The Economy of Kemet
(aka, how the Royal Treasury is filled)
Kemet is, in theory, a divine monarchy with a command economy where all production belongs to the state. The Pharaoh owns all the land and the produce of the land in trust to the god Ra. Peasants, the fellahin, "lease" their land from the Pharaoh in exchange for a portion of all of their crops produced above subsistence level. This excess is then distributed to state employees according to their salaries, though the system of storehouses and granaries run by the state. Craftsmen, for example, are all in theory employed directly by the state to produce materials according to the needs of the local economy and for national level distribution. The great temple complexes are also hubs of this system as the priests are also all state employees and provide a great deal of the on-ground administrative manpower as well as storehouse services for a local region. Merchants exist more as purchasing agents and to facilitate exchange and transport within regions than to pursue long-distance commerce.
Of course in practice the system only really functions that way in regard to the taxes extorted out of the fellahin. The overwhelming majority of the surplus production is retained by the peasantry and used in the private barter economy. But since the agriculture tax makes up the Royal Treasury's main source of income for the purposes of administrative bookkeeping the pretense that the economy works under full state control is maintained.
The standard unit of accounting for agricultural production is the deben, defined as a unit of grain sufficient to meet the needs of an adult male for one month. The deben is fairly generous in the calculation of needs, though the average workman might require 2-3 deben while a sedentary elder or pre-adolescent might make due with a half-deben. The temples maintain stores where regulated lists of equipment and services can be exchanged for a standardized cost in deben, most frequently from grain stored at the temple complex on behalf of the consumer. Private bartering is also commonplace. Kemet does not possess currency as such, though tokens of a weight of 26 grams serve as units of account to transfer grain in storehouses as an IOU of sorts. One copper deben token is set as the standard deben, while a gold deben token represents 12 copper deben, or sufficient grain to feed an adult male for one year. The unit is roughly equivalent to the historic Japanese koku of rice. The silver deben is sufficient to feed 10 adult men for one year and is the standard unit of account for the Royal Treasury, but is almost never used in the domestic economy.
Mining exists on a large scale in the Eastern Desert of Kemet producing rich yields of gold. Mines are under full state control and their produce is entirely the property of the Pharaoh. Miners are paid generously in deben rations and provided with accommodations and medical care. Gold produced by the mines is held by the Royal Treasury and parceled out to the temples as-needed, or provided to craftsmen to turn into works of art, or lastly melted down into talents for international trade. Kemet is a major source of gold for the economy of all its neighbors and for many distant lands, with the wealth the gold mines produce being one of the most important advantages that the state enjoys. There are also other mines producing copper and turquoise in Kemet territory, whose surplus production is valued in an equivalent of talents of gold as an accounting measure. Foreign mercenaries generally prefer to take their pay in gold talents rather than deben, and foreign merchants take talents as payment for luxuries, exotica, silver, tin, dyes, craftwork, timber, and other imports to Kemet. Gold talents can also be used to buy grain from foreign lands during a famine.
Commerce inside Kemet is generally conducted within the deben system by domestic "merchants" acting as purchasing agents and is largely irrelevant to the state. Commerce with the rest of the world is generally conducted through the medium of foreigners, whether merchants from the Kanaan or the seafaring Mynosians and Mykenes. Foreigners contribute to the Royal Treasure directly through tariffs, customs taxes, and accommodations at port and at state-run caravansarais. The Royal Treasury can convert deben into gold talents through the medium of grain transactions or more involved barter procedures that eventually turn grain into gold through a number of intermediary steps. As long as the foreigners bring in goods required by the state and pay their contribution to the Treasury there is little official concern or oversight of their activity. Distrust of foreigners waxes and wanes based on international and domestic events though for the most part Kemet is not a xenophobic society and many foreigners associated with trade wind up adapting themselves to Kemet and become treated as honorary subjects. The children of such "honorary subjects" often find positions within the temple or palatial bureaucracy, as they are vastly more likely than the average native to be literate.
Of course the Treasury very rarely gets its full due. The taxed surplus of grain depends on the total yield which is affected by the annual flooding, and loses value in its path to the Treasury in three stages. Simple wastage of grain in storage or transport from vermin, accidents, rot, fungus, and so on accounts for a very large loss. Corruption at the lower level of officialdom, spread across the nation in thousands of petty acts, also eats away at the grain taxes. High level corruption among the Royal Council or Viceregal offices or grand Temples accounts for a much small proportion of loss, though concentrated in the hands of a few officials who can rapidly build up enormous fortunes. Likewise some yield from the mines may be diverted by local officials or by higher up civil servants, though it is far harder to do subtly and thus far more dangerous. The income from foreign merchants is the most reliable, as their use-fees can be collected directly from them at centralized facilities and there is little occasion or reason to try to cheat them; though of course private bribery remains possible and perhaps even likely, it does not involve the diversion of fees owed to the state.
1 copper deben = grain sufficient to feed one adult male for one month
1 gold deben = 12 copper deben
1 silver deben = 120 copper deben or 10 gold deben
1 gold talent = 60lbs of gold
deben to talent exchange rate: dependent on prevailing macroeconomic conditions
