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<blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 3508407" data-attributes="member: 4937">Of course you don't.&nbsp; You've never actually seen it in action.&nbsp; The economic system you've lived in your entire life is largely (not entirely, but largely) free of social class, nepotism, despotism, and barter and all the other things which are typical of natural human economies.You are still thinking in highly modern terms - rule of law, centralization of government, etc.&nbsp; That isn't it at all.&nbsp; You don't even have to dig that much into our own past.&nbsp; Just read some Jane Austin novels, and look at the role of social station in buying and selling.Of course you can buy your way into the aristocracy.&nbsp; But the point is, you have to buy your way into the aristocracy.&nbsp; If the muddy beggar has 100,000 gp, the aristocrat just takes it from him as his natural right, and the beggar is lucky to get a new cloak and a meal out of it.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Celebrim, post: 3508407, member: 4937"] Of course you don't. You've never actually seen it in action. The economic system you've lived in your entire life is largely (not entirely, but largely) free of social class, nepotism, despotism, and barter and all the other things which are typical of natural human economies. You are still thinking in highly modern terms - rule of law, centralization of government, etc. That isn't it at all. You don't even have to dig that much into our own past. Just read some Jane Austin novels, and look at the role of social station in buying and selling. Of course you can buy your way into the aristocracy. But the point is, you have to buy your way into the aristocracy. If the muddy beggar has 100,000 gp, the aristocrat just takes it from him as his natural right, and the beggar is lucky to get a new cloak and a meal out of it. [/QUOTE]

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