Kasz216 said:
Dark_Lord_2008 said:
Andrew Ryan ruled the pretty Libertarian Rapture. Totally free market, no taxes, no censorship, strong property rights, and, most importantly, a complete lack of ethical considerations. The price to pay? No contact with the surface, as the world governments would surely intervene and destroy the nascent Libertopia.
While the lack of ethics did result in the creation of Plasmids, it also resulted in an unchecked consumption of Adam. Ideally, the population would have kept what was basically their drug use in check, but ideals and actuality oft differ. These "splicers" started rampaging through Rapture to fuel their habits.
However, what really brought down Rapture were the unchecked business practices of Frank Fontaine, who quickly generated wealth based on items gained from the surface, and who then started buying up monopolies of Rapture commodities. As no one had the sheer wealth to start a business to compete with Fontaine (the richest man in Rapture by far), let alone the balls to do so (as people had a tendancy of turning up mysteriously dead when dealing with Fontaine), he soon started raising prices on vital goods and services, resulting in a mostly poverty-stricken Rapture that couldn't afford to defend itself against the Splicers, or Fontaine's rampaging mobs who knew that they were powerful enough, both in economic and Plasmidic terms, to be unstoppable. Andrew Ryan attempted to bring Fontaine under control via hilariously unethical means, but ultimately, the fight between the two ended up killing even more of the citizens of Rapture.
It soon devolved into anarchy because the Libertarian nature of the society allowed a few people to become incredibly powerful simply because of monopolies on limited resources.
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And in Mario Brothers, all the toads live happily with no worries even though none of them seem to have jobs.
So clearly a Monarchy ruled by a Princess who can bake is the way to go?
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The original Bioshock was a critique of Objectivism, which the head of Irrational found to be nonsense. Bioshock 2 was a critique of utilitarianism I believe. I believe Bioshock: Infinite will be taking on nationalism.
It is far more Objectivism than mere Libertarianism in Bioshock. Libertarianism comes in a number of flavors. I know I got an education in this when I found that a number of Libertarians think Rand is wrong in some ways. I know, for example, Rand didn't like Hayek, and Hayek happened to be another individual who some Libertarians look to. I had one give me a head's up on Hayek.
