04-24-2017, 06:11 PM | #31 |
Join Date: Jun 2006
Location: Earth, mostly
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Re: Post Apocalyptic Economics
Books might work as currency, but only in certain specific circumstances. In Lucifer's Hammer, Dr. Dan Alderson, whose skillset as an astrophysicist was not itself terribly useful after Hammerfall, bought his way into the Stronghold with a collection of instructional books (his down payment was The Way Things Work, Vol 2; Vol 1 was safely secured with the rest of the books in plastic bags stuffed into a disused septic tank).
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04-24-2017, 06:44 PM | #32 | |
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Berkeley, CA
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Re: Post Apocalyptic Economics
Quote:
Bullion, in a post-apocalyptic setting, has pretty much the same flaws as fiat currency, in that it's not actually useful for anything, so the only reason you'd accept it in trade for good is if you want it for decoration, or you think someone else will be willing to accept it in trade. In addition, because the stores of potential bullion to be dug up vastly exceeds the size of the post-apocalyptic economy, accepting bullion is likely to result in abrupt economic crashes when a new cache gets dug up. In general I would not expect a collapse economy to use currency at all, instead operating on a barter basis, and the first currencies will be be promissory notes for goods (i.e. rather than trading a physical bag of grain, you trade a note that entitles the bearer to a bag of grain). There are historical currencies similar to this. |
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04-24-2017, 07:54 PM | #33 |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Denver, Colorado
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Re: Post Apocalyptic Economics
I've kicked around an idea, for awhile. It wouldn't happen right away, and would require a reasonably successful city-state to really get started -- although I think it could very well help the area become even more successful.
The idea is to base the currency on calories -- originally, as a measure of the nutritional value of food. It could get started pretty easily -- almost by accident, and would just require a community that went through some tough times, together, and perhaps included some biologists, or agriculture extension agents, or nutritionists. An engraver would help, a lot, as would a blacksmith. The community of survivors decides to keep most of the food from their harvests and hunting and what-not in a large, strong, easily-secured and centrally-located structure. Everybody who brings food to the storehouse gets a token that says how many calories worth of food they've brought. The type of food doesn't matter, as long as it was properly preserved or dried or otherwise suitable for long-term storage. Before being stored, the calorie value of the food is measured and meticulously logged, and the depositor can elect to receive tokens for some or all of the calorie value. The storehouse never releases any more calorie tokens than the storehouse actually contains, and thus all tokens are fully redeemable. Additionally, the tokens needn't be redeemed for the food a particular person brought -- he or she can ask for any stored foods of equivalent calorie value. Basically, the storehouse becomes a combination bank and grocery market. For token denominations, I figured: 100 calories = 1 Centacalorie = 1 "cent" 500 calories = 5 Centacalories = 5 "cents" or a "Nickel" 1000 calories = 1 Kilocalorie = 1 Kaycee, or 10 "cents," or a "dime" 5000 calories = 5 Kilocalories = 5 Kaycees. Also known as a "Min," or a "Foodwage" because this is the minimum amount needed for a hard-working adult human being to survive for a day. 10,000 calories = 10 Kilocalories = 10 Kaycees, aka a "Daywage," because this is probably the minimum wage someone would take to work for someone else, in that it allows survival of two working adults, or 1 working adult and two children. Two working adults who make 10 Kaycees per day, each, can feed themselves and their kids (but can't do much more than that). This is basic survival for a family. What may make this rather nice is that they could use existing coins as token blanks. Melt them down in a forge (or just make them soft enough to lose the current mint design), and then use the engraved coin dies to strike the tokens. What also may make this so nice is that it's scalable, in that calories measure not just food energy, but any energy, so as the society gains in stability and productive capacity, the amount of calories that get traded around increase along with it. That said, it does have issues around inflation for anything other than foodstuffs. As the agricultural output of the area increases, the cost of everything relative to food increases by a lot. The more food is available, the less valuable a unit of food is, relative to other goods and services. Still, in a post-apocalyptic setting, I think that would certainly qualify as, "A nice problem to have."
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04-24-2017, 08:58 PM | #34 | |
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Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Southeast NC
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Re: Post Apocalyptic Economics
Quote:
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04-24-2017, 09:27 PM | #35 | |
Join Date: Nov 2004
Location: The plutonium rich regions of Washington State
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Re: Post Apocalyptic Economics
Quote:
On the other hand, if my corn is all contaminated with aflotoxin, I can still bring it to the storehouse, then go back the next day an withdraw someone else's healthy wheat. Luke |
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04-25-2017, 02:26 AM | #36 |
Join Date: Jul 2014
Location: New Zealand.
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Re: Post Apocalyptic Economics
A similar currency idea was mentioned in one of Hugh Cooks' books, possibly the wizards and the warguild.
The currency was backed by pork, from small change, single rashes of bacon. Up to large notes, whole pigs. Centralized pig stys were required. One other factor when having food backing a currency is how long it stays fresh.
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Waiting for inspiration to strike...... And spending too much time thinking about farming for RPGs Contributor to Citadel at Nordvörn |
04-25-2017, 03:04 AM | #37 | |
Join Date: Feb 2016
Location: Melbourne, Australia (also known as zone Brisbane)
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Re: Post Apocalyptic Economics
Quote:
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04-25-2017, 03:37 AM | #38 |
GURPS FAQ Keeper
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Kyïv, Ukraine
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Re: Post Apocalyptic Economics
I'm thinking either gift-based economies like those found in some pre-barter/pre-currency cultures, or duty-based ones similar to some medieval societies. If there's no way to keep currency viable and barter convenient, it may make sense for communities to forego both.
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04-25-2017, 03:43 AM | #39 |
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: Gothenburg, Sweden
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Re: Post Apocalyptic Economics
Hmm... a pornography-based economy... :o)
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04-25-2017, 05:52 AM | #40 |
Join Date: Jul 2014
Location: New Zealand.
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Re: Post Apocalyptic Economics
That's been done too, "back of the Y" had a mad max parody with that very concept
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Waiting for inspiration to strike...... And spending too much time thinking about farming for RPGs Contributor to Citadel at Nordvörn |
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