Women and Men at Old Bailey Court

After the revolutionary leader of Bostonia and his dictatorship had fallen, a newish democracy was established. In 2010 there were new elections and a brand new, young candidate was elected. Everybody was really excited about this governmental change.

The following years were really positive both for the politics and the economy of the city of Bostonia. However, the issues left from the past dictator slowly remerged. A period of deep regression started and the president was forced to borrow money in order to pay back the major debt. For this reason, higher rates for interest rate were set and an economic crisis started. Nonetheless, the president was not able to pay back the money he had borrowed so the lending countries started to worried and they pressured the president to have back their loans.

In a really critical situation, the president increased the taxes and proposed some cuts: 25% on health care, 40% on education, 30% on defense and 75% on infrastructures. People were really worried about these cuts, in particular about the one about education. The president justified his decision by saying that private could take care of the education, the schools and their maintenance.

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The Congress at this point had to decide what to do with this proposal, which needed 175 votes to pass. The first time voting, the bill was rejected. Even if the center left and the center right voted yes, that was not enough. In fact, the radical right and left voted no since the president failed to keep his promises, the cut on education was too high and the taxes could have been just set higher on the wealthier part of the population. The second time voting, since the military wanted the president out of the government, they took over the elections. They exiled the president and the far left; the military were now in power and they made all the decisions.

An economic contraction emerged and most of the banks within Bostonia collapsed. The military refused to pay back the debt and blamed the past government and the past president, the same who has been exiled.

From a general point of view, the simulation illustrated how people, in moments of crisis, should be willing to compromise, especially within a democracy. Compromise must be a fundamental part of a democracy because without it, there will be part of the population that would not be fully represented and served in juridical and jurisdictive debates.

In the military dictatorship simulation, the president attempted to compromise with the people to try to keep the congress and the whole government together, but they did not accept any of the president’s offers. Even if the population was losing, they refused to gave up on the very last things they owned. It looked like they did not care much about the collectivity, but they just care about their own well­being; they would rather try to better off their own individual situation