Money: The use of coins

[Chris]

If you are interested in what gives money value, google "Modern Monetary Theory." Basically, it says that money is a creature of government. A government has public projects, requires citizens to contribute, gives tokens (shells, beads, coins) to those who work on public projects, then collects taxes payable in those tokens. So, as long as there is a government that collects taxes in a certain currency, people who have to pay taxes will accept that currency. And by extension, people who trade with taxpayers will also accept the currency, and so will people who trade with those people, and so on.

[gejyspa]

[NostalgicMelody7]

I suddenly completely understand everything that has ever been.

[Chris]

Actually, it didn't "all start out with barter." Gift economies and debt records preceded money. Barter as the primary method of exchange is something that arises in a society that has money but goes through a monetary crisis like hyperinflation.

[Zlotnik]

Actually, it didn't "all start out with barter." Gift economies and debt records preceded money. Barter as the primary method of exchange is something that arises in a society that has money but goes through a monetary crisis like hyperinflation.

Really? Have you got examples? Germany had hyperinflation once, other countries too but i don't know any country which went back to barter.
I know that even in South America shells were once used as currency but it only shows using money is more effective than barter trading.

Coins in cantr won't be so useful as in RL because:
1) In cantr you know how everything is produced, how much time you must spend to produce it, you can easily count objective value of any resource (maybe except animal resources) and compare values.
2) Communities using it are small - you need to find enough active people to run this system, accept it, protect it (coin press, bank).
3) It consumes to much time to come exchange one resource for coins to get for it another resource from someone else and go away(the problem of cantr slow pace and scale barrier - it's hard to start but easier to maintain if enough chars would be using it).
4) We have a lot of resources which fits quite nice as currency itself. I mean iron/steel which are used everywhere all the time and would be most proper for value base of currency much better than gold in RL (fiat currency never works, right?). The only bad side of iron based currency is it's sensitivity for attacks of chars who knows how to produce it more efficiently than usually
5) Lack of enough trading activity between locations to have big amounts of accesible resources in few places to start fluent trading everything between everybody.

In my opinion coins would become useful and commonly used if there would be more big cities cooperation with each other. Then having own coin currency would become also a prestige matter.

About RL money...
it isn't possible to bring back gold based currency. Too much of gold is in hands of few rich people and big governements which coudl manipulate new currency. But there is less sensitive for attack silver which combined with gold and other metals could create base for a real, stable non-fiat currency (at least to the moment one country would attack it to again bring peace and global economical stability at least for a moment before next monetary crisis)

[NostalgicMelody7]

What do you think would happen if, say... A town leader tells people that they can exchange a certain amount of a material for a certain amount of coins, and with those coins they could get other things? I mean, just as a start. And then, the leader could suggest the idea to neighboring towns and then maybe eventually something would come out of it?

[Chris]

Actually, it didn't "all start out with barter." Gift economies and debt records preceded money. Barter as the primary method of exchange is something that arises in a society that has money but goes through a monetary crisis like hyperinflation.

Really? Have you got examples? Germany had hyperinflation once, other countries too but i don't know any country which went back to barter.

Weimar Germany, Russia in the 1990s, and Zimbabwe in recent years saw barter replace use of money.

[Addicted]

Klojt has a functional coin system but the problem is people keep hoarding them so we occasionally have to mint more. People rarely buy anything with them, they just keep saving up until they die.

This.

[masterekat]

What do you think would happen if, say... A town leader tells people that they can exchange a certain amount of a material for a certain amount of coins, and with those coins they could get other things?

A big friggin' mess. That's what happens.

Klojt has a functional coin system but the problem is people keep hoarding them so we occasionally have to mint more. People rarely buy anything with them, they just keep saving up until they die.

This.

But hey, as long as they're pumping out the iron and other finished goods, who cares?

[Addicted]

Mine.