Can MMOs have political ideologies?

Yes and no. :P

Generally speaking, you can't really make a good game unless your primary purpose is to make something fun. If you produce a product whose first and chief aim is to promote an agenda, it'll be terrible. Just look at the games based on the Left Behind series. Goal 1 is to evangelise, then the whole tedious "gameplay" issue is left in a distant second.

So if MMOs do have political ideologies they're usually accidental. The same is true for a wide variety of non-MMO games. Witness the almost farcical wrangling over Spore and whether it promotes Darwinism or Creationism. Realistically it does neither. You play as a "creator" because... that's where the fun is. Not because Will Wright wants us all to believe in something.

As to PvP promoting militarism and PvE promoting Scandinavian social democracy, I think that's a bit of a stretch really. A nice idea, but hard to really pin down, because gameplay always trumps as the primary raisons d'etre for many things that are added or left out of MMOs.

EVE clearly is built on rampant, unfettered capitalism. Whether it's a *poster child* for it is another matter. No one denies the EVE world is gritty and quite often explosive- and its many conflicts, internecine and otherwise, are often driven by sheer avarice. This is all done in the service of painting a particular fantasy world, not necessarily promoting it as an ideal, if you see what I mean. It can just as easily be construed as a cautionary tale.

There is yet more I could say! But I've gone on too long already. :P Point blank, any political agendas in games that aren't explicitly partisan are likely to be inadvertent consequences of gameplay decisions. No one would argue that Warhammer actively seeks to promote chopping the heads off of 'heretics'- that's simply done to paint a particular sort of fantasy world.

If Ayn Rand invented an MMO, it'd be EVE.

Sure. WoW, for instance, is a monotheistic theocracy. "WoW is the one and only true god" dogma so on and so forth. =P

I think it's setting dependant. EVE emulates pure corruption and capitalism. People make their own rules and their own money. That game thrives on the cowboy mentality.

In most cases it's a race/faction thing I'd say. Each one has its own political standings and culture.