I advocate for coin and food. Food would already largely have a set price on the market at any points in time, and most of our society is based on farmers so they're either elites with coin or farmers with food.
Reminder that this crisis started back then with the coin value of food changing seasonally and people using it to game the government by just swapping food for coin for luxuries in an infinite money loop by gaming exchange rates.
The reason that I think we should tax only food and coin is primarily because AN said that around 90% of our population are farmers. That means that the majority of people can pay with food because we have amazing farming practices and basically never have any bad harvests, so food is always an option.
Those that aren't farmers likely almost all live in our True Cities, which means that they are the clerks, artisans, and oligarchs, the people who make a bunch of money. It's easiest for them to pay in coin because they don't have time to farm or do things outside of their field of work, so coin is an acceptable substitute. Plus, we have been using coins in cities already for hundreds of years, so it's an easy concept to follow. The State will also only have to keep track of two types of tax, and won't have to worry about what each labor is individually worth and if labor is worth a different amount in different places or whatever, so it doesn't add too much unneeded complexity.
I'm also against paying with labor because it would negatively impact our lower class, in that people would be encouraged to work in shitty conditions or possibly do unsavory "favors" to meet their labor quotas, and because they pay in labor they don't really get the chance to make coin and move out of their shitty conditions.
Reminder that this screws the lower class HARD. Farmers are middle class at present since they have time and wealth. Lower class are menial labor in cities.
[] [Tax] Coin only
Strongly favors the urban elite, and is the easiest for the clerks but puts an immense strain on our metal supply. We need enough coin for EVERYONE, or watch the value of a coin skyrocket.
The poor are forced to work shitty jobs for the coin to pay their taxes if the metal supply drops.
The biggest stress point here is that it's fragile to mine output and there's basically nothing you can do about that.
[] [Tax] Food or coin
Strongly favors the rural, strongly disfavors the urban poor.
The biggest stress point here is that it's fragile to environment and economy.
In times of bountiful harvest, people will take their coin to buy cheap grain to pay their taxes, which the government then sells cheaply for coin to trade for labor at a loss or face wastage from food spoilage.
In times of famine, people will pay the government in coin, which reduces the amount of grain the government has available to cope with crisis.
Functionally, a Coin/Food Tax establishes a floor value for food.
Food will never go cheaper than their tax value.
[] [Tax] Labour or coin
Strongly favors manual laborers, disfavors the wealthy elite.
The biggest stress point here is that it's complicated to make 'fair' or 'flexible', but it ensures a steady supply of unskilled labor for infrastructure and megaprojects.
Functionally, a Coin/Labor tax establishes a floor value for labor.
Your wages will never go cheaper than their tax value.
@Academia Nut do we have a standard granary size, because otherwise people will play silly buggers with their granaries, I'm betting.
Literalist reading.
Granaries refer to the state granaries, remember?
So, to expand upon my Tax vote with some analysis (because YAY TAXES
)
[][Tax] Food, labour, or coin
This is incredibly complicated, and specifically called out in-text as being extremely complicated. Expect problems if we do this, both immediately (hard to make the rules work) and long-term (hard to keep all three values in sync with each other)
[][Tax] Food or coin
This is short-term optimal. So long as the harvests are good, the elites pay in coin and the farmers pay in food. The problem then comes in those who are neither. It's not really practical to maintain a small farm, so if you want to try some new innovation that might or might not work it's hard to save up enough coin to both fund the project and pay your taxes.
Furthermore, if we do get a bad harvest, the rural farmers are in a lot of trouble. They don't have coin since the goods they sell (food) is ruined. They don't have food, it was ruined. Thus they either don't pay their taxes or they pay their taxes and starve.
[][Tax] Labour or coin
This is simple: the government wants some large public works project or other government-run low-skill job. They assign some minimum wage and if you don't have the coin, you do the labor. Only unskilled labor need apply, as any skilled labor has coin. Even farmers will have plenty of coin from selling their food, and if not then they have the time to do labor for the government.
It's worse in the short term since it's a bigger change for the farmers, but it also forces them more into the market to sell their food at a higher price than their labor would be worth.
Or I could just second this.
Which can just be made paid jobs and covered by coin. Why make it harder for clerks?
Really, labour tax can juust be made subset of coin tax with paid government projects, it is wholly redundant.
The redundancy is the
point, because it relieves the stress of maintaining sufficient coin supply in circulation.
If their participating in such projects why would the government just not pay them in coin instead?
Plus, digging a trench is no where near as intense or complex as building an aqueduct, so I'm not sure why you would consider both to be low level grunt work.
Actually, building an aqueduct requires a lot of low level grunt work, and some skilled work to paln and prepare the materials. The actual laying and earthmoving is a lot of unskilled labor.
