Thread: Would this work in a society?

I believe there's precedent for this in the real world. If I'm not mistaken, the Roman Empire used to pay its soldiers in salt (the origin of the word "salary", I believe). Currency comes about because it's difficult to carry bags of commodities around...and because it's prestigious to be able to mint coins with your face on them.

Edit: AND, in societies where the local currency has gone to pot, people still trade in commodities - during the Russian fiscal crisis several years ago people converted their paychecks to vodka because it held its value better than cash. I don't know, but I expect that people accepted vodka and other goods in lieu of cash during that time for the same reasons. The same situation has, I believe, occurred in many other parts of the world that have experienced runaway currency devaluation.

One suggestion: if units are related to weight I would suggest that x units of wood would not be equivalent value to x units of rice or x units of iron. Either there should be an exchange rate (20 units of rice = 1 unit of iron) or the weights should be different (1 unit of rice (20lbs) = 1 unit of iron (1lb)) for each kind of commodity. Services should have a value in commodity terms, e.g. one hour of blacksmithing is worth 0.25 units of iron, etc. This could all get pretty complicated because you'd need a big table showing the relationships between the various forms of commodities, services, etc. (another reason for creating currency).
M

Wow, good stuff if you ask me, but a few ideas popped into my head and maybe might point you in the right direction.

1. Soldiers - The city or who ever either A. are volunteers, or B. the town has a Tax of goods meaning for ever 20 units of rice 1 rice goes to the city storage kind of a deal, thus they get a supply for defending the city etc etc.

2. Healers, and other non material creators, along the same lines as a Soldier, but for their services they receive a payment of goods, its not like someone would want to screw a healer out of their payment if they are going to be dying =D. But also to address the servants, they should have lodging on the homes they work on, and because of the service they provide, the master of the house feeds them and lodges them, where on their own they probably wouldn't get anywhere (lack of skills maybe?) So in turn thats their payment unless they do some type of labor on the side or service to gain other materials for their needs/wants (outside of the masters stuff)

3. Has to do with the Iron, or bags of Iron etc. If its suppose to be equal or more than gold, and the area has a decent amount of it to be mined, those prospectors and miners are going to be your nobility. Cause if its fairly common, and super expensive, that means weapons and other trinkets are going to cost a fortune. You did express this, but I find it would still be hard to have a more "common" material be more than gold. But however if its scarce in the land and they must import it, now thats a totally different story.

Anyways just my 2 cents, might help might not... but good luck!

What mearrin69 said.... regardless of if you use paper(dollars, trade notes, etc), metal(gold, silver, iron, etc), salt or whatever, you really should consider some form of currency as a standard index for trading. Even if two people are trading goods vs goods, it's still nice to be able to put a "price" index upon the things being traded have equal value by weight/volume. As suggested above, 20 lbs of rice should not be worth the same as 20 lbs of wood or 20 lbs of silver. While the rice takes a long time to grow, the time invested vs the harvest is very small (assuming an abundance of "seeds" and growing habitat as there would be here on earth.) Also notice that while rice is fairly inexpensive anywhere(thinking in our world) in most cases, it should be worth far more the further you get from the origination source. I would expect that you could make very little money selling rice in a city where there are hundreds of acres of it around and far more in a more arid region where there is not enough moisture for growing it.

You know, you might end up with a de facto currency in any case:
1) If units of the same weight are the same value (as I noted above this isn't probably realistic), then people will carry whatever's less bulky. I'd rather carry 20lbs of iron (which is a small brick) than 20lbs of belly-button lint (which would, I imagine but do not know, fill several large sacks).
2) If units of the same value are different weights, then people will carry whatever is most valuable (and therefore lightest). My ounce of iron is worth a pound of rice so why would I carry several pounds of rice around for trading when a pound of iron would do?

Of course, if all you've got is rice (or if you're even more destitute and all you have is belly-button lint) then I guess you'd carry that - but I imagine folks would spend a lot of time trading for things that are durable (don't spoil) and light if they're planning on having "cash on hand".

Just my 2lbs of belly-button lint worth. (ewww)
M

yep.. agree with mearrin ... a good example could be - 20 lbs of firewood would be a lot easier to make than 20 lbs of wooden boards. Same material but a lot more work to get the latter. Even though a lot of civilisations use barter they mostly use some sort of currency too. Even the vikings had silver as a currency, they carried a necklace from which the could break a piece of silver to pay for stuff (when they didn't just raid that is *lol*). It was also important for them for the more long range trading... they were quite the travelers

In Dal society an item's/object's worth is determined by it's practical value rather than a form of monetary (check spelling) value. So steel would have more value than gold as, even though the gold is rarer and desireable in most cultures, it has more practical uses e.g. if you're looking to outfit an army or a labour crew your not going to give them golden equipment with is heavy but soft when you can give them steel or iron equipment which is more readily available and more durable; gold is still are nice commidty amogst the high nobility who can afford it.

This is the only objection I have. You say that worth is determined by practical value, which would work, if your culture is very Spartan and doesn't care for beauty. However, if gold is a nice commodity, and is expensive, as the underlined portion indicates, then your culture does value things based on beauty as well as worth.

So in Dal society, when dealing with large amounts of material and goods the unit system is used and when dealing with smaller goods or services the commidity currency is used. Trade offices are also located in each settlement with substantial trade activity to regulate these dealings and to help people convert raw goods into commodity currency and vica-versa. Would such a system seem feasible?

Absolutely. As mearrin said, the Romans did it for hundreds of years, with salt.

A very interesting idea for a fantasy society, I can definitely see this as being fun to use in a RPG-type setting.

I do agree with the other posters here though, a 1 to 1 exchange for any and all goods just doesn't make sense in any logical scenario. Some goods have an inherently greater value based on primarily two factors:
1) Rarity (scarcity), materials that are useful but rare are inherently worth more.
2) Labor, materials and goods that require more effort to make or acquire are inherently worth more.

I'm sure others who are more schooled in economics could break that down into greater detail, but those two guidelines work pretty much all the time.

That is why, say, a tool made of wood and iron is worth more than the wood and iron it is made of, because it required labor. And that is why 20 lbs. of salt is worth more than 20 lbs. of loose rocks, salt is rarer (and requires more labor to obtain) than loose stones.

I would suggest that you can keep your non-currency society intact, but maybe mix it up a bit with some pseudo-currency standards, like the exchange rates mearrin69 suggested.

Think about your society. What are their most common goods? These could be used in place of the normal dollar/euro/gold type of value system.
"That little shack over on the hill? It'll cost ya ten hogs and seven chickens"

I'm reminded of the Bone comic book series, where in the little town of Barrelhaven the standard form of currency was the egg.

I would also suggest, as some have hinted at, that labor required be taken into account. Mining iron is hard work, for sure, but making steel is a lot of work also, you have to combine iron and carbon (usually from hay or wood) and it takes hours and hours. Then to make a sword requires many many more hours. A sword has a certain weight of around 3-5 pounds. So 5 pounds of sword is worth the same as 5 pounds of clay (used for pottery). Not very likely because of all the labor involved. You might be able to say that 5 pounds of sword is worth the same as 5 pounds of shovel heads. So what I'm saying is items further down the production chain (finished goods or manufactured goods) would have to be worth more than items at the beginning of the production chain (raw materials) due to the labor factor. What happens if one blacksmith makes better swords than some other blacksmith whose swords always break? I doubt that they'd be worth the same. What if some baker makes delicious pastries while another baker just makes flatbread or one tailor makes fine clothes while another makes burlap smocks?

Since your land has castles that implies a nobility and those snobs like rare things like big fat gems and gobs of gold. Sure they may be high-minded enough to really care about their subjects but they're not going to level the playing field and live like the rice farmer when they've got a big castle. Gold and iron also weigh about the same but one is going to be prized by the upper crust more than the other. If I go to the market to buy a bagload of potatoes I'm not going to give up a couple of swords or bag of silk shirts. The farmer might say that his work is just as hard as the blacksmith's but I eat the potatoes and they come out the next day but the swords will stick around for a few years. I can also defend myself with a couple swords - I don't think that I could defend myself with a bag of potatoes unless I was Bruce Lee. So object permanence also figures in to the equation. If I'm the guy living in the castle I also want some salt and butter on my potatoes, and maybe some chives or dill, so I'd rather cough up iron dust instead of steel dust. The Dals in the Mallorean presented a utopian socialism to the world but they still had a heirarchy where the seers lived up in the mountain and told the others what to do.

You might be able to get away with this on a small scale like a village here or there but economics will always win out.

Originally Posted by Wannabehero

Think about your society. What are their most common goods? These could be used in place of the normal dollar/euro/gold type of value system.
"That little shack over on the hill? It'll cost ya ten hogs and seven chickens"

I think Wannabehero has the basis for the solution. Your basic commodity is rice and was used in Japan as the basis for measuring "wealth" on a macroscopic scale at least.
The "koku" was the amount of rice 1 person needed for one year. (Look it up on wikipedia if you haven't already?). 1 koku has a volume and a mass which can be used for measurement too.
From an economic standpoint one koku represents a number of aspects of value.
Land, to grow it on.
Time to grow it.
Labour (people) to farm it.
The total represents essentially represents a calorific value = energy.
Provided you live where it can be grown it represents a "reasonably stable" monetary standard. It's a mathematical exercise, with some land/time/people conversions, then, to convert a cost in raw iron (say). How much land, time and people does it take to make one "thing" of pig iron.
In terms of "foreign" exchange, you look at direct conversion of rice to (for example) corn, or wheat, perhaps converted via "calories".....
I'm kinda "thinking aloud" here!

You might also look at modern exchange systems. I saw something on TV once where more local/isolated communities adopt a local "scrip" for exchange of goods and services. Two hours plumbing is worth 3 hours weeding the garden?