IamtooSleepy
I came here to be an ant
[X] Plan: Build the Peace
GODSTAR - a Science Fantasy Civilization Quest
- Thread starter ScottishMongol
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- civ quest
[X] Plan: Build the Peace
-[X] Unite the True People.
-[X] Matsci: Deep-Water Vessels (2/2)
-[X] Matsci: Printing Press (1/1)
-[X] Matsci: Radios (1/1)
-[X] Matsci: Film (1/1)
-[X] Matsci: Life Support (1/2)
-[X] Socsci: Labor Corps (2/2)
-[X] Socsci: Archaeology (1/1)
-[X] Socsci: Currency (1/1)
-[X] Socsci: Ethics (1/1)
-[X] Socsci: Propaganda (1/1)
-[X] Exosci: Afterlife (3/3)
-[X] Exosci: Spiritual Empowerment (1/1)
-[X] Exosci: Spirits of the Hunt (1/1)
-[X] Exosci: Spirit Warriors (1/1)
-[X] Exosci: Mass War Magics (1/1)
-[X] Exosci: Study Homunculi (1/4)
-[X] Cold War: Cultural Exchange
-[X] Unite the True People.
-[X] Matsci: Deep-Water Vessels (2/2)
-[X] Matsci: Printing Press (1/1)
-[X] Matsci: Radios (1/1)
-[X] Matsci: Film (1/1)
-[X] Matsci: Life Support (1/2)
-[X] Socsci: Labor Corps (2/2)
-[X] Socsci: Archaeology (1/1)
-[X] Socsci: Currency (1/1)
-[X] Socsci: Ethics (1/1)
-[X] Socsci: Propaganda (1/1)
-[X] Exosci: Afterlife (3/3)
-[X] Exosci: Spiritual Empowerment (1/1)
-[X] Exosci: Spirits of the Hunt (1/1)
-[X] Exosci: Spirit Warriors (1/1)
-[X] Exosci: Mass War Magics (1/1)
-[X] Exosci: Study Homunculi (1/4)
-[X] Cold War: Cultural Exchange
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[X] Plan: Build the Peace
It has everything I want in a plan. It hits all the cultural expansion options, which has incredible synergy with everything given the world is getting more and more interconnected. The exotic science techs are on point too with Afterlife being a phenomenal achievement for any society, as well as picking up some of the last techs from our conquest. Notably in general given it takes a great deal of 1 dot technologies, we're likely hitting quite a lot of prerequisities which should make next turns decisions fun.
It has everything I want in a plan. It hits all the cultural expansion options, which has incredible synergy with everything given the world is getting more and more interconnected. The exotic science techs are on point too with Afterlife being a phenomenal achievement for any society, as well as picking up some of the last techs from our conquest. Notably in general given it takes a great deal of 1 dot technologies, we're likely hitting quite a lot of prerequisities which should make next turns decisions fun.
- Location
- France
- Pronouns
- She/They
[X] Plan: The War of Unification (compromise edition)
Fuck currency. We have perfectly good societal systems that never required it. I have no idea why people are dead set on greed as a motivator. This isn't even currency as an accounting tool, this is actual coins circulating in exchange for products. We're way past that as a society and we have an opportunity to circumvent that whole sorry episode of history.
Also fuck theDutch Islanders' colonialism.
Fuck currency. We have perfectly good societal systems that never required it. I have no idea why people are dead set on greed as a motivator. This isn't even currency as an accounting tool, this is actual coins circulating in exchange for products. We're way past that as a society and we have an opportunity to circumvent that whole sorry episode of history.
Also fuck the
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[X] Plan: Build the peace
Because by taking currency we can make it so greed is less of a motivator. Remember currency is only a number we can place on a wealth that already exists and is colleceted be merchants with no limit. If we want to limit it we need a way to measure wealth, a number to put on it so we can make new laws, place taxes and regulations.
Also in other words what I meant to say is that after first we establish coins people will have to buy them from the goverment by exchanging equvalent wealth. So in the end the only thing that changes is that we can measure how much each person has because total amout of wealth doesn't increase. Poor are still poor and rich are still rich only now we can tell who is who and place laws and taxes on them.
Also also from what I've read our barter system is actually really complicated and in favor of merchants. So by your own metric it is bad. And with currency we can make better one.
If you want more reasons please feel free to read my post from the last page I put a lot of them there.
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- Location
- a place
I'm not sure the idea that our society has no way of tracking forms of wealth is really true, and the idea that the introduction of a currency based economic system somehow disempowers classes of landholders and merchants has a litany of historical counterexamples.
Edit: I understand people like theorizing here, but this isn't something we have to speculate about. Historians have been studying and writing about transitions to these sort of economies since before anyone in this thread was born, and if your question is 'does transitioning to a currency based society empower merchants' the preponderance of evidence and historical consensuses is a resounding yes.
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Cassiemouse
Market Atheist
I continue to feel like physical manifestations of abstract value and meaning are binding us to the world. How can we escape the material laws that bind us when we create new ones through writing and the circulation of currency? Such devices only weigh heavily on our souls. If there is to be a union of spirit and material then we should seek a better way, I think.
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- Location
- France
- Pronouns
- She/They
My issue is that currency isn't going to be limited to an accounting tool for merchants the way it's implemented here. It's going to start putting prices on all our society's economic products, and gear all of it towards producing for profit rather than to fulfill people's needs. Barter contained only to the merchants' complex system is not as toxic to society as currency everyone will start answering to.
If there's an issue with merchants accumulating goods, we can address that by reforming the way our society distribute goods. Handing them a tool that makes them more powerful and will spread to grant them power over other systems in our society the barter didn't really get into is not an improvement.
If you can solve my problems then I'd agree with you, but how do you even regulate barter trade? It seems like we are using depts and such, but still it's arbitrary. How do you tax or regulate that. And while I can't speak for history I think that in this case while it might empower merchants a bit (and take them down in other areas) it would also empower other classes. After all right now the only people that can make real trades are merchants because you need insane amount of connections in order to buy anything in a barter system. By taking currency we can make it so that anybody can do the same, which almost certainly has to hitmerchants the hardest.
Also on the last page I mentioned that:
1. If we don't have currency others can take theirs and insert it into our borders controlling our economy.
2. If the machine army are not idiots they will do exactly that so merchants will get their hends on currency anyway no matter what we do.
I actually agree quite a bit, but I think that before we can devalue money we need firm foundation. By taking currency we can get taxes, which after enough accumulation we can use to make standard needs for poeple completly free and make it so the only things you need money for are luxuries and buisnesses. At that point anyone can do anything really with wealth being non issue while our country runs smoothly and ambitious people can still try their best to collect money for luxuries.
Yes it is going to put prices on things and gear it towards profit but thats why goverments regulate it (and as we are the real leaders we can almost certainly regulate it ourselves). Also what makes you think our barter system is any different? As far as I can tell it's very simmilar with the only real difference being that merchants are the only ones able to accumulate wealth so they are the only people geared towards profit which makes them the most powerfull class (which as far as I can tell we try to avoid?). The only actual changes currency brings is that anyone can do what only merchants can do now (due to insane connections needed for barter) and that we will be able to regulate the entire market. And while, yes, it will gear our socity for profit more then it is now (from only merchants to everyone) we will still be able to regulate it.
On the other hand how do you want to reform our socity without currency? Remember we are only disembodied voice of all the people, we can't tell merchants to stop. The only thing other then currency that can stop wealth accumulation in merchants is a civil war that would completly ruin our entire economy. After all merchants are the most powerfull class right now because all trade needs connections only merchants have. Without them and first taking currency our entire country collapses overnight (I don't really remember but wasn't there a crisis in real history where country almost collapsed because people stopted fuel trucks for two weeks? Imagine that only with all goods for years). So without currency we can't really do anything to merchants. Only after we establish it will merchants become a role anyone can do and only then will we be able to create some social class ballance.
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- Location
- France
- Pronouns
- She/They
Markets abhor being excluded. What stops the people with all the wealth leveraging it into political power to reduce taxes and erode the safety net so they can start monetizing it? You're not increasing the state's power, you're setting it against its own economic system.
always_confused
Perpetually unwanted
- Location
- SEA
[X] Plan: The War of Unification (compromise edition)
Economy of the League
- Location
- Great Khanate of Scotland
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Someone asked for an explanation on how the League's economy worked and it seemed pertinent to the vote.
1) Debt, the First 10 Turns
In the preindustrial League, people operated on a complex system of social debt. Financial debt is a very precise and detailed concept, social debt is more nebulous. You provided goods and services out of the expectation that at some point you will be repaid. Reputation is a big part of this; if you were prosperous, you shared your bounty with all your neighbors, so that if you suffered from disaster, people would remember this and come to your assistance. You also had regular debt jubilees which served to level the playing field and reset the system. This was coupled with regular festivals in which people were encouraged to redistribute their wealth, which both earned them social capital and served to reduce inequality. As urbanization grew and people began to accumulate more wealth, this started to break down, so you implemented more direct methods of wealth redistribution like taxation and government requistions.
2) Merchants and Currency
Merchants do not actually produce things, craftsmen-Mechanicals or laborers do. However, merchants are responsible for moving this stuff around and distributing it; your average merchant family thus includes a lot of people we would consider working-class like longshoremen or teamsters, the difference is they're the younger members of the family and are expected to graduate out of that position and move to one of the cushier jobs older members have.
The thing is, currency is useful in certain ways. Everything has a monetary value, and while prices fluctuate at least everyone agrees you can exchange anything for currency. This is good if you're dealing in bulk goods.
To use an example: I make hammers and you gather berries. You might not always need hammers, but I always need berries to eat. Under social debt, you give me the berries because I'm the guy who makes all your hammers. Under a currency system, both hammers and berries have a monetary value, so we can just pay for everything.
You can see the positives and negatives in each system.
Merchants tend to work on contract; a family will provide a mine with all their supplies in exchange for their metal, then will trade that metal to craftsmen in exchange for tools, then give those tools to miners and foresters, then give that food back to everyone else. Every so often the local council will requisition supplies for a public works project, or tax the surplus, or a debt jubilee will lead to contracts being reset. Your legal system deals a lot with people renegotiating contracts which happens from time to time.
3) Changes
Increasingly, the family is a less important vehicle of social organization. Urbanization and mass social movements have meant that many people exist outside the extended family unit (although the family is still quite strong culturally and socially). They are organized by guilds and labor councils, which provide insurance to their members among other things, replacing the aforementioned system of social debt. They're also more reliant on state programs which are run by Historian-bureaucrats. Merchants are still powerful, but increasingly reliant on state infrastructure like the railway system.
4) Sanctuary and International Finance
Sanctuary has currency. They also have a complex system of finance and wealth redistribution inspired by Islamic jurisprudence. You didn't spec into any of this in integration, which means you have an internal trade barrier; in Sanctuary, they use money, but money isn't accepted by merchant families in the rest of the League, so Sanctuary's merchants work on contract internally and buy and sell with currency when dealing with the Islander Folk. The League does have a quite sizeable reserve of foreign currency which they use in trade, because it's easier that way. If a merchant family wants to buy, say, tropical hardwood from the Islander Folk, they'll use money to buy it, then once it's in the hands of the family it goes out on contracts.
1) Debt, the First 10 Turns
In the preindustrial League, people operated on a complex system of social debt. Financial debt is a very precise and detailed concept, social debt is more nebulous. You provided goods and services out of the expectation that at some point you will be repaid. Reputation is a big part of this; if you were prosperous, you shared your bounty with all your neighbors, so that if you suffered from disaster, people would remember this and come to your assistance. You also had regular debt jubilees which served to level the playing field and reset the system. This was coupled with regular festivals in which people were encouraged to redistribute their wealth, which both earned them social capital and served to reduce inequality. As urbanization grew and people began to accumulate more wealth, this started to break down, so you implemented more direct methods of wealth redistribution like taxation and government requistions.
2) Merchants and Currency
Merchants do not actually produce things, craftsmen-Mechanicals or laborers do. However, merchants are responsible for moving this stuff around and distributing it; your average merchant family thus includes a lot of people we would consider working-class like longshoremen or teamsters, the difference is they're the younger members of the family and are expected to graduate out of that position and move to one of the cushier jobs older members have.
The thing is, currency is useful in certain ways. Everything has a monetary value, and while prices fluctuate at least everyone agrees you can exchange anything for currency. This is good if you're dealing in bulk goods.
To use an example: I make hammers and you gather berries. You might not always need hammers, but I always need berries to eat. Under social debt, you give me the berries because I'm the guy who makes all your hammers. Under a currency system, both hammers and berries have a monetary value, so we can just pay for everything.
You can see the positives and negatives in each system.
Merchants tend to work on contract; a family will provide a mine with all their supplies in exchange for their metal, then will trade that metal to craftsmen in exchange for tools, then give those tools to miners and foresters, then give that food back to everyone else. Every so often the local council will requisition supplies for a public works project, or tax the surplus, or a debt jubilee will lead to contracts being reset. Your legal system deals a lot with people renegotiating contracts which happens from time to time.
3) Changes
Increasingly, the family is a less important vehicle of social organization. Urbanization and mass social movements have meant that many people exist outside the extended family unit (although the family is still quite strong culturally and socially). They are organized by guilds and labor councils, which provide insurance to their members among other things, replacing the aforementioned system of social debt. They're also more reliant on state programs which are run by Historian-bureaucrats. Merchants are still powerful, but increasingly reliant on state infrastructure like the railway system.
4) Sanctuary and International Finance
Sanctuary has currency. They also have a complex system of finance and wealth redistribution inspired by Islamic jurisprudence. You didn't spec into any of this in integration, which means you have an internal trade barrier; in Sanctuary, they use money, but money isn't accepted by merchant families in the rest of the League, so Sanctuary's merchants work on contract internally and buy and sell with currency when dealing with the Islander Folk. The League does have a quite sizeable reserve of foreign currency which they use in trade, because it's easier that way. If a merchant family wants to buy, say, tropical hardwood from the Islander Folk, they'll use money to buy it, then once it's in the hands of the family it goes out on contracts.
The safety nets? I mean that's what they are for right? Also I'm pretty sure we are starting to go off topic a little, so by going back in quest, what stops merchants from doing exactly the same right now? After all if they stop doing trades our country is mostly ruind if it won't collapse outright. So if things stay the same state is already set against it's economic system. The only change currency will really bring is let anyone do what only merchants can now so the risks will actually be gratly mitigated and again it would make for a much better social power distribution. It's much harder to get the entire population to stop working then a few merchant families right?
Also you need a lot of wealth to leverage it into political power and currency is the only real way of stoping merchants from accumulating it infinitely which would allow them to erode safty nets even easier (and with no competition).
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This is the real interesting part. I mean if merchants know what currency is why didn't they implement it themselves? I mean out of character it's obvious, but in character literally the only reason it could be this way is if merchants didn't want currency because they realized it would deal them a massive blow. I mean in character at least I can't see anything else that makes even a little bit of sense especially when currency action is writen like a discovery we need to make. Altough it might be nothing I will personally take it as a: merchants don't want currency because it will hurt them.
Of course it's just my personal opinion.
Cassiemouse
Market Atheist
I think from our perspective money and the markets that come with them are horrifying institutions that are corrosive to the very fabric of our social order and we want to avoid implementing them until we can just skip to doing a proper in-kind planned economy possibly when we get more computerization or it's magical equivalent.
But as far as I can tell we already have both. Just that money isn't counted by currency and market is exlusive to only merchants. On the other hand if we can take currency we can make much faster proggres towards the planed economy (or hybrid maket-planned or any other kind of economy)
What's worse is that our market is out of control and unregulated which is exacly why I think we really need currency. At least that way we can minimize any potential damege.
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- Location
- France
- Pronouns
- She/They
What stops merchants from doing the same is the lack of currency meaning that not everything in out society is subject to the market they have power over. They could do a trading strike, but that's a lot easier to deal with than them actually controlling the economy through buying labour, which is where currency leads.
I really don't see how currency is the way to stop merchants from growing their power. It's handing them the keys to the rest of society by ensuring all of it will be monetized in ways they can control. I don't think competition is a good way to erode their power either, because they already have all the starting advantages and even if some people manage to be successful, they'll only get coopted into it.
No, what currency does is gear all our production towards sale for profit rather than fulfilling people's needs. If the merchants are an impediment to ensuring we keep fulfilling those needs, they have to go, not get handed more power by opening everything to trading through currency.
You don't need computers to plan, just people being willing to talk to each other and coordinate. What we need to do is connect producers and consumers in a more organized way.
Currency will plunge us straight into a full market economy, which is actively hostile to planning. If the merchants having power and wealth is an issue, this addresses none of it, this just opens up more of society to their greed. I have no idea why you believe having people not born in the merchant class also succeed at exploiting others would be in any way beneficiary?
- Location
- a place
If your objection to the idea of people regulating and taxing bartered wealth is it's too arbitrary to actually be possible, I'll point out that not only is the cost of things in money totally arbitrary too, but that people have been setting tithes on wealth for the communal good and making laws about what or how different things can be traded far financified societies. They just taxed and regulated the goods and forms of labor directly, rather then doing so through abstract, arbitrary approximations of value.
Historically, introducing currency largely privileged people who dealt with extremely large numbers of very similar goods such as traders or gentry by making such dealings easier and thereby also making them more profitable. It also made hoarding wealth and passing it down generationally far easier due too only needing too accumulate specific, small, portable representations of value to do so rather then your wealth only being what goods, labor, and arguably obligations you had access too in the moment that can more easily 'fall out of circulation' so to speak as years, decades, and centuries pass. Herds of livestock eventually pass away, crops would grow rotten, fine goods became tarnished with age, but currency tended to remain valuable to people far longer.
This more rapid accumulation of wealth for people who already had it gave them even more relative power over the average person who is likely to live 'hand to mouth' regardless of economic system and thus weren't as nearly as able to take advantage of the benefits of this transition. Moreover, merchants and landed classes tended to them use that newfound greater wealth, and thus greater power via the ability to incentivize economy activity, sought to increase their power by commodifying more and more resources that had either formlly been communal or had informally been so via social contract.
This of course allowed to accumulate even more wealth even faster in a process that you could describe as exponential, and in turn use this power to influence society away from existing traditions and laws that limited their accumulation of wealth like being expected to redistribute wealth to the wider community or mass forgiveness of debts.
Tl;dr: Currency makes it a lot easier for people who are already wealthy to rapidly accumulate more wealth, and thus more power to make accumulating more wealth and power easier at the expense of others, whereas the average person tends to become relatively less powerful due to living hand to mouth in a manner that makes gaining much currency in excess of providing for their needs difficult.
The merchants already use currency when dealing with their foreign counterparts. What they haven't been able to do yet is convince the rest of society to take them up, which suggests that other classes might recognize that it's prescence would corrode their powerbases such as the guilds and labor councils that have formed, while empowering their rivals.
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