Ultraliberals

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> INDIRECT MODES OF TAXATION – Turns out those Financial Oversight Committee gangsters stuffed millions of hard-earned dividends away in the last place anyone thought to look: the hearts and minds of everyday Revacholians! You need to spread that deregulation gospel to the \*people\*. Tell them about that foreign fare tax. Preach that 98% gross burden. Preach it, preacher man! Set the brothas free. Taxes are racist.
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**Ultraliberalism** is a political alignment in *Disco Elysium*.

## Background

**Ultraliberals**, also called **Ultras** or simply **liberals**, are radical right-wing hustlers and free market advocates who believe in tax reductions and privatizations. The Ultras first appeared as a middle-class bourgeois group who sided with the Revacholian Communists during the Antecentennial Revolution, though they would later come to support the Coalition of Nations as the Commune began to fall. Their betrayal granted them a number of economic rights and benefits, but also resulted in an ultimate subservience to the law of the Moralist International.

## Ideology

Ultraliberalism presupposes that state interference in commerce is immoral, and disturbs the self-regulating nature of the market, represented by its "spectral hand", which ensures that everybody gets what they work for. They are also against taxation, believing it to be theft, and argue that the Zone of Control's Gossamer State is a sham, given that tax is still collected through indirect modes. Ultraliberals also value diligence and duty in the pursuit of wealth.

In Revachol, the cultural movement of The New, which took place during the '30s, is said to exemplify free market economy and ultraliberal values. It emphasized partying, disco music, ostentation, and champagne. Despite that, Ultras are seen poorly in Revachol, and many do not reveal their political stance, being seen as traitors to both the Royalists and Communists. Some Ultras, such as Rejoyce-Leyton Messier, claim that the group squandered their chance at sovereignty by voluntarily surrendering Revachol to the Coalition after the fall of the Commune, and believe they should have defended it and kept it for themselves.

Extremely rich Ultraliberals are said to have a secret knock used to identify each other, known as the Milton 32-8 knock. Its pattern is derived from data sonification of time series data from the world's most profitable bank in the '30s.

## References

1. ↑ JOYCE MESSIER - "Some were rich enough to stay with the Constitution; with monarchy -- \*big mistake\*. Others bet on the Revolution, they were called the Ultras, or ultraliberals. They fared well."
2. ↑ JOYCE MESSIER - "Liberals are usually middle-class people, detective. Or the remaining gentry. The beneficiaries of the pre-revolutionary \*arrangement\*."
3. ↑ JOYCE MESSIER - "An ultraliberal, it's a type of liberal. From the Revolution. It's... not the moderate kind."
4. ↑ JOYCE MESSIER - "Some were rich enough to stay with the Constitution; with monarchy -- \*big mistake\*. Others bet on the Revolution, they were called the Ultras, or ultraliberals. They fared well."
5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 JOYCE MESSIER - "Haven't you heard?" She nods, pedagogically: "I am a nether creature of the forbidden swamp, one of those who pushed the king under a shitwagon and betrayed the Revolution..."
6. ↑ JOYCE MESSIER - "The liberals took everything that wasn't nailed to the ground -- the Coalition took the \*ground\*," she stomps her rubber booted foot. "The ocean, the laws and the people."
7. ↑ SAVOIR FAIRE - What are you, a racist? Don't be a racist! Be a cool immigrant ultraliberal free market advocate! Ride or die, keep it street!
8. ↑ EGG HEAD - "THE MARKET REGULATES ITSELF!"
9. ↑ IDIOT DOOM SPIRAL - "I didn't agree with you, by the way. The spectral hand of the market makes sure everyone gets exactly what they deserve." He takes a long sip of beer.
10. ↑ SAVOIR FAIRE - Because of the TAXES. G-man's got his jam-covered sticky-fingers in your pocket, stealing from you every time you buy, sell, walk, talk, fart, so much as sneeze!
11. ↑ SAVOIR FAIRE - You and I both, but they got those \*indirect modes of taxation\*. Sales tax, excise duty, extraction tax, this tax that doesn't even have a name -- plus there's the stuff \*people in other countries\* pay for, that makes them ask for more money from \*you\* here! The Gossamer State's a myth. In total the Coalition Government is taking...
12. ↑ KIM KITSURAGI - "Laziness, self-interest, and negligence certainly fit the doctrine espoused here."

CALL ME MAÑANA - "Is it the dulcet tone of ultraliberalism I hear?"
13. ↑ JOYCE MESSIER - "The New, a cultural era -- and the name of the decade it ravished, the Thirties. It came out of post-revolutionary Revachol. It was... ultraliberal."
14. ↑ JOYCE MESSIER - "It involved \*lots\* of partying, as you might imagine. And champagne coloured \*everything\*. By the looks of it -- that would have been when you came of age. Now..." She raises her eyebrow at you.
15. ↑ JOYCE MESSIER - "When the dust settled, the liberals were the only ones left to clean up the mess. By virtue of their survival they were handed enormous power to shape the future..." She turns her gaze to the delta. "This was all our last generation managed."
16. ↑ JOYCE MESSIER - "I would not have relinquished sovereignty to the Coalition. Not here in Martinaise -- and not in the Stella Maris or Delta beachheads either. If not for my own sake..."

JOYCE MESSIER - "... then for my daughters'. We had an obligation to defend our sovereignty. We should have \*burned\* the whole isola down rather than let them have it."
17. ↑ SUGGESTION - It's a secret handshake of the ultra rich, distributed though private-access yacht clubs and interisolary balls for the heirs and heiresses of the old money. Where you picked it up is a mystery.
18. ↑ ENCYCLOPEDIA - The Milton 32-8 knock was created through data sonification. It's based on the time series data of the world's most profitable bank during its prosperous years in the Thirties. The peak points were turned into the rhythm that makes up the knock.