Vice City’s primary economic objective is to be the global leader in GDP per capita and growth while also establishing political and economic stability. This national-wide goal will not only benefit citizens on the individual level, but also welcome foreign investments into the country. To this end, Vice City will seek to maximize social welfare by maximizing the sum of everyone’s utility. Additionally, Vice City will seek to achieve all economists’ ideal distribution of Pareto Efficiency, where the state will optimally allocate resources until it is impossible to make any one individual better off without making at least one other individual worse off; in other words, in Vice City there will be no waste of resources or money left on the table. Arguably, both of these will be difficult to achieve due to imperfect competition, misalignment of information and externalities. Aiming towards the stated goals,Vice City will first set the standard and educate citizens to maximize social welfare instead of maximizing self-interest by explaining how individuals can still be well-off while simultaneously benefiting others from the principle of treating others as how you expect others to treat you. Additionally, information sharing will be encouraged as much as possible unless it has a significant impact on a domestic firm’s competitive advantage against foreign firms. To avoid imperfect competition, Vice City will respond to acts by companies deliberately trying to enforce barriers to entry to encourage competition. Vice City’s responsibilities will also include fine-tuning inflation and exchange rates to better domestic quality of life and to promote long-term economic growth.
Vice City will always put domestic benefits before international. For companies, Vice City will use a more paternalistic approach where foreign firms need to hire at least 50% local workforce if they are to establish base on Vice City soil. Work roles will be emphasized heavily in the work section but it is Vice City’s responsibility to maximize specialization allocation. Annually, only a set number of people will be able to specialize in an academic category; this number will be set based on the country’s predicted demand for these roles. The implication of this goal is to avoid over-specialization; although, job switch is up to individual discretion.
“When sage-kings rule, whenever they issue orders, undertake an enterprise, employ the people or expend their resources, they never do anything that is not useful. And so they never waste their resources or overburden their people yet are able to generate great profits.”
-Mozi, Chapter Twenty: For Moderation in Expenditures
Here Mozi emphasizes the importance of efficient resource allocation. Vice City agrees with this strategy employed by the past sage kings to treat everything as serving a particular purpose. However, the effectiveness of some resource allocations is not as obvious. For example, entertainment in Vice City is used to morally boost workers in the hope that they can achieve higher productivity. In this perspective, Mozi would argue that if it does not guarantee results, then the allocation is ineffective. In contrast, Vice City believes that working for the purpose of just working will not provide enough motivation even with high rewards attached.
As a trade-off to the strict company composition, firms will be given the freedom to produce any product as long as there is domestic and international demand. The production process will be less regulated but the usage of these products domestically need to suffice under the rule that it does not specifically and solely do harm to one’s own health or the health of others. In the case that homogeneous products are produced, there will be no standard pricing and it is up to each firm’s sales ability to market the products; however, it is imperative that companies practice corporate social responsibility by performing within the law. Thus, Vice City will enforce a standard nation-wide mission for firms to perform ethical business practices and mandate them to always consider their consequences to the environment for perpetual country and global sustainability.
To compete with other countries, Vice City’s main concerns will include technological advancement and power of information. Entrepreneurship will be encouraged within Vice City and granted funds by the state. For existing companies, heavy emphasis on research and development is encouraged and the state will grant subsidies depending on their contributions to the nation as a whole. To further aid businesses and individuals, the state will invest heavily on societal infrastructures including roads, clean water, electricity, telecommunications, schools, hospitals, and transportation. Like many developed countries, statistics, information sharing and debates will be encouraged and hosted by the state to empower knowledge breakthroughs.