I am looking for an economic/political simulator to use as a laboratory model for a libertarian (minarchist) society.
I imagine it as having individual actors with needs, desires, and degrees of motivation, and "charity", each acting independently. (think pure free market). Then I would like to be able to introduce interference into that system (fiat currency, welfare, etc.) and demonstrate the destructive effects (if any) of such interference.
Does anyone know of any such simulation software? I know there are several online political simulators, but those take too long to adjust. i would like immediate feedback.
That's like the holy grail :D
You really need a precise model of a human beeing in the market, selling and buying. I think there is some great work beeing done by RS Marken:
http://www.mindreadings.com/
look under demos
Take a look at NetLogo. It's for building agent based models of any kind. Simple to use even for those with limited programming experience such as myself. I'm currently working on a model that does some of the things your aiming at. I'll put the code up online in the next week or so. Maybe it will give you something to improve upon.
http://sugarscape.sourceforge.net/