The Great Idea

Content levels

Trigger warnings

Positive tags

Tropes

Themes

Synopsis

The plot is that communism has won and taken over the entire world. It has become entirely ingrained as a huge overhaul - a massive Cultural Revolution - has wiped out all remnants of capitalism, markets, pre-communist culture and literature, even language (everyone speaks Marxanto). The wife of the dictator wants her son to be raised in isolation exposed only to academic schooling and not communist schooling because she distrusts the communist schools. So, the boy doesn't know anything at all about communism or the world- he isn't indoctrinated. Then, as heir, he ends up becoming the leader. From that premise comes the story of The Great Idea. What underlies the failure of the communist ideal? What is the point of free markets? From understanding the problems of calculation and incentives in a planned economy, to the (re-)discovery of markets and money, to the realization of the natural coordination within a market economy, to the discovery of freedom in free enterprise, and finally to the recognition of the problems of interfering in free markets.