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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Raven Crowking" data-source="post: 3509091" data-attributes="member: 18280">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.   <img src="http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/laugh.png"  class="smilie" loading="lazy" alt=":lol:" title="Laughing    :lol:" data-shortname=":lol:" /> Sure.  Circumstances alter value. Value alters cost.  But, since circumstances did the same before the Black Death or what-have-you, the same applies.Gaining money is a motive, although it is a motive that is the means to other motives.  However, you are correct.Yet, oddly enough, frequently dodged by PCs in most D&D worlds.   <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" /> Absolutely.  Because that silver has no real "base value" -- only "relative value".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.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. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scutage" target="_blank">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scutage</a><a href="http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/history/A0844163.html" target="_blank">http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/history/A0844163.html</a>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.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.Indeed, the factors you mention, when brought into play, collapsed the largely-subsistence Midieval Economy and brought about welfare states.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?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.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.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).If you assume that monetary value forms the only incentive, you would be right.  But that isn't good (or realistic) economics.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).Which, I suppose, is why I saidFinally, 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. 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</blockquote>

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