- Location
- France
[X] Plan: Build the Peace
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GODSTAR - a Science Fantasy Civilization Quest
- Thread starter ScottishMongol
- Start date
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- Tags
- civ quest
[X] Plan: The War of Unification (compromise edition)
Anchises
Le Charismeur
- Location
- Germany
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Its wild to me how we are one of the premier economic and technological powers on Paradisea and people suddenly decided we now need a currency. Currency is going to enable a depth of capital accumulation that our society hasn't been faced with.
Yeah our evolved gift-economy isn't perfect and increasingly relies on state intervention and the cooperation of larger social organizations like the merchant guilds but the same would inevitably happen with currency. Currency would make things easier...for the merchants. Our current system is built on consensus and social obligations that makes maintaining healthier class relations easier.
Also yeah just not having a currency is more interesting!
- Location
- the Republic
- Pronouns
- He/They
[X] Plan: Build the Peace
- Location
- France
- Pronouns
- She/They
Turning production from needs to exchange for profit is what really worries me. I'm also concerned the sale of labour will make an appearance and that will wreck the careful arrangement of organized production by the producers.
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IamtooSleepy
I came here to be an ant
For my two cent, I feel like currency is less of "if" and more of when and on what term. If we are set on integrating the rest of the True people, including those who are already under Islanders' influence and would likely adopt their system, then it would possibly better to do our own take on what currency should look like rather than dealing with multiple overlapping systems doing far too many things at once - like what we are doing with Sanctuary, apparently.
Anyhow, while I won't say the concern about currency is unfounded, I think we may be giving Great League too little credit. There is nothing that said our currency have to take the same form as what we have in our world. On a more meta note, I trust SA would create interesting enough spin even for something like currency.
Anyhow, while I won't say the concern about currency is unfounded, I think we may be giving Great League too little credit. There is nothing that said our currency have to take the same form as what we have in our world. On a more meta note, I trust SA would create interesting enough spin even for something like currency.
Af far as I can tell this is excatly 100% wrong. I mean if I understand correctly the merchants already control everything that doesn't belong to state. If you want to buy anything you have to go to merchants no mattter what. And I don't get why you think lack of currency prewents merchants from buying labor? People need to eat so if you cantrol food trade you can order anyone around. And while it seems guilds will protect people (a little) the only thing that does is makes class divide much much worse. To the point that in the worst case scenerio if you don't belong to a guild you're basicly a slave of merchants who control food, land, water, building materials and just about anything else not state owned.
Again they already have those keys and what currency does is to hand them over to the rest of the people ending merchant monopoly.
Because with currency you can exlude merchants completly not giving them any benefits while without it you always have to use merchants in any trade.
And again how can you make them go away if without currency they are the only thing keeping the country togheter. Without them it instantly falls to ruin. More then that what I want to do with currency is exacly to create a way to get rid of merchants without destroying the entire cuntry.
Becuase trade is not explioting people if there is no monopoly. The problem with merchants is exacly that only they can make trades so they have all the power. For example reputation. If you piss a merchant off he can easily ruin your reputation with no oversight and then in the worst case scenario you starve to death because no one will sell you food. On the other hand if anyone can trade then you go to a farmer and buy food direcly. Sure it's going to probably be more expensive but at least you won't starve.
As I already said as far as I can tell currency is going to do exactly opposite. Without it merchants accumulate all the wealth with no limit while with it we can control them and prevent excatly what you fear (and what is happening right now).
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Cassiemouse
Market Atheist
I don't feel like you are engaging with the economics post our QM just wrote. Merchants are largely not accumulating wealth right now. It's just a series of contracts of goods for goods in a cycle to keep everything going. In bigger cities we have Historian-Bureaucrats who use surplus taxes to provide for things like labor councils who are somewhat out of the loop of the family system right now but there must be a better way to solve that issue than bringing in something horrible like currency and markets?
- Location
- France
- Pronouns
- She/They
I don't see why the true people who have been at the mercy of islanders' economic domination would be that attached to their system? And we didn't have that many issues integrating other polities despite their disparate systems. I really don't think there's anything in the updates supporting the need for currency to enable assimilation? It's largely just a demand of the merchants to facilitate their trade.
And sure, it'll have a spin on it but I expect it's still one where production for profit start replacing production for needs.
The merchants don't in fact control everything? Most production is done by associations of producers, be it the crasftmen or labourers. Merchants merely buy from them. What I'm worried about is that currency will make it easier for merchants to buy individual labourers' labour and that this will erode the rights they gained by forming associations of producers.
Merchants absolutely don't own the land as things are, for example. And I'm pretty sure we're distributing food according to needs rather than forcing people to buy it to survive. Producers have to deal with merchants to make their supply chains work, not to avoid starvation.
I don't care about who's a merchant, I care about what they do as a class. Opening up membership in the merchant class changes nothing to that.
Merchants already compete with each other and money isn't going to remove the need for networking. You'll just get the new people coopted into the merchant class if a handful happen to succeed despite having none of the advantages the merchants have accumulated.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Sure...but currency doesn't inherently change that? They can already accumulate wealth in the form of currency if they feel like it (since Sanctuary has it, and the exchange rate kind of has to be stable-ish on at least basic commodities or things wouldn't work)...creating our own currency just allows people outside Sanctuary other than merchants access to that system.
Like, right now, there is currency but only for wealthy people who are paying attention. I don't see how allowing other people to also have currency is a problem in and of itself. There's the potential for social problems, sure, but I think Knkspl's posts are a good example of the social problems that can arise in the current system absent currency. Like, the merchants aren't actually that bad right now...but they could be and nothing in the economic system is preventing it, it's all societal and none of those societal factors disappear just because currency becomes standardized.
Basically, right now, only merchants can have bank accounts (using Sancturay's currency system) or other significant wealth accumulation, and everyone else just has to trust that they'll use that power of being the ones who have bank accounts and savings for the good of society. So far they mostly have, but I can't imagine that making that kind of power broadly available rather than their exclusive privilege is gonna make them somehow more powerful or ruin the society.
At the moment, the ability to have money isn't nonexistent, it's just (outside Sanctuary) the privilege of a specific class of people. I don't think leveling that particular playing field as much as possible is gonna be a bad thing for equality and social cohesion.
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First in real life that would be the case but hear merchants basiclly already own everything not state or guild owned. By creating currency we can eliminete merchant as a middle man and so slash their profits extremly. And while it will make acumulation a bit easier for mercahnts it will also make it easier for everyone else.
Second as far as I can tell berter worked only with relativly small amout of goods. But in our country we have magic, elecricity and many, many goods. If you want to make it real barter you'd need to establish relative price beetwen all or most of them. Like wheet to milk. Milk to cows. Cows to wheet. Rocks to cows. Rocks to wheet. Rocks to milk etc. You could simplify it to one good like everything to wheet... but then wheet becomes currency and you don't have barter. What that also means is that in barter you need to do at least x to the power two work while with currency you only need x work. It's massivly inneficient.
And lastly I admit your last point made me chuckle. I mean it was in a reply to what was basicly my joke but it took me completly by surprise. Good discusion skills
. But to reply siriously I think it's not true becouse if it would help merchants they could easily implement it. Just pay people in coin and take coin back. Merchants own baiscaly all trades so they could easly do it. On top of that there is almost no reason people would reject curency. After all the only thing merchants have to say is "with this you can easily trade among each other without us taking profit" and at least half the socity would immidietly accept it. After all for them it's pure profit and most people don't really care about long term when there is profit. So af far as I can tell my explanation is massively more likely then yours.
Cassiemouse
Market Atheist
The problem with currency in general is that it will turn labor from a pro-social, collective ritual sanctified by spirits to a more anti-social, individualistic endeavor. That is why it's corrosive. Markets inherently rupture social bonds and turn people against each other. Currency would definitely allow us to create a much more flexible and fluid economic system that would grow faster and easier but it would also empower the Merchant class in doing so. I don't think the costs are worth the benefits.
I mean sure... but how can merchants not accumulate wealth? I mean every trade almost has to be profitable to merchant or they wouldn't make the trade. And if every trade is profitable then by default they have to accumulate wealth. Sure they can invest it or spend it, but that doesn't change they basicly have to always be getting richer. And the entire system only works because every class agrees, if even one starts to disagre then everything goes to ruin or civil war (like the one we had with warriors).
But now the only reason it's pro social is because everyone agrees. Again if even one class disagrees then all goes to ruin. Also can we even call socity so divided in clases that people from other classes are forever unable to do jobs of others (like merchants) a pro social in the first place. I mean I think someting social should be good for everyone in a society and by not taking currency we are making one class much more important then others.
On top of that, again taking currency doen't mean inventing money. We already have money and market. What it does is make it so any one can do what only merchants can now making then non essentail to country's existance. As far as I'm concerned that is much more social then what we have now. This way at least everyone has a chance and merchants will lose most of their power over the entire country as a whole.
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Cassiemouse
Market Atheist
No, every trade doesn't have to be profitable, their social role is to cycle the goods and services people need to the people who need them. In an ideal situation there would be zero profit. What they get out of it is a functional society where they are able to enjoy a variety of goods and services while participating in a pro-social endeavor for the good for their society.
- Location
- an unseen void
- Pronouns
- Any
People are putting so much on the back of 'currency,' like the profit motive and corrosive self-interest doesn't exist until it's introduced, like markets don't exist until it's introduced, like right now production choices are just made by vibes and sometimes Historian request and not impacted by supply and demand in any way. None of this checks out.
This is so much more than "currency." Among other things, we're already living in a commercial society and it already has markets. It's not a neoliberal under-regulated market economy, and it's not an exclusively planned economy. It has markets and plans and individual people and enterprises that coexist without an ideological deathmatch. There are people who accumulate surpluses and government actions that redistribute them. This is already there, without currency. Holding back currency will not change any of this.
And a starving merchants. After all merchants have to travel, make contacts, create family, provide for them, tech them, transport goods, hire workers all of which requires resorces to be spent. That's why I said trades basicly have to be profitable and can't be zero sum. And do you really belive merchants won't make at least a little profit on each trade that would at least allow them to expand their buisness and enable them to make more trades? As I said trades basically have to be profitable for merchants it just won't work any other way.
And even if 99% of merchants did like you said and take just enough that one percent would immiedietly expand their buisness above others and dominete the markets, becoming the most powerfull merchants and making most trades to make the most profit.
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- Pronouns
- He/Him
I don't think a system where only the merchants have control of all money is better than that, though. Like, the things that have been allowing the current system of social obligations to function are currently in the process of becoming less relevant, leaving more and more power in the hands of the merchant class, who are already more than capable of doing whatever kind of economic abuse and chicanery you can imagine because, as mentioned, they already have access to currency.
But also, and perhaps more importantly, the problem you're describing also isn't really about currency, it's about value. Specifically, it's about what the society in question chooses to view and encourage as success, and while personal wealth can be on that list, currency doesn't inherently make that the case, nor does the lack of currency inherently make it not the case. It's a social issue, and a real one, but not one inherently tied to the existence of currency in the way you seem to feel it is.
You're assuming that currency makes the system just like ours and that's fundamentally not true on a variety of levels. Like, you assume that currency would be held individually rather than by, say, Labor Councils...that's an assumption, not an inherent part of currency existing. I'm not sure that Labor Councils holding it is inherently better, mind you, but it's an illustration of my point, which is that currency =/= our current economic system in the real world. Sure, we use currency, but so could a lot of other systems that work radically differently.
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Actually it changes everything. After all when everyone is a merchant then no one is. And that is my point. By taking currency we basically dismantle political power of the merchant class turning it from a class to just a job.
And again that's my point. There is absolutely nothing stoping merchants from owning land and there is absolutely nothing stoping them from straving people they don't like to death. It doesn't really matter they as a class are not doing that now. After all they can do it and so at least 0.01% of them will do it. Because they can. And who is going to punish them? If they stop working country is ruind and all people starve.
But if the only place you can buy anything is from merchants and they decide they are not going to sell to you? If you want you can go on a 2 week trip to a producer who will likely not even trede with you because one you don't have what he wants and two he will offend merchants this way risking they will stop selling to him too. And during this weeks you're away you're not working, not making anything of value, away from your familly and risking it's all for nothing. If that is not control over everything I don't know what is.
And to those who will say there is conpetition in merchants. Yes. But there is nothing prventing them from banding thogheter and doing exactly what I said. And that is my problem and why I think we need currency ASAP.
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Anchises
Le Charismeur
- Location
- Germany
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Your plan is not only introducing currency though?
It includes the advent of mass media & propaganda in our society.
It really doesn't take that much creativity to see how the, already dominant in our society now, merchants will be supercharged by currency which is going to benefit them far to the excess of anybody else. This increased influence will allow them to dominate the new field of mass media and pump out propaganda that justifies and reinforces their leading role. Meanwhile it leaves historian dominance over our military unchallenged setting up a nasty clash we could easily avoid.
- Location
- an unseen void
- Pronouns
- Any
There is something that stops them: it is called the government. It is a federal consensus democracy that has never chained a hand behind its back to stop dealing with the rich; it's a pretty cool social tech, on the whole, and a vehicle by which we can use future social techs to respond to problems.
And if goverment tries merchants go on strike and there is no more goverment. All because one person was starved to death by one merchant
. And again it's not about what will happen but what CAN happen.
- Location
- an unseen void
- Pronouns
- Any
And if goverment tries merchants go on strike and there is no more goverment. All because one person was starved to death by one merchant
you're even on my side of the vote here but this is so wild to me i can't not comment lol. no! it's so hard to make this work! this is just galt's gulch with some bonus teamsters, it's a fantasy that is prohibitively difficult logistically.
the last time in this game/society that one class tried to take power through a soft coup, every other class told them to fuck off with immediate mass action. i think this would go even worse for merchants than it did for the warriors.