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Old 01-11-2013, 09:00 PM   #9
Luke Bunyip
 
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Join Date: Mar 2008
Location: The Kingdom of Insignificance
Default Re: Dwarven Governance & Economics?

Quote:
Originally Posted by whswhs View Post
I'm going to suggest that Hilaire Belloc's discussion of "distributism" in The Servile State may be relevant to what you're looking at.
Thanks Bill. I must admit, I was banking on a contrabution from you. I have learnt to appreciate the depth and breadth of your reading. Will definitely check it out, but on initial glance it is exactly what I was hoping to use as a basis for dwarven society and economics.

Quote:
Originally Posted by whswhs View Post
The idea of distributism is that you have a deliberate policy of enabling as many people as possible to be small property holders. Dwarves seem to be an intensely propertarian race, so this could fit them.
I am reminded of the Byzantine limits on property ownership, in order to (AFAIK) hobble the political power of those with a large amount of cash.

Quote:
Originally Posted by whswhs View Post
I'm thinking that mines might work somewhat along the lines of the old putting out system. You don't actually have "workers"; you have a mine developer who plans the operations, and you have dwarvish households that contract to work in a given min according to specifications. How much a household makes depends on its productivity.

But I suspect that at least the mining dwarves are likely to have something like the Freemasons—a mutual aid setup that insures against death, disability, and injury. Mining is a dangerous trade, after all.
This definitely works for me. And it helps establish the family/extended family as an economic unit.
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