Making currency work

[tiddy ogg]

I don't think, from my point of view, it's OOC influence... in fact it's OOC influence to envisage coins in the first place. One of my chars considered coinage in place of the IOUs she has to issue, but there didn't seem much point in spending all that effort... and the advantage of an IOU is that if that char dies, the IOU will probably die with him,. *wink*

[olaf]

Yes, for my charrie too it is also not OOC - they honestly can't see how to get from where things are to this utopian idea of everybody believing in this "guarantee" of labour. What's the point in it if (and this is what my char has struggled to get the other to accept) this coin isn't immediately interchangable for something I actually want!

There's no point saying I have 100 "labour-days" of coins if I can't get the iron, steel, or wood that I need!

There just doesn't seem to be any incentive - it's just not logical to my character.

[formerly known as hf]

Even if all of the requirments sociologist listed were met, even if there was a large organisation pushing for currency, I still doubt that it would work in Cantr.

The barter system is far too exact to need a replacement - why bother with coins as an intermediate 'exchange' if you know exactly the value of what you are offering/wanting.

Secondly, very few places in Cantr constitute the 'marketplaces' required for currency to be useful.
If I have some limestone, and I want some wood, I take my limestone to a place that has wood. If I have wood and I want limestone I take my wood to a place that has limestone.
I could wait around with my wood for the other person with limestone to turn up, but, in cantr, it's not always likely that someone will turn up sooner with the limsetone than it's take me to walk, that they'd have enough of it, and anyway, if I travel, I get to factor in 'travel time' to what my wood is worth...

There are few, if any, places in Cantr where a large quantity of varied, not-local, resources exchange hands regularly.
Trade is bipolar in Cantr - you take what you have to a place that has what you want.
Trade has been more networked in history. A few centres with links coming in from many places - You took what you had to a large population centre where other people with what you want have also travelled to...
Without centres like that in Cantr, currency will never be useful...

[deadboy]

Actually, there is a common marketplace in cantr. It's called the radio

[Wilmer Bordonado]

The barter system is far too exact to need a replacement - why bother with coins as an intermediate 'exchange' if you know exactly the value of what you are offering/wanting.

Your idea works for primitive trading, since you can get the price of any resource according how much time does it cost to you to gather it. IE 100g gold = 3000g of wood.
But while population centers become bigger and bigger, and industry step in, the price of manufactured products won't be as easy to set. The price of a pickaxe could be set because of the raw materials used on it, let's say wood, hematite, limestone, coal; but also because of the machines needed, let's say an oven (and what resources do you need for an oven? Should they be applied to price, too?); but those are not the only factors to be considered on setting prickaxe price, since resources location and distances, incidence of the new tool on gathering site's resources or making machines / buildings, are aspects of price to be seriously considered by a serious regime before selling.

As far as industry grows, much more will be needed the currency system. It's the only way to express a complexity of factors which have incidence into price.

Thinking trading as a primitive way surely don't need currency, but where trading as a way of living of a manufacturer city, currency is simply a must.

Wilmer B.

[Floris]

Well, in the Dutch area there is a coinage that has been there for like 400 days and is gradually becoming widely accepted.


The coinage, the KaTeR, is minted by a businessman and is worth one day of work.
His pricelist(and the pricelist of some others) are expressed in KaTers.

I already know of four towns (including the home town of the KaTeR) where it is by some or all people being accepted.


I think it can be seen as being backed up, because you will always be able to go to this businessman or one of his partners to change in the coin for any resource they can provide.

And as people see this and understand this, they accept, using it not only in the trading with this businessman but also with other people.


Moreover, it is also turning into a 'standard'.
People no longer saying 'one day's worth of resources' but 'for 3 katers of iron' or '1 kater's worth of limestone', while they need not necessarily trade with the coin(ie using 'coin values' to decide their barter trade).

[Phalynx]

I love it, everyone waffling on about how its impossible to do and some one else accusing OOC motivation.. Lo and behold another language group simply making it work..


Brilliant!

[Antichrist_Online]

The main cantr use for coinage I forsee is to transfer large loads in trades easily over long distances.

For example a large trade company with vehicles sets up a coinage, where for a commission they give a token plus a note saying what the goods were given to them, then the person can travel to any other office of this company and recieve the good imediately. If radio communication is included it adds security. Thus it would be harder to rob a travelling trader as they only have a token and a note with a code on it, and it allows people to transport large goods over distances easily. The notes could be sold, but would need the token sold as well, thus allowing it to be traded instead of the goods.

[Sicofonte]

The main cantr use for coinage I forsee is to transfer large loads in trades easily over long distances.

For example a large trade company with vehicles sets up a coinage, where for a commission they give a token plus a note saying what the goods were given to them, then the person can travel to any other office of this company and recieve the good imediately. If radio communication is included it adds security. Thus it would be harder to rob a travelling trader as they only have a token and a note with a code on it, and it allows people to transport large goods over distances easily. The notes could be sold, but would need the token sold as well, thus allowing it to be traded instead of the goods.

Well... you are not transporting the goods, just the worth of it, and it will become material only if that goods are in the place you are going.
I mean... SOMEONE MUST TRANSPORT THE GOODS ANYWAY.



The system of the Dutch people, coinage KaTeRs, works. But there is always the danger of piracy or natural disasters (in that and in every case of coin-based economy): if someone steals the resources of the businesman, his coins get worthless.




As other people said, I think the solution could be to use weighted iron coins. I don´t care if the businesman gets bankrupt or dies or does embezzlement, 'cause I have iron coins that I can smelt again into raw iron. But... why to use coins? LET'S USE JUST THE RAW IRON! Then, you can use it as a resource or as coin directly, without the need of machines or transforming work.

Why the iron?
- It is the most used material, valued by almost everyone in Cantr.
- It is light, high worth-density, so easy transporting.
- It needs several resources thar are never together, so the iron´s value is more or less the same in many places, with slight variances (*)


(*) Brief intuitive example: where the limestone is cheap, the hematite is expensive, and viceversa, so both places will have similar iron´s worth, and so on the places in the middle.



IBEM: Iron Barter Economy Model

[The Sociologist]

The main cantr use for coinage I forsee is to transfer large loads in trades easily over long distances. For example a large trade company with vehicles sets up a coinage, where for a commission they give a token plus a note saying what the goods were given to them, then the person can travel to any other office of this company and recieve the good imediately. The notes could be sold, but would need the token sold as well, thus allowing it to be traded instead of the goods.

Yes, but this is then the realm of promissory notes or negotiable instruments. In the above case, the last sentence makes it a negotiable instrument, ie it can be negotiated to third parties. The legal definition of a negotiable instrument is a "transferable document containing an unconditional promise or order to pay a specified amount to its holder upon demand or at a specified time." Interestingly, negotiable instruments include both cheques and bank notes. So one part of currency is negotiable instruments and the other part is coinage. In the above example, however, your "coin" is functioning merely as a sort of seal and not really as coinage.

This is one way I considered might work in Cantr.

1. Each day Joe Banker writes one or more notes "I, Joe Banker, hereby promise to pay the bearer the sum of X days labor (cheque number 1, code nnnn)" He copies the note immediately. He does something fancy to the notes so that the code on the copy which he will retain matches the code on the copy he will issue in some way without actually being identical. He then stores up these notes day after day.

2. When the time comes to issue a note, he makes an envelope. On the envelope likewise he places the promise and number (but not the code). He then places the issue copy into the envelope and seals it. This envelope is now the promissory note, which he will honor provided it is not opened!

3. Someone arrives to cash in a note and he opens the envelope. He has the following proofs against fraud:
a. His signature on the envelope.
b. His trivial "public key/private key" system, even the public key being kept within the sealed envelope.
c. The apparent age of the note when he places it back with the others (eg into the envelope where he has stored the kept copies. The note's being out of sequence may indicate a problem.)

If he has branch managers, then they could either be given the "public key/private key" secret, or else radio in the public number to him after they had opened the envelope. They could likewise check the age of the note against "batch controls", a succession of notes which they make every ten days or so when he radios them with the latest check number he has now reached.

Yes, fraud would remain possible, just as it does in the real world. But the would-be fraudster would have a reasonable amount of figuring out to do before they got anywhere. Anyhow, just an idea.

[Elros]

I would love to see currency used in Cantr. However I don't think it will ever be possible except for maybe just inside of a few towns. The reason being is that it will be close to impossible to get players around the lands and world to agree to use the currency. I know this has already been stated, but I do believe that this is the main reason it would not work. All of the other aspects of it would not be hard to work out, it is just this one that stops it from happening.

[N-Aldwitch]

I don't think, from my point of view, it's OOC influence...

Oh?

I would love to see currency used in Cantr. However I don't think it will ever be possible except for maybe just inside of a few towns. The reason being is that it will be close to impossible to get players around the lands and world to agree to use the currency. I know this has already been stated, but I do believe that this is the main reason it would not work. All of the other aspects of it would not be hard to work out, it is just this one that stops it from happening.

You people say it's not OOC influence. But there you go, WANTING it to work is OOC influence, trust me.

[Elros]

You people say it's not OOC influence. But there you go, WANTING it to work is OOC influence, trust me.

What you are saying is quite extreme. That means that every idea we get in th RD to add a new item or material is "OOC Influence". Duh it is "OOC Influence", because IC isn't able to think up new items or materials that have never been seen by them before and add them into a database that they are actually part of themselves! So of course it has some OOC Influence, but not in the form that we consider is wrong according to the rules of Cantr. Yes I think that currency would improve the roleplay for the characters that I have, and also help generate larger communities, by tying different locations together under the same currency or government. This is not wrong "OOC" influence.

[Marian]

Currency will catch on once there's a need for currency...it doesn't need to be forced by the programmers.

We don't even have a decent barter system or regular trade between towns at the moment, let alone a multi-town government that actually works, so we're a long, long ways from needing to take the next step to currency.

I've seen a couple of towns that use them, to pay their workers for so many days of work and then let them pick that amount of stuff from the town storage, but that's more because they want to use coins then because they need to. Keeping a record on a note would work just as well and be a lot easier.

One of my chars is thinking of doing a similar thing their business, but again it's not really a necessary thing, just a result of an obsessive need for order and a love of red tape.

Another char uses coins as a sort of medallion...considered using them as a promise to a friend a large sum of iron, but considering they would have to travel there to deliver the coin in the first place, why not just bring the iron itself along instead of forcing one or the other to make an extra trip?

[Elros]

Currency will catch on once there's a need for currency...it doesn't need to be forced by the programmers.

Who suggested that it be forced on by the programmers?