Re: Magic, NPCs and the economy

On Dec 20, 10:44 pm, Matt Frisch <matus...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
On 21 Dec 2007 00:26:51 +1300, tussock <sc...@xxxxxxxxxxxx> scribed into
the ether:



Matt Frisch wrote:

And if we collectively decide that money is worthless, you think a law
is going to change that?

It does a pretty good job of it these days. People are paid by law in
long term non-negotiable amounts of /money/, some of the value of which
must be given to the government as /money/, items must be priced the same
for everyone and those prices must be stated in /monetary/ terms.

And it is through the continued belief in the value of that money that it
does a pretty good job these days. The legal backing is meaningless, since
the law only works based on belief as well.

Again, I think you are mistaking the need for a currency to replace a
barter economy with trust in a particular currency. Yes, it is the
common man's trust in the local currency that makes it work these days
since the coins are not worth exactly what it says on them (except a
few like the American Penny which is actually worth MORE than it says,
at least if you add the cost of manufacturing it). If the public loses
trust in the currency that currency collapses and there will be
anarchy for a while. However very quickly it will be replaced, often
in the 20th century by the Dollar, and lately by the Euro.

The Intellectual Experiment of letting ALL people all over the world
stop trusting ALL currency at once is pointless because it cannot
happen. An economy that is larger than village size (say 100 people)
will very quickly adopt a currency, ANY currency, because society
can't work without it. It is simply not possible to actually trade
Real Value with Real Value (again, I do not want to have to pay 5 oxen
and 20 chicken for my home movie equipment, it is not practical for me
(I live in an apartment in a city) nor for the store, who would have
to have stalls and grain barns 10-20 times larger than the actual
super market to store the payments from people, and to be able to give
"Change").

/Stefan
.

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