Anyone here study economics?

I've got a story idea in mind for my comicbooks. It's one of the big storyarcs, and in it, the world-conqueror actually succeds in taking over the whole planet.

I want to portray the ramifications as best I can, but since the cat that lives in my parking lot probably has a better understanding of economic theory than I do, I turn to you guys:

What kind of effect would a one-world government have on the economy?

Any and all help is greatly appreciated.

Thanos6 wrote:

I've got a story idea in mind for my comicbooks. It's one of the big storyarcs, and in it, the world-conqueror actually succeds in taking over the whole planet.

I want to portray the ramifications as best I can, but since the cat that lives in my parking lot probably has a better understanding of economic theory than I do, I turn to you guys:

What kind of effect would a one-world government have on the economy?

Any and all help is greatly appreciated.

Honestly, somewhere between "very little" and "a huge amount", depending on how the government operates. I mean, is there a unified currency? Does the OWG expect China to bring its industrial safety standards up to US levels, or is it content to leave things the way they are? Is trade regulated to any degree? What goods are legal or illegal? How are individual areas managed and operated? Is it a horrific totalitarian state, or a UN-with-more-bite, or what? How much control does the world-conquerer actually have over the thing? I mean, the planet is a large place.

Unified currency, yes.

The conquerer views himself as a messiah, that his conquering the world will make it a better place, so he insists that everything be brought up to US/Western safety standards.

I'm not sure what you mean by trade regulation, since there's not any separate countries. Each ex-nation has probably less sovereignty than a US state has now.

Most things illegal now remain illegal, most legal things remain legal. (One difference: marijuana and tobacco swap legal status)

Basically a UN with bite. The conquerer is incredibly psychically powerful, and uses this for essentially perfect law enforcement: try to break the law, then your criminal thought goes into his brain and you're arrested before you're done even committing the crime. But he doesn't quash free speech or private enterprise. If you don't cause trouble, he keeps you bathed in his power which prevents disease or cancer or anything like that.

The answer is that there is no answer right now.

How did he conquer the world? What's his fiscal policy? What school of economics does he follow? Can he use his mind powers to make economic forces behave in counterintuitive ways? What's his take on a planned economy?

I think you need to establish how his government works, not just the grand scheme but the day-to-day operations. If he's unified the law codes of the constituent countries, the friction caused in places where the laws have been changed is going to lead to economic growing pains, among other things. Meanwhile, if he's more conservative, slashing subsidies will cause more growing pains as the bloated sectors of the economy depressurize, as it were.

However, just the institution of a unified law code would cause a lot of economic upheaval. Any substantial shift in employment has a built in transitional period, the down time between people losing their old jobs and finding their new ones. If he's created a unified law code, these transitional periods are cropping up all over the world at the same time. So at least the first couple years after conquest would be rough times for most people, just from the international situation if nothing else.

(sorry for the extreme delay)

Here's how he conquered the world. His powers started out small, so he started out small, liberating enslaved sweatshop workers in some third world country. When he realized that was only a temporary fix, he stayed with them to protect them. Protecting them eventually led him to overthrow the country's government and install himself as its ruler, to ensure human rights and such would be protected. As his powers continued to grow, the neighboring countries realized he could be a threat, so they attacked him. This backfired; he defeated them and took over them as well, unifying them into one large state. His powers and governing improved the quality of life so much that the vast majority of the population backed his rule.

China was worried that they might be his next target, but instead of out and out war, they tried they sneaky approach and hired assassins to take him out. They weren't able to kill him but did render him comatose.

When he awoke, his powers had gone through the roof as a result of his mind exploring and enhancing itself with no outside stimuli to bother it. However, much like a similar coma drove Caligula nuts, the Conqueror now sees himself as nothing less than a worldwide messiah, whose purpose in life is to save everyone.

He declares war on China, and his powers by this point are so insanely strong that he wins EASILY. This starts a domino effect similar to World War I, and before long every country in the world has lined up against him...but they all fall.

He doesn't have a specific fiscal policy, beyond making sure that everyone has a good standard of living, and if that means gutting the finances of the superrich he'll do it, so I guess you could call him socialist.

He can use his psychic powers to do damn near anything, but he prefers to leave people free will and let their minds be their own, but he's not against simply ordering people to do stuff and then tossing them in jail if they refuse.

Yes, he's in favor of a unified law code, in which everyone enjoys roughly the same protections as in most Western countries now.