The Freethinkers
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Contents
Overview
The Sensible Commonwealth of The Freethinkers, or The Freethinker Commonwealth, is a Post-Modern Liberal-Democratic Unitary state, comprised of the 'Mainland' located in the Equatorial Atlantic Ocean, and two autonomous provinces, made up of 'Freethinker Martian Territories', in the northern oceans of Mars, and the Fargon Archipelago in the far North Atlantic. The main inhabitants are Humans, but there is sizable minority of Vampires and the half-breed Ghouls. The Government is a democratic constitutional monarchy headed by the Sovereign member of the Royal Family, ruling over an elected unicameral legislature. The two provinces each has their own assemblies to rule on domestic matters and taxation. The Vampire population meanwhile, is autonomous within the Commonwealth and is ruled by the Council of Navarrok, presided over and lead by the reigning Lord of Navarrok.
The Freethinker Commonwealth is a relatively powerful, historically democratic nation with a strong tradition of inclusion and tolerance for almost all species and races within and beyond its borders. Headed by a economically liberal, progressive government and protected by a military that, though relatively small, is one of the best equipped of its era. A strong maritime tradition, both civilian and Naval, runs through the nation and its past and culture, especially in the capital, Navarre, historically linked with the mass immigration of old and the multicutural make-up of Freethinker society today. In the international arena, The Freethinker Commonwealth is an active member of the Osaka Security Treaty, the New Alliance Treaty Organization and, more recently, the Concordat. It has forfeited UN membership over disagreements over economic soveriegnty, but nonetheless supports the ideals of the organisation and The Freethinker Commonwealth is an active supporter of improving political and civil rights on the international stage.
Geography
Mainland
Fargon Archipelago
Freethinker Martian Territories
People
The people of the Commonwealth are an interesting breed, a mix of hundreds of different ethnic backgrounds, ideologies, outlooks and beliefs that produces an incredibly diverse populace and a true multicultural society.
Culture
Ethnicity and Species
The fact that the Mainland has sat at the crossroads of trans-Atlantic trade for several centuries has led to a huge conglomeration of different ethnic backgrounds from across the globe, as well boasting many non-human domestic and foreign sentient races.
Religon
As can be determined by the name and history of The Freethinker Commonwealth, the major religion is a lack of one. Whereas relatively few people would declare themselves as outright atheists, most citizens do harbour a humanist agnostic outlook and organised religion is still considered a minority activity. Nonetheless, recent immigration and improving trade links has started a trend towards a new revival in religious beliefs, especially in growing first and second-generation immigrant communities. The freedom to worship in good faith is a central tenet of the Commonwealth's constitution, and although many do not profess a religious conviction there is a large amount of respect and support given to Religious Institutions as part of the nation's tolerant and mutually-supporting population.
- Breakdown of Religion
Government
The Government system of The Freethinkers is a liberal, secular, democratic constitutional monarchy, headed by a Soveriegn Monarch as the ceremonial Head of State, with many of the executive powers entrusted to the current Prime Minister. The legislature is comprised of a unicameral, fully elected assembly collectively known as Parliament, with the party or coalition holding the most seats forming the actual government within the assembly. The smaller Vampire community has its own governing body ruling on matters of internal affairs, whilst the two autonomous provinces can boast their own assemblies (and heads of Government) which deal with all matters excluding foreign relations and defence seperately from the Mainland Parliament.
See Main Article: Freethinker Government
Head of State
The official Head of State in The Freethinker Commonwealth is His Majesty King Percival IV of the House of Hapsburg. Though constitutionally the Monarch has significant powers at his or her discretion, including the right to seize land in the name of the state in an emergency, the right to propose or veto a proposed or existing Edict or Act, and the right to over-rule the judgement of the High Court, these powers are very, very seldom used and would be generally unthinkable unless being used a last ditch measure for the defence of the realm or to keep in check an unbalanced legislature.
Parliament
Meeting in the Navarre House of Government (commonly referred to as Government House), a large, Gothic-style palace similar along the line of Westminister Palace in London, the legislature of the Freethinker Mainland consists of a unicameral (single) house, called Parliament, of 800 members. Half of these are voted in on constituency, first-past-the-post ballots and the other half voted in through porportionate representation from the nationwide results. The idea behind this is to ensure that all parties with a meaningful vote can be represented (a party only has to acquire 0.25% of the national ballot to earn a seat) whilst also ensuring that the main parties have sufficient strength to not get bogged down indecisively by coalition building and, unofficially, to ensure 'extreme' parties do not gain decisive decision-making power. All elections for the legislature are conducted every five years and held across the Mainland by Secret Ballot.
The actual Prime Minister (the head of the legislature) him/herself is ceremoniously selected by the Monarch from the party with the greatest number of seats within Parliament. Unlike in many countries, the ruling party can take power even if its total number of seats is outbeaten by an opposing coalition of opposition parties, so long as it retains more seats than any other party alone. However, this is rarely seen, as a qualified majority is required in Parliament to pass most legislation and so even political parties with significant power and even a numerical seat advantage will still often form coalitions in power to ensure the passage of legislation.
The Prime Minister is infact the most powerful figure politically in The Freethinker Commonwealth, having similar abilities and responsibilities of the British or Australian PMs in RL. He selects the cabinet, represents the legislature as a whole in public, writes and approves party legislation and can use the 'Party Whips' to ensure the loyalty of his fellow party members when a ballot is held. The current Prime Minister is Sir Theodore Barham. His cabinet includes all five major Ministry and fifteen minor Department heads, along with a selected number of Junior Ministers and Ministers-without-Portfolio, with each member of the cabinet is drawn from the ruling coalition.
See also: Freethinker Political Parties
Provincial Assemblies
The two dependent territories (Fargon and the Freethinker Martian Territories) each have their own elected Assembly which oversee all internal matters but do send advisors to the respective Foreign and Defence Ministries to ensure their views are accounted for. These advisors do not, however, have voting power within the Maindland legislature itself, something which still causes some controversy in certain circles.
Ministries
Civil Service
The huge Civil Service is the non-political government body which actually does the work of The Freethinkers government.
The Courts
The Courts and the Judiciary are independent entirely of the legislative branches of the Freethinker government, save that the prisons and courts are funded through government taxation.
History
See Main Article: History of The Freethinkers
Economy
The Freethinker economy is run mostly by the private sector with the Government regulating and in certain circumstances supplying certain Public goods (such as Health and Education services) where it feels the free market alone fails to provide social optimality and universal coverage in the relevant area. Capitalist Free-market systems are the dominant and prefered economic form, and Free Enterprise and Entrepreneurship are encouraged to a large extent but in turn Companies and Corporations are expected to act with Social Responsibility as a guiding principle with regards to their employees, resource consumption and the products they retail.
Currency
See Main Article: Mintel
The Freethinker Commonwealth maintains a floating exchange rate with other currencies and currently maintains a foreign exchange price of around US$2 with most other economies.
Central Bank, Monetary Policy and Macroeconomic Variables
The Freethinker Commonwealth utilises a highly independent central bank, known as the Freethinker Central Reserve, or FCR , to ensure economic stability and sustainable growth. The FCR was established in the late 1960's as a government answer to several periods of crippling inflation caused by election-time increases in Government spending (to provide short term boosts for economic and political gain). Designed to provide long term stability without the problems of election time economy boosts (and subsequent inflation), the continued successful operation of the FCR and the subsequent steady growth of the economy since its introduction has long been a strongpoint to the Freethinker Liberal Democrats economic credentials.
Instead of Government fiscal policy, the main control of the Freethinker economy is invested in the monetary policy of the FCR. Its capacity to set the interest rate and control the supply of money within the economy allows for more effective and stable control of the economy than government fiscal measures could hope to achieve. The Freethinker National Treasury does, however, set the inflation rate target (currently at 2.5%) for the FCR to follow as a guide , and the FCR adjusts the interest rates and money supply (technically the same thing) to direct the economy towards this level (A low rate of positive inflation is generally seen as an indicator of steady economic growth).
The Government's fiscal policy (Taxation and Spending) is, as under the economic guidelines of the current ruling Freethinker Liberal Democrats limited to providing a break-even zero net revenue loss over the course of a business cycle. This means that limited government spending deficits can only be allowed if directly funded by previous or future surplus from taxation revenue. The excellent economic performance of recent years has, however, ensured that current levels of surplus have far exceeded past expectations and provided the government with sufficient levels of revenue for new increases in the defence and foreign aid budgets without an increase in taxation. Because of this policy and the desire to maintain current economic growth, Income Tax levels have remained reasonably constant over the last few decades at around 20-25%, based progressively on earnings.
Unemployment is generally seen as acceptable at levels of 5% or less, and the current trend tends towards a rate of 3-3.5% on a national average. Extremely high unemployment is seen as one of the few allowable circumstances that Government intervention is considered beneficial, and localised retraining and subsidy based investment has been practised to prevent economic recession in areas which are suffering in terms of significant job losses and other economic malaise.
Economic Overview By Sector
Primary Tier Economy
Agriculture in the Freethinker Mainland is limited to some minor irrigated regions and ,with some modest success, commercial level ranching of domestic species in the more temperate areas. Efforts to increase production through large scale desert irrigation projects have been undertaken with sometimes spectacular results, but nonetheless food output is still significantly below levels of national demand, resulting in a large net import of most foodstuffs. Fishing is in a better condition, with large scale operations for harvesting both fresh- and salt-water stocks, especially in the Fargon Archipelago, but these are also threatened by both declining fish populations and falling public demand, although recent trends have raised optimism of a future recovery.
Mineral extraction across the Commonwealth is more common and profitable, and there are significant quantities of Iron ore, Ilmenite and Malachite deposits which are exploited for a variety of metals for both domestic use and foreign export. These operations are sufficiently developed to meet local demand though other ores and materials have to be imported from abroad, notably precious metals and heavy elements. There are significant new deposits being discovered in the Fargon Archipelago and the Freethinker Martian Territories, but these have so far been under-developed due to geographic factors and the lack of necessary infastructure in place.
Forestry is a minor industry at best, with only a limited supply of timber in areas where development of the trade would be profitable. Although there are some large forests in the Southwest and Northeast of the Mainland, the relative inaccessibility of the forests and the dangerous native wildlife deter large-scale investment. Some commercial harvesting is beginning to take off in the Fargon Archipelago, but it remains to be seen how successful this could be given the limited stocks avaliable.
Secondary Tier Economy
The manufacturing sector of the Freethinker economy is coming out of a major transformation from the old quantative-based to a new qualitive based sector.
Tertiary Tier Economy
For the last thirty years the economy of The Freethinkers (although more in the Mainland than Fargon and other territories) has been dominated by the services sector, in particular there has been a substancial rise in the
Economic Issues
As with most developed economies, the high standard of living has resulted in higher wage costs to firms, resulting in increasing costs and reduced efficiency margins for Freethinker companies. This is not considered too much of a major issue at present as most manufacturing positions are based in qualitative rather than qualitive products which are less vulnerable to increasing wage rates. Nonethless the Government and many private firms are considering large scale capital and training investment to ensure that real competitiveness remains.
The current strength of the Mintel is also causing discontent among manufacturers in particular, due to decreasing competitiveness abroad and the growth in competition at home, and there is particular domestic anger at the current Freethinker Liberal Democrats position of not introducing protective tariffs to reduce the entry of extremely cheap household goods from some of the Commonwealth's new trading partners. This has lead to some citing of betrayal by many who have lost work in the respective industries and has sparked riots and protests in several places. The policy also has had a limited political fallout on the Government itself, though not to a significant degree.
Long-term concerns also include the economic stagnation of several cities (notably Adamsea and Delta City) and districts in Mainland itself, with the new service-based economy leaving many old industrial towns without principal employers, leaving only mid-scale service sector jobs as the main source of income. Whereas there has been significant investment into creating new job oppurtunities, no major new industries have been established and most of the new employment options are limited to basic low-skilled service sector positions. In turn this has lead to some negative political consequences, including for the first time in half-a-century the genuine threat of widescale popularity for far-right and far-left groups.
International Relations
Immigration and Emmigration
Immigration into The Freethinker Commonwealth is actively encouraged, especially of foreign academics and entrepreneurs.
Embassies
Foreign Disputes and Illegal Activities
International Organisation Membership
Military
Economic
Military
See Main Article: Freethinker Armed Forces
