If Equal town was "communist", is Griffonstone "capitalist"?

[Zoraxe 546]

As annoying as it was that people were proclaiming that Starlight Glimmer's town was communist, it seems to me that the Griffonstone Griffons could just as easily be seen as representing capitalists with that same kind of thinking.

Edited May 31, 2015 by Zoraxe

[EquestriaGuy 1,074]

It's a Tea Party Utopia. Zero government, and everyone is left to support themselves.

[Jeric 46,861]

I personally see Our Town as cultist ... and Griffonstone as something akin to a Mongolian camp mixed with a post war slum. Both are missing just enough qualities to make them difficult to concretely place in any one political or economic philosophy. 

[Jammo 986]

The two lowest ranking human rights offenders on Earth according to Amnesty International are North Korea and Somalia.  North Korea is an example of a government with too much power.  Mind controlling totalitarianism.  Somalia has the opposite problem.  Too little control.  A textbook failed state starved for money with not much love going around.  So this season we've seen parallels to some of the worst nations in the world.  Yay!

Edited May 31, 2015 by Jammo

[Wind Chaser 4,768]

Griffonstone looks like a completely anarchic state with no rules governing society or the economy whatsoever. A capitalist dystopia more readily calls to my mind a tyrannical monopoly that rules pretty much the same way any other type of totalitarian dictatorship would run, except based on money and backdoor deals rather than ideology, but a non-functioning state where everyone is left to fend for themselves is another possibility to arise from the same system. An anarchic society can very much be the basis of either a capitalistic or communistic system.

[guest243535531ty43 219]

Griffonstone is nothing more than the ruins of a failed state. There were no established political or economic systems that they were united under. The only thing that the griffons seemed to have a consensus on was the value of gold in the form of bits as currency, which already had value to them before the fall of their nation. You can't consider "present-day" Griffonstone as upholding one form of economic system over another.

 

In the past, I would imagine Griffonstone applied mercantilism. The griffon kings had the absolute loyalty of their subjects, demonstrated with how they united and founded their majestic kingdom once King Grover found the Idol of Boreas. This compounded with how the end of the throne led to the perdition of Griffonstone also shows they likely had absolute power--or at least the ability to play a major role--in regulating all affairs, including economic.

 

Having a mercantile system would also lead them to become much more insular as a state and have minimal, weaker ties with other nations like Equestria. I think this would be likely because of their great pride as a race and because their kingdom's downfall under King Guto's reign apparently did not lead Equestria or any possible allies to abet them in this dire situation. Their internal affairs stayed internal, which was common in mercantile states. Furthermore, Celestia recounted in The Journal of the Two Sisters (which probably isn't canon but, whatever, I'll still share it) that Gregor was very protective of griffon airspace once Equestria was founded, showing their caution for foreign states.

 

I personally see Our Town as cultist ... and Griffonstone as something akin to a Mongolian camp mixed with a post war slum. Both are missing just enough qualities to make them difficult to concretely place in any one political or economic philosophy. 

Why Mongolian? 

Edited June 2, 2015 by estoc

[The Awesome One 1,315]

The Griffons seem warlike to me. If this was not a kid's show we would have seen at least one weapons shop in their capital. I am pretty sure that what we saw on the show was a mere shadow of a once great kingdom but it had fallen into anarchy. Surely there must have been a few civil wars and their economy seemed to be really bad. I wouldn't be surprised if most griffons were jobless.

 

Basically, once a great kingdom made up of united griffon tribes and it had multiple kings but they all co-operated with each other but later the kingdom fell into anarchy.

[Time Shield 402]

I posted about this in another thread.  It's an anarchy with a laissez-faire style of capitalism, which means it is "free from government interference such as regulations, privileges, tariffs, and subsidies".  That's the old way to do it, which was flawed; capitalism has come a long way since then.

 

In modern capitalism, some regulations are necessary in order to protect people in the system; it's when you go the opposite route and regulate things too much that it begins to cause more trouble than it protects against.

[Shanks 10,816]

It depends on how you define "capitalism", if you define capitalism as a failed state where total anarchy rules and where profiteers take advantage of the desperate than yes Griffonstone is capitalist. If you define it as I do though which is the mutual exchange of goods and services with legally binding contract, strong property rights and laws prohibiting and prosecuting force and fraud than no Griffonstone isn't capitalist.

 

It does have some elements of corporatism though aka crony capitalism which is the cheap that often passes for capitalism, with the main difference of course being that there is no major corporate or governmental force in Griffonstone. If Griffonstone has any sort of economic or political paralel it with Anarchism as Griffonstone is the closest thing we have seen to a ponified Somalia. I suspect that Griffonstone is but one of many Griffon states that likely have various different economic and governmental systems much like the city states of Ancient Greece.

[Abstract 832]

The focus on currency and greed? Yeah, I'd say that sounds about right. However, it would appear to be a failed capitalist state in my eyes.

[cider float 2,538]

And Ponyville and Canterlot are socialist states? With royalty? Sounds like Britain

[NotoriousSMALL 1,984]

Equal town is not communist, first of all, it was a cult, and it was capitalist to some degree (possibly) because there was that one girl pony that seemed to own her own muffin shop. Same with griffonstone, gilda runs her own little griffon-cookie thing or whatever it was, and the money went to herself (she mentioned how she was going to use the money to get outta griffonstone).

Edited June 2, 2015 by NotoriousSMALL

[Steel Accord 6,660]

Well it's only really "capitalist" in the sense that people want money, but they have very little means of production, so it's not really what libertarian captialism.

 

Griffonstone is more along the lines of a failed state, not only is there no central government, there doesn't seem to be much infrastructure of any kind! Everyone's poor and just scraping by. No one is sitting atop a mountain of bits like a robber baron there.

Edited June 2, 2015 by Steel Accord

[Red Cedar 1,408]

Griffonstone isn't the epitome of capitalism, or there'd be a corporation in place of a government. Instead, Griffonstone has simply failed utterly as a society and the griffons there are looking out for themselves and not really anyone else.

[Zoraxe 546]

I made this thread to point out the silliness of referring to Equal Town as communist because of a few traits. So many people were like "lol communism!", I'd thought it would be apt to point out that you can just as easily say "lol, capitalists!" at Griffonstone.

[King Sejong 859]

   Griffonstone is a failed state, with no political or economic structure, it's everyone for themselves, similar to the west following the end of the Western Roman Empire after 476 A.D., as the roads and towns began to deteriorate. Equal town is a cult, similar to Jonestown in Guyana in the 1970's, just like the cultists of Jonestown, the ponies surrendered their personal and economic freedom to Starlight Glimmer, the undisputed guru of the town, with absolute power to do as she wished, one thing anyone should know is communism and capitalism are economic theories, for political theory you should see, how each town was governed, Giffonstone appears to be an monarchy, with an mercantile economy, based on currency and consumerism, that collapsed after the griffon king vanished, while Equal Town, is a authoritarian dictatorship, with little to no economic practise, for the only transactions were in the town itself, rather than commerce and trade with other towns, so if you want to understand the circumstances from each location, distinguish political from economic ideas, that way you can understand for yourself, because it is easy to take advantage of people's illiteracy of ideas and theories.   

[Time Shield 402]

I never really saw Equal Town as being actually communist.  Communism in its most basic form practices "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need".  However, one of the potential flaws is that this kind of approach doesn't promote the improvement of one's abilities, since it would automatically give them more responsibility without an accompanying increase in compensation (since their "needs" remain the same).  Over the long term, this can push the average skill level of the community to a state of mediocrity, discouraging the desire to excel.  This in turn makes it easier for whoever's in charge to maintain status and control since everyone turns to them to have their needs fulfilled.  This kind of end result is the reason why it seems like Equal Town is communist, but the main difference is that their skill was forcibly taken from them.

 

(Although, one could argue that leaders who promote communism are doing so to actively push down the community and make them dependent on leadership, which in the long term is the same as forcibly taking skill from them.  It just takes years of effort instead of casting a spell to do it instantaneously.  In any case, doing this under the veneer of communism is actually just another form of totalitarianism.)