gizmo33 said:
That's like saying that oxygen exists only in the modern period.
No, because oxygen isn't an illusion, whereas "base cost" (no matter how you slice it) is a product of society. You can say that "base cost" equals the cost of original materials (which assumes base cost to be "real") plus cost of training (again, already assumes a "base cost") and manufacture (again), but since the component concepts have no independent existence, neither does base cost.
The only true "cost" is what you are being charged. All other costs are pale immitations of the real thing.
But his money comes from his value as a laborer. There's a lot of written history on the effect that the Black Death had on labor prices in Europe. Maybe I'm not the one that needs to do some reading.
Sure. Circumstances alter value. Value alters cost. But, since circumstances did the same before the Black Death or what-have-you, the same applies.
Not so - gaining money is not a motive, and the stock-holders, owners, etc. involved in this have plenty of the same motives that I have - putting kids through college, buying a car etc.
Gaining money is a motive, although it is a motive that is the means to other motives. However, you are correct.
I can say that opting out of paying taxes in some form is not an option for the vast majority of socieities - and I think all if you count labor and turning out for warfare as payment.
Yet, oddly enough, frequently dodged by PCs in most D&D worlds.
Even an example like the Celts, where they're distributing silver jewelry as the result of a successful military campaign, the amount of prestige I can expect to get for giving out silver would be halved in a situation where silver is twice as plentiful.
Absolutely. Because that silver has no real "base value" -- only "relative value".
And if a wizard in a tower doesn't get food and shelter with money how in the world does he get it? Does he cast spells? and do those spells have an XP cost? And if so wouldn't he just as readily retain his XP and just have someone build a tower for him? And how does he compensate those people?
He doesn't compensate them. He has the right to tell them to build the tower, and they have the obligation to obey. This is the part of our discussion where it seems to break down. IRL, the idea of human rights as we understand them simply didn't exist until recently.
1. When silver became available in medieval Europe, the traditional peasant labor owed to the lord was commuted to: ??
Labor. Where do you imagine peasants were going to get silver from? They didn't get paid to work the fields;
they paid in labor to work the fields. Free people pay rent in goods or service, according to their means.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scutage
http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/history/A0844163.html
And a strength score is a base guess on how much weight someone can lift on any given day. Without a strength score, I have no reasonable way to define a consistent reality for NPCs in terms of strength, and I argue that without a numerical approximation for the value of goods I have only fiat to determine things value, which I think is subject to much abuse and mistakes. Without guidance DMs tend to game the players - especially in such complicated situations.
Except, again, that strength is (presumably) an objective and measurable quality, while value is a subjective (but subjectively measurable) quality. Haggling is the process of correcting mistakes in determining subjective value of goods and services.
But a guild, even with the monopoly, doesn't control alot of what goes on in those economies. The weaver's guild in Belgium isn't going to control the price for it's raw materials (which came from England mostly). Laborer's strike, so you can't just pay them nothing.
True in the first case, not so true in the second. Apprentice laborers typically received only room and board, and their family
paid the craftsman to take them on. And labor strikes aren't exactly common in societies that punish those sorts of things with whipping, torture, starvation, and/or death.
Yes, monopolies (and a guild is more than a monopoly) are going to affect things locally for some amount of time - but the sky is not the limit here, and the market forces will undermine controls on wages and prices in spite of local baron's attempts (historically) to control these things.
Indeed, the factors you mention, when brought into play, collapsed the largely-subsistence Midieval Economy and brought about welfare states.
And those profits that determine the instance of cheating are based on what forces exactly? Again, if a DM doesn't have a base price in front of him, how does he know when the smugglers start to operate? He wouldn't know anything about the macro picture of the society - I know as a DM I cannot simultaneously roleplay 40,000 people and all of their economic decisions and preferences.
Do you need a list to know when gas prices are too high? Do you not notice if you walk into a corner store and they charge $2.50 for a can of Coke? Do you need to understand everyone in the country, the state (or province), or city to know?
What is the base price of a gallon of gas?
What is the base price of a can of Coke?
I would completely agree - but my point is that even feudal governments operate largely according to how market forces work - whether or not the understanding of these things are anachronisms.
And what I am saying is that even feudal governments operate largely according to
economics, which includes far more in terms of incentives than market forces.
There is a chapter in
Freakonomics that deals with gangs and drug sales, using actual data from a gang. Most gang members aren't paid -- they pay to belong to the gang. This gives them a shot at maybe someday having a corner to sell on. Most sellers make less than minimum wage, with a very large chance of being killed or injured on the job (I forget the exact %, but it was something like 1 in 4 over the course of the year). But they have the chance of becoming a gang leader (who does get big bucks), and the gang looks out for their family. There is more than the simple exchange of goods for money going on.
An easier way to look at it is to realize that
all economies are, at their heart, barter economies. Money is just representative of barter goods (as the early Sumerian clay tablets represented cows, jars of honey, and so on). Market crashes should teach us, if nothing else, that the representative value of a marker (be it money or Sumerian clay tablet) is of no real value in comparison to the actual item.
You're assuming that because he sold a dishwasher for less than his original asking price that he didn't make a profit. To me, this proves nothing about an advantage or disadvantage.
No; I know he made a profit. Simply less than the one he would like to have made. I have similarly had my cable installed for free because I wasn't willing to pay both for installation and monthly fees. Their need for my money is greater than my need for their service; I have an advantage.
I find this statement to be extremely counter-intuitive (perhaps it's due to my lack of reading). It seems to me that a basic law of human nature is that people never think that they're rich enough. Maybe it's a matter of what you define as "needs", but a middle-class merchant wants to be an upper-class merchant. An upper-class merchant wants to buy his way into the lower-nobility, etc.
People want security and comfort; that doesn't mean that they never think they're rich enough. I wouldn't call that an infallable truth.
Also, in many pre-modern societies, one couldn't simply buy one's way into the nobility. And, even when one can, that doesn't mean that the eilite view you the same as if you were born to it (The Great Gatsby).
Yes, it seems very very unlikely that Gauntlets of Bling can be bought at cost (which are the 3E DMG prices IIRC), but the idea that the wizard can simply afford to pass up a theoretically unlimited amount of GP I find to be extremely unrealistic.
If you assume that monetary value forms the only incentive, you would be right. But that isn't good (or realistic) economics.
It's not necessarily in his interest to do so - a history of the money lending practices to finance the 100 years war would probably reveal that the King did not renege on his debts willy-nilly. While an NPC king run by a DM has free reign to do as he wants because the DM controls the consequences, real-life kings did not have that luxury.
Did the US ever repay France for the economic aid rendered during the War of Independence?
Would the US be up to date with its UN dues had Bill Gates not stepped in?
Governments in recent times reneg on their debts
all the time. It was no different earlier (many complaints were made about the usury of Jews simply to avoid repaying debt).
Not unconditionally, IMO this is a huge oversimplification. In fact, this ignores the political complexities that are present even in a stable society. The fact is that waving around 20,000 gp in anyone's face causes them to do all kinds of things. Now granted, if you want to be a robber baron, you can get away with it in the short-term. Maybe in your campaign world, this merchant is a state-less, class-less, kin-less vagabond, but in the real world he was often the relative of a duke, or under the protection of a independant league of merchants or foreign ruler. I find the idea that a king would thoughtlessly break his agreements, or support a lord-mayor who does so, to be naive.
Which, I suppose, is why I said
Finally, contracts are worthless if they cannot be enforced. If the king decides not to honor a contract, he has that right. And so does the Lord Mayor of Smallville. And the King will back the Lord Mayor. And if the Blue Wizard chooses not to make the Glamthing of Almighty Poking, then he has that right. No other wizard wants to step in -- unless you're under their protection -- because doing so limits their own rights in similar circumstances.
Your example of two wizards who both refuse to make a magic item I find equally unconvincing. Both wizards may very well be jockeying for influence at court. 20,000 gp would go a long way towards bribing officials and affecting the kind of social class that would allow me to enhance the prestige of my "mini" government. So the grouchy old enchanter scoffs at the 20,000 gp at his own peril - unless - and it always seems to come to this - the DM just fiats his way out of this.
Or unless the wizard has easier (and safer, as he's not handing a potential enemy a weapon) ways of enhancing his mini-government that do not require
his personal involvement. Or would you suggest that the king would scrabble through a dung-heap because he's certain to need that gold you're offering him to do so?
RC
