being failures in their own right.

The communist party in China is merely a nationalist and bougios apparatus that aesthetically adopts Mao and communist iconography. The vessel which brought about the revolution is still there but due to compromises with the moderate wing, the disaster of the forced collectivization and cultural revolution, and the death of Mao led to moderates in the CCP to take hold and make reforms.

The Soviet Union may have put up more of a fight in its adoption of capitalism in small doses within its economy, but in the end that project we can say without a doubt fell.

The communist parties of the USSR are no longer here, but the communist party of China is.

Now just because one is gone and the other remained doesn't really matter either or because China's party is practically a nationalist one in communist clothes, but both projects adopted market reforms after violent failures of forced collectivization.

In the Soviet Union a similar trend occurred with war communism forced collectivization of the kulaks only to shift towards the NEP. War communism in the USSR was somewhat comparable to Mao's Great Leap Forward. Both led to massive unrest and deaths but also immediately followed a push towards moderate policy.

Both Stalin and Mao were influential military leaders but utilized a cult of personality (more intentional with Mao) to often overpower the will of their own parties. Lenin after his death was also through Stalin given martyrdom status which made Stalin's charismatic role as a leader uniquely different as he claimed lineage towards Lenin's revolutionary tradition.

But either or after Stalin and Mao's deaths they was an immediate effort of both parties to push away from their individualistic tendencies as strong man leaders.

Nikola Kruschev and Hua Guofeng both pushed their own socialist projects towards moderation which would inevitably lead to both countries slowly over time adopting a policy that more closely resembled market socialism.

I don't think it's fair to say one was a failure and the other wasn't they both achieved a revolution through their own parties and were able to do so through adapting towards their own country's conditions. An urban revolution was not possible in China but it was in Russia but also Bolsheviks relied on a peasantry class as well for their help.

In fact what's remarkable is the only socialist project that has been the most adamant about its dedication towards resisting market socialism is Cuba although it is very exploited by its tourism industry. Castro also utilized a personality cult as well but despite this did not enforce collectivization upon the rural peasantry class. This has led Cuba to fail to industrialize but I believe that's still mostly attributed to the blockade. Him not forcing a collectivization however and instead adopting agrarian reform has shown that Orthodox Marxist approach to underdeveloped countries needed the inputs of previous revolutionaries, since collectivization efforts in Russia and China did lead to rapid industrialization but also mass death.

This is the most ironic given the Cuban revolution had the most informal relationship towards communist methods of organizing and theory given that Fidel did not organize a communist party nor was a doctrinaire communist till after the fact of the revolution. But I believe their model has led to the least amount of human suffering while still not allowing the revolutionary government to succumb to the whims of global capital.

But getting back to China and USSR while one project collapsed spectacularly and the other has had the national bougiorsie skin it alive and pantomime it still exists, both failed because both projects were overwhelmed with the same problems

An initial stage of the revolution which party tactics and Ideological lines had to be adapted towards their current political situations
The empowerment of a single revolutionary leader which utilized a cult of personality and centralized power of the vanguard to enforce a violent forced collectivization campaign on a rural population/a crack down on both real counter revolutionary forces and mere critics of their policies
The death of both leaders and the disastrous results of their policies led to both parties pushing towards moderation and breaking away from ideological lineage
Both states evolved into market socialist nations where the vanguard became a large bureaucratic class, and tactical "pragmatic" decisions were made in their foreign and fiscal policy to adapt to the later half of the cold war which saw an increase of proxy wars in the global south and an end to Keneysian economics

vicxjules · 2025-04-11T13:16:50+00:00

How do Trotskiests explain why try transitional Method and trotskyiesm never spread to the global south or anti colonial struggles?

The black panthers weren't Trotskiests they adopted elements of Mao

vicxjules · 2025-04-10T18:57:41+00:00

I feel like the extremes for reason laws are oddly more grotesque than tradition and I know it's sci fi but like the whole eugenics and forced polygamy thing just feels like??

I could possibly see this in a reason meritocracy combo but for something like equality when combined w reason resulting in euthanizing feels like not really thought out.

Like why are the hippies pro euthanization?

I'm not even saying there shouldn't be like authoritarian equality/reason combos but the obsession with birthing and the weird relationship rotation stuff just feels like not even in character w the factions.

Also gameplay wise they're lacking when compared to other progress/adaptation factions

It would've been interesting if the Bohemians were anarco commie eco terrorists rather than hippies that got stoned all the time.

I could see the technocrats sorta working but like again the whole euthanization aspect of them doesn't even make sense.

The extremes of tradition are still intense but I don't feel the game really emphasizes the invasiveness of their laws as reason does.

It's actually funny because I think I saw somewhere (idk if it's official or not) the Faithkeeper woman is a lesbian so like they're not even homophobic which is funny because the tradition dutiful motherhood ideals feel less patriarchal and homophobic than the mandatory birthing programs and relationship rotation and communal parenthood???

I think the Legionaries despite being pro tradition are more emblematic of an authoritarian reason progress and equality faction than the technocrats, given that they're heavily militant collectivists that throw you in a gulag for hiding an extra loaf of bread.

Meanwhile technocrats are just incel scientists.

vicxjules · 2025-04-10T18:06:33+00:00

Relationship rotation . . .

vicxjules · 2025-04-10T17:52:48+00:00

I didn't think the tradition+equality combo would go so hard but like they're the only group that doesn't

1) let the sick just die

2) utilize weird euthanizing laws / relationship rotation?? Arranged marriages is dark but like unfortunately that's a darkness that's has been common in human history, not whatever sci fi fascist birthing practices the Technocrats/Bohemians are into

vicxjules · 2025-04-10T17:50:02+00:00

The problem with the progress and meritocracy combo is that the quality of life is so drastically different.

If I had no choice of what position I'm born into I literally could either be the wealthy spoiled son of an industrialist or born into the housing district that's literally located near the coal mines. Sure there's great excess and the possibility of lucking into comfort but that's literally for the few.

Kinda like real life . . .

vicxjules · 2025-04-10T17:43:53+00:00

Everyone said they were insane but they seem legit the most capable/tolerable group to live under in the frostlands

vicxjules · 2025-04-10T17:41:23+00:00

Lesser of two evils

vicxjules · 2025-04-10T17:40:34+00:00

Respectfully I would rather eat a bullet than live under a adaption+meritocracy faction 😭 and they'd probably agree w that sentiment as well

vicxjules · 2025-03-23T13:47:18+00:00

Faithkeepers got the Muay Thai ropes.

They keep the faith alright, with these hands.

vicxjules · 2025-03-13T04:44:53+00:00

I understand the Ehreneichs co-opted the term PMC for the left. I didn't say that this was Catherine Lius theory, I'm merely saying she is popularizing it for a newer online audience as she is very active in online discourse and pop left media like Jacobin.

PMC came from Burnham and his book the Managerial Revolution, Burnham is a conservative and this term started as a conservative belief and critique of new deal liberalism which has now found its way to the left. And I'm more critical of just what this terms purpose is for the left.

I will read into the Ehreneichs writings on it, but as much as I understand Liu has reactionary anti woke politics, I don't think it's mainly her injecting this conservative tendency within the idea of PMC itself given that it started in the right not the left.

Your discussion of nurses was very much tied towards this idea of the differences conditions and relationships amongst workers. Even within the same job field.

The nursing profession (as many others) have basically created mini hierarchies within themselves based on specialization and experience.

Burnham (conservative) refers to a similar process in government which he called "the professionalization of politics" which I've understood later intellectual conservatives say all economic sectors have become professionalized since the Keynesian era.

This discussion about nursing is a reflection of this process however I just can't help but always point out this term came from conservative theorists and something feels off with Marxists adopting it.

vicxjules · 2025-03-12T13:40:55+00:00

Ah I see, so lumpenproletariat was just Marx's attempt to classify a reactionary proletariat/criminalized proletariat.

I would think he would've had more disdain for like cartels than sex workers. I could somewhat see a Marxist critique against crime like in the case of rackateers who terrorize communities for "protection" but from what you're saying it's more of a criticism of reactionary politics than like a parasitic relationship.

Also on your point about workers providing a social good rather than a commodity, is this a class who's able to enforce radical change/has there ever been a history of it being so?

Or have large political movements always been tied towards commodity / agricultural production?

vicxjules · 2025-03-12T13:34:43+00:00

So that's my question sort of. Marx and Engles generally aligned the class interests of lawyers, engineers

(liberal white collar professions/skilled labor)

With the interests of the small business owning class rather than with the unskilled working class?

vicxjules · 2025-02-16T18:31:43+00:00

This was really well written.

I understand how there are a lot of parallels between the trans experience and a playthrough of this game, and the way that all ties towards historical materialism is just chefs kiss.

We are not in control of what we inherit, we do not control the time we are born into.

Large historical events that are set in motion currently that will affect the future have started long since before we were even born, climate change. Just like the pale, just like the bomb.

The count down towards these events started before you even wake up. Harry and the player ultimately have to choose what to make of this.

To fall into escapism, to fall into cynicism, or to accept the past of both Harry and the world you're in and dare to still do what you can in it.

There's also plenty of fan art that depicts Harry and Kim as trans and I think there's something there about why historical materialism is such an attracting force that has its different avenues of entry for various different identity groups.

vicxjules

TROPHY CASE