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Psienesis wrote:That's not how the Imperium works.

Imperium: "You have 7 billion tons of steel that we want"
Planet: "What will you give us for it?"
Imperium: "We have 7 trillion men with laser guns who will come and take it from you, if you don't hand it over."
Planet: "..."
Imperium: "Your call."

That's...not how governments work. People pay tax because it's part of being in a society. You don't just tell parts of the economy to manufacture a good that will never be paid for. Who'd work in a factory where they never got paid? You're hardly going to attract talented, motivated people with no money.

It's exactly how totalitarian theocracies work, though.

"Do this, or I will kill you, your family, and the last ten people you casually met. Painfully. Then, I will turn their bodies into servitor stock, and place you under the command of that guy over there in the red robes, who will make sure you mine the ore. Also, because of this, your soul will be denied the place the Emperor reserves at His side for those who serve Him willingly and work His mines without complaint."

ETA: Remember, also, that a tithe is not a tax. A tax is a fee you pay to the government and for which you expect something in return, like education systems, road maintenance, police and fire protection, so forth and so on. A tithe is an act of religious devotion, an obligation, but something for which you expect nothing in return.

Psienesis wrote:It's exactly how totalitarian theocracies work, though.

"Do this, or I will kill you, your family, and the last ten people you casually met. Painfully. Then, I will turn their bodies into servitor stock, and place you under the command of that guy over there in the red robes, who will make sure you mine the ore. Also, because of this, your soul will be denied the place the Emperor reserves at His side for those who serve Him willingly and work His mines without complaint."

ETA: Remember, also, that a tithe is not a tax. A tax is a fee you pay to the government and for which you expect something in return, like education systems, road maintenance, police and fire protection, so forth and so on. A tithe is an act of religious devotion, an obligation, but something for which you expect nothing in return.

The Imperium of Man is such a totalitarian theocracy that it's ambivilent about its planet's laws? Though I would agree on the theocratic front, obviously.
Doesn't change the fact, something that's taken without being paid for is going to have a major downwards effect on the local economy.

Psienesis wrote:

Locally speaking, though, if a unit of Guard Script is viewed as worth X amount of the local currency, the Perfect Pink Shell, then the Guard Script has local value, and will always maintain this value, either being worth more or less Perfect Pink Shells, depending on how many Guard soldiers are there, how often they buy things, and what, exactly, they buy. The Guard, however, is going to offer only economic incentive to a certain aspect of the economy, as there's only certain things a Guardsman is going to buy. Food and drink, prostitutes, tobacco-equivalents, smoking paraphernalia, maybe books, pornography, various devices and goods for uniform maintenance (bootblack, starch, brass polish, etc) and so forth. He's not buying property, he's not buying cars, he's not buying high-class fashion, he's not buying *anything* that he cannot carry on his back when the order comes down for his unit to move off-world.

You're right about the limited sector of the economy, but here's the problem; the more of a certain currency that exists, the less it's worth. That's one of the very most basic facts about money. More money does not change the amount of goods that money can buy; having more units of money around just means each unit can buy less.

That's the whole problem behind fiat currency. Sure, you can make more money whenever you want just by declaring it to be so; but you can't make more STUFF just by declaring it. And in the final analysis the stuff is what matters, not the money.

So what happens is, ten minutes after the regiment makes landfall on their layover planet after and they all walk out of the ships to go spend their hard-earned scrip after three years of fighting, it's all worth exactly jack gak. You just flooded the market with a bajillion units of currency with nothing backing them; they are NOT going to retain value no matter what the government declares. This kind of thing has been done before, plenty of times, and it literally always ends the same way; there comes a point where you literally cannot force people to accept worthless scrip, and they revolt. At which point the government's terrible economic policy has cost them more than it would have to just pay those soldiers with actual, backed money in the first place.

BeRzErKeR wrote:

Melissia wrote:No it doesn't. The Imperial economy is FAR too stable to be a gold standard system.

That's. . . exactly backwards.

I know paying attention to things like "facts" isn't good for argumentation, but the value of gold has fluctuated wildly over the course of the years since we switched from a gold standard.

More, in fact, than the value of the dollar.

Do we really need another "people who support the gold standard don't know anything about economics" thread again?

Psienesis wrote:It's exactly how totalitarian theocracies work, though.

"Do this, or I will kill you, your family, and the last ten people you casually met. Painfully. Then, I will turn their bodies into servitor stock, and place you under the command of that guy over there in the red robes, who will make sure you mine the ore. Also, because of this, your soul will be denied the place the Emperor reserves at His side for those who serve Him willingly and work His mines without complaint."

ETA: Remember, also, that a tithe is not a tax. A tax is a fee you pay to the government and for which you expect something in return, like education systems, road maintenance, police and fire protection, so forth and so on. A tithe is an act of religious devotion, an obligation, but something for which you expect nothing in return.

See, this is, rather, how totalitarian governments FAIL.

What you are describing is the system under which the Soviet Union worked. And it failed, horribly, for very well-established and easily-understood reasons, namely that nobody, and I do mean nobody, is productive under those circumstances, and nobody can maintain control over a system of large-scale, institutionalized piracy, which is what you are describing.

If the Imperium did not have an actual, functional, interstellar economy, it would have crumbled long ago.

Yep, pretty much. So long as the laws of that planet do not run counter to the Imperial Creed (as judged by the Ecclesiarchy), the raising of Guard Regiments (as judged by the Munitorum), the raising of the tithe (as judged by the Administratum) or give aid or succor to the heretic, the witch and the mutant (as judged by the Inquisition), then a given planet is pretty well free to run itself as it wishes.

I point you to Sepheris Secundus of the Calixis Sector, as detailed in the Dark Heresy main book: Population of 12 billion. Tithe Grade of Exactus Extremis. The planet features a single, globe-spanning continent with small polar seas. It is primarily heavily forested, mountainous land with arctic conditions throughout. Three moons, none inhabited. It is a feudal monarchy, headed by Queen Lachryma III.

Sepheris Secundus is the largest exporting planet in the Calixis Sector. Without its massive exports of ore, metals and fuel, trade in the Calixis Sector could not happen. The planet relies on food imports from the sector's agri-worlds to feed its population. Its vast population makes it a potential supplier of IG recruits, although a relatively small portion of the population would be suitable because of universally poor health, along with the risk of exposing the subjugated masses to life outside the mines.

Sepheris Secundus is a world of immense mineral wealth, city-sized mines, billions-strong hordes of serfs, and the sharpest divide between the elite and the masses in the Calixis Sector. It is a grim place of snow and twilight, feral mutants and lives spent in back-breaking labor deep beneath the ground. The Imperium's eagerness to exploit Sepheris Secundus' vast resources is such that the planet is at the same time the richest and poorest world in the sector.

While the whole Imperium is a feudal empire, feudalism is an extreme on Sepheris Secundus. Everyone born on the planet must have a master, to whom they pay nine-tenths of everything they produce, which for most citizens means the ore they hack from the rock faces of the planet's mines. Queen Lachryma III, the planet's absolute monarch, sits at the top of this feudal system. The rights to the labor of these billions of serfs belongs to the barons appointed by the queen, or to noble families and business consortiums that purchase them from the crown. The queen's own master is the Imperium, to whom she hands over truly staggering amounts of ore, metals and raw fuel to fulfill the planet's tithe.

Two principal forces maintain Sepheris Secundus' feudal system. The first is the weight of tradition: every serf laboring in the mines is doing what his father did before him, and his grandfather before that, often at the same rock face. Mothers tell their children tales about the horrible fates met by disobedient serfs who deny the demands of their masters, and the lay preachers who administer the Imperial Creed describe no greater sin than having ideas above one's station.

The second force is physical violence. One of the reasons that Sepheris Secundus' culture is so primitive by many standards is that weaponry and other technology is monopolized by the crown. The queen's Royal Scourges are equipped with lasguns, grenades and chainblades, contrasting with their gaudy, stained-glass-like armor. Though few in number, the technological advantage that these troops possess has been enough to put down a great many uprisings in the mines of Sepheris Secundus, and the planet's history is littered with massacres where thousands of serfs fell to volleys of lasgun fire.

Melissia wrote:

BeRzErKeR wrote:

Melissia wrote:No it doesn't. The Imperial economy is FAR too stable to be a gold standard system.

That's. . . exactly backwards.

I know paying attention to things like "facts" isn't good for argumentation, but the value of gold has fluctuated wildly over the course of the years since we switched from a gold standard.

More, in fact, than the value of the dollar.

Do we really need another "people who support the gold standard don't know anything about economics" thread again?

Completely true. Also totally irrelevant, since those are in fact the years when it wasn't used as a currency.

Perhaps what we need to have is a "people who support fiat currencies don't understand what money is" thread. I don't care whether a currency is backed in gold, silver, wheat, bacon, or the bitter tears of fallen angels, but if there isn't some actual thing which people actually value attached to it, it is at best highly unstable and at worst actively destructive to the economy.

Since I'm not particularly interested in re-writing my master's thesis here, I will simply urge you to do some detailed reading on the subject. There is a widely varied and extremely extensive bibliography available, most of it free.

BeRzErKeR wrote:Completely true. Also totally irrelevant, since those are in fact the years when it wasn't used as a currency.

... and it was unstable before then, too. In fact, I should note that the time the dollar devalued he most was during the gold standard years-- such as a fifty percent decrease in value over six years at one point, and again over ten years at a later point. It had also gained thirty percent over ten years at a different point.

It was NOT stable.

We stopped using the Gold Standard as currency because it's inferior.

Commodity-based currencies are never stable, certainly not stable enough for the Imperium.

If there is an commodity that the Imperium's economy is backed by it's Imperial Guard Regiments. Not sure how that would work but there ya go.

See, this is, rather, how totalitarian governments FAIL.

What you are describing is the system under which the Soviet Union worked. And it failed, horribly, for very well-established and easily-understood reasons, namely that nobody, and I do mean nobody, is productive under those circumstances, and nobody can maintain control over a system of large-scale, institutionalized piracy, which is what you are describing.

If the Imperium did not have an actual, functional, interstellar economy, it would have crumbled long ago.

The Imperium has no competition. It has no USA to the USSR offering a "better way of life" other than some fish-faced alien guys that 99.9999999999% of the Imperial populace has never heard of, and that 99.999999999% of would either flee in terror from or attempt to kill should they happen to meet one.

What the Imperium does have, however, is functional economies on the local system and sector level, which is really all it requires. The Imperium is something of a feudal confederacy, with the High Lords and the Administratum only really getting involved with things on the Segmentum and Sector levels. It's up to the Sector rulers to make sure the Planetary Governors are falling into line and so forth to meet the tithe-grades. The Forge Worlds, of course, are under the command of the Mechanicus, which has a ten thousand plus year-old agreement with the Imperium, while the various Chartist Captains and Rogue Traders are issued their Warrants of Trade by the Administratum (in a very few cases, by the hand of the Emperor Himself)... and the Administratum can, as easily, revoke the Warrants that they issue.

Remember, also, that the Imperium is not unending planets populated by humanity from Sol all the way out to the fringes of the galaxy. Each sector of space is more like an island, an oasis, that has a few stable warp-routes connecting it to neighboring sectors, but is otherwise surrounded by space that has never been explored, never been visited by humanity, and may actually contain entire Xeno empires that have yet to make any sort of contact with humanity. Each little sector of the Imperium needs only its own, internally-functional economy in order to supply the Imperium, at large, with the needed tithes. The Imperium requires no universally-accepted currency, because the *vast* majority of people will never, ever leave their homeworld, and of those that do, the vast majority of them will never leave their home sector. Of the relative few who will actually see another region of space, they don't really need money. Space Marines, for example, are simply provided everything they need by the Imperium. The Inquisition (though rare is the Inquisitor involved in more than one sector of space) is a galaxy-spanning authority, and can have pretty much anything it wants with the snap of its fingers. The Guard is, likewise, almost never found outside its home sector or that of a neighboring region of space. The Navy, likewise, is generally raised, its ships constructed, and its duties assigned to a given region of space, where the Naval pay-script is used aboard the vessel, from which most of its crew will never, ever depart.

Melissia wrote:

BeRzErKeR wrote:Completely true. Also totally irrelevant, since those are in fact the years when it wasn't used as a currency.

... and it was unstable before then, too. In fact, I should note that the time the dollar devalued he most was during the gold standard years.

We stopped using the Gold Standard as currency because it's inferior.

Commodity-based currencies are never stable, certainly not stable enough for the Imperium.

Sigh. Wrong again. We stopped using commodity-based money because it cannot be debased at will by a central authority without immediate repercussions, making it very difficult for a government to expand spending without also raising taxes in tandem. A fiat currency allows the extra taxation to be hidden via inflation. It is "inferior" in the sense that it is much harder to, for example, convince people to pay for a war when you have to actually take money away from them to do it, as opposed to simply issuing a metric ton of unbacked currency and letting inflation do the job for you. Fiat currencies are much more manipulable, making them much more attractive to governments.

As to your 'instability' argument, I'm afraid that's factually untrue. Long-run price levels were, historically, EXTREMELY stable among countries following the gold standard, far more stable than they have been under any fiat-currency regime. Please note that inflation and deflation are VERY strongly linked to the money supply (one of many possible sources; http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/Inflation.html) and that money supply fluctuations are astronomically higher under most fiat regimes than would even be POSSIBLE on a gold, or indeed any, commodity standard.

As mentioned previously, however, the Imperium cannot back its non-existent galactic currency with any sort of commodity, simply because of supply and demand.

Gold is valued only because it's relatively rare. In a star-spanning society, this will not hold true. Some regions will be absolutely strapped for mineral wealth. Others will walk on planets made of solid gold, with volcanic areas that shoot oceans of molten gold into the sky, circled by vast, glimmering asteroid belts of diamond, gold, silver and platinum.

I'm also pretty sure the Mechanicus can create gold, by knocking a few electrons out of an atom of lead.

BeRzErKeR wrote:Sigh. Wrong again.

Everything I stated was based on facts.

In 1774 to 1780 the dollar decreased to 59% of its value.
In 1780 to 1790, it increased back up to 89% of its 1774 value.
In 1790 to 1800, it increased back down to 64% of its 1774 value.
In 1820 to 1830, it went from 69% to 88% of its 1774 value.
In 1860 to 1870, again 97% to 62%.
In 1910 to 1920, a drop from 85% to 39%.

THe LARGEST that the US dollar has dropped as a percentage since we dropped the gold standard was 10%. The average per decade is 2%, that includes the 10% outlier after Nixon abolished the Gold Standard. The average per decade for gold standard? 16% change in value per year. The largest drop during gold standard years? ~46%.

Fiat currency is sable. Commodity standard currency is not.

< Taken by the void dragon. >

Melissia wrote:

BeRzErKeR wrote:Sigh. Wrong again.

Everything I stated was based on facts.

In 1774 to 1780 the dollar decreased to 59% of its value.
In 1780 to 1790, it increased back up to 89% of its 1774 value.
In 1790 to 1800, it increased back down to 64% of its 1774 value.
In 1820 to 1830, it went from 69% to 88% of its 1774 value.
In 1860 to 1870, again 97% to 62%.
In 1910 to 1920, a drop from 85% to 39%.

THe LARGEST that the US dollar has dropped as a percentage since we dropped the gold standard was 10%. The average per decade is 2%, that includes the 10% outlier after Nixon abolished the Gold Standard. The average per decade for gold standard? 16% change in value per year. The largest drop during gold standard years? ~46%.

Fiat currency is sable. Commodity standard currency is not.

From 1774, the earliest year in which we have reliable American economic data, to 1971,the last year of any kind of gold standard at all in the US, total inflation was 518%. That is to say, in 1971 it took, as far as we can tell given the general unreliability of data, $55.80 to buy what would have taken $10 in 1774. That's over a period of 197 years; average annual inflation of 2.6%, through four major wars and the most crushing depression in history. Pretty damn stable.

From 1971 to 2011, total inflation was 557%; what cost $10 in 1971 cost $55.72 in 2011, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That's a period of 40 years, or to put it in numerical terms, since the United States went off the gold standard we have have had average annual inflation in the CPI of 13.93%, more than six times what it was before Bretton Woods was dropped. Again, these numbers come from the Bureau of Labor Statistics; I am not pulling them out of thin air.

Now; you tell me which one is more stable in the long run. Because, personally, I'd be more inclined to go with the system that had less than 3% average inflation over two centuries than the one that has quintupled prices in forty years.

EDIT: On top of which, your numbers may be accurate but your interpretation of them is seriously misleading, so much so that I honestly wonder whether you've had any economic education.

You have five decades and one six-year period listed there. In order from top to bottom, they represent average deflation/inflation of;
~6% annually from 1774-1780
~3% annually from 1780-1790
~2.5% annually from 1790-1800
Then a period of 20 years that you didn't see fit to mention in which average inflation was, according to your own numbers, 0.4% annually, from 1800-1820. How very. . . unstable?
~1.9% annually from 1820-1830
Another period you skipped, this time the 30 years from 1830-1860 in which average inflation was a whopping 0.3% annually. Hot damn, look at all that instability. This monetary system must be about to collapse.
~3.5% annually from 1860-1870
A third skipped period, this time 40 years from 1870-1910; the same length of time as 1971-2011! Oh, hey, let's see how they stack up; average 13.93% inflation for 1971-2011 according to the US Government, remember, as opposed to. . . 0.575%.

From 1870-1910, according to your own statistics, 0.575% annually. Wow.

And then we finish off with ~4.6% annually from 1910-1920.

Geez. . . if you were going to pick and choose historical periods, you might at least have chosen ones that actually supported your point in some way. You covered 146 years. A grand total of 26 of those years, about 1/7th, had average change in purchasing power of more than 3% annually; not to mention that of the six periods you mentioned four were inflationary and two were DEflationary, meaning the average change over all 146 years was ~0.418% annual inflation.

Yep. Unstable. Reeeeeeal unstable. Sure.

Eh... in the same period of time, however, the world made significant leaps forward in terms of technology and fundamental ways of doing business. In neither case does the data take any of that into account, nor does it take into account the advancement of real wages or the very manner in which the currency is handled. Today, 95%+ of the American currency does not exist in any tangible form, it's just data on a screen. The vast majority of people do not, as part of their daily routine, use cash. They swipe a card or write a check, which is then transferred from the computer their bank account is coded in to the computer the bank account the merchant or individual receiving said swipe or check is written in. No actual money ever exchanges hands.

Nobody likes my Imperial Guard Regiment commodity idea? Fine, Catachan really does trade regiments for medical supplies though.....

Trade and barter are alive and well in the Imperium, it's how most inter-planetary/inter-system trades happen. Planet A uses pretty seashells as its local currency, but produces a very delectable fish as its chief export, also various medical compounds and chemicals from its oceanic kelp-beds. It does not, however, produce any treatments for a rather nasty bacterial infection that came in off a crewman aboard a trade ship some four centuries ago.

Planet A trades fish and fish-products with Planet B, which does produce a treatment for this infection.

Psienesis wrote:Eh... in the same period of time, however, the world made significant leaps forward in terms of technology and fundamental ways of doing business. In neither case does the data take any of that into account, nor does it take into account the advancement of real wages or the very manner in which the currency is handled. Today, 95%+ of the American currency does not exist in any tangible form, it's just data on a screen. The vast majority of people do not, as part of their daily routine, use cash. They swipe a card or write a check, which is then transferred from the computer their bank account is coded in to the computer the bank account the merchant or individual receiving said swipe or check is written in. No actual money ever exchanges hands.

There were massive advances in both of the time periods mentioned; hell, while on the gold standard we went from horse-drawn carriages to airplanes, from the Pony Express to telephones, invented the television, came up with every energy source more advanced than steam, invented the computer, and had the Space Race. I don't think you can legitimately argue there was 'more' advancement in the 1971-2011 period than there was in the 1774-1970 period, in business or any other field.

The fact that we don't use physical cash anymore, most of the time, is a good point, but only tangentially relevant. There are certainly important differences between the debt-based exchange which a modern economy uses and a commodity money, but they're honestly far too complex to explain in a forum post and mostly not important to this particular argument. What we're talking about is stability; and what I'm pointing out is that commodity money is, in the long run, far more stable than fiat currency, both theoretically and according to the historical record.

Joey wrote:That's...not how governments work. People pay tax because it's part of being in a society. You don't just tell parts of the economy to manufacture a good that will never be paid for. Who'd work in a factory where they never got paid? You're hardly going to attract talented, motivated people with no money.

Think of it more like the Roman empire, with the various planetary governors acting as regional taxation dudes (I forget what they were actually called, the progenitors of regional governors). It's their job only to suck all the surplus out of the local economy. In return, the Imperium will defend them from any and all threats, as well as the rest of the benefits that come from being part of an intergalactic empire.

However the local planets want to 'pay' their workers is up to them. The 'cash' itself is worth nothing. It's just something that can be exchanged for stuff. But I'm sure I don't need to explain that to you. So, the planetary governor can simply say that each factory worker, in reward for his work, is entitled to X amount of 'stuff' and issue him credit notes for that amount, that he can redeem at any store. The governor doesn't need to get those credit notes from the Imperium. Just like any economy, he can manufacture them.

Now, this doesn't give the planet itself any disposable income from the disposal of it's goods. The Imperium takes, and doesn't pay. BUT, the planet also has no need to buy goods. Anything it needs will be provided by the Imperium, like food and water for example. This isn't a case of equals trading amongst themselves, but of a central agency regulating what planets will have taken from them, and what they will have given to them. The planets are not like counties or towns in a country, but vassal states of the Empire.

Joey wrote:The Imperium of Man is such a totalitarian theocracy that it's ambivilent about its planet's laws? Though I would agree on the theocratic front, obviously.
Doesn't change the fact, something that's taken without being paid for is going to have a major downwards effect on the local economy.

Yeah, and most Imperial worlds with large populations are very dismal places to live. Very 'industrial revolution meets great depression'. Which is why we love it

There were massive advances in both of the time periods mentioned; hell, while on the gold standard we went from horse-drawn carriages to airplanes, from the Pony Express to telephones, invented the television, came up with every energy source more advanced than steam, invented the computer, and had the Space Race. I don't think you can legitimately argue there was 'more' advancement in the 1971-2011 period than there was in the 1774-1970 period, in business or any other field.

The fact that we don't use physical cash anymore, most of the time, is a good point, but only tangentially relevant. There are certainly important differences between the debt-based exchange which a modern economy uses and a commodity money, but they're honestly far too complex to explain in a forum post and mostly not important to this particular argument. What we're talking about is stability; and what I'm pointing out is that commodity money is, in the long run, far more stable than fiat currency, both theoretically and according to the historical record.

It's only important on the local, micro level, not on the macro. The Imperium, in total, has near-complete control over the production of goods and services across its length and breadth, and so simply does not need to have a common currency. If Planet A produces steel, and needs medicine, and Planet B produces tanks and needs steel, while Planet C produces medicine and needs vapor condensers, the Imperium takes the steel from Planet A, gives it to Planet B to produce tanks, takes the medicine from Planet C to give to Planet A (in exchange for more steel, above and beyond the tithe) and gets the vapor condensers from Planet D, which might need nothing as its a self-sufficient world.

However, most of the exchanges between Planets A, B and C will not be done by the Imperium, but by private business concerns, like Rogue Traders, who will move medicine from B to A, trade it for steel, and then trade the steel for lasguns on Planet D, and then trade the lasguns to Planet E so that the Captain can finally have his latinum-and-diamond encrusted codpiece made.

Psienesis wrote:

It's only important on the local, micro level, not on the macro. The Imperium, in total, has near-complete control over the production of goods and services across its length and breadth, and so simply does not need to have a common currency. If Planet A produces steel, and needs medicine, and Planet B produces tanks and needs steel, while Planet C produces medicine and needs vapor condensers, the Imperium takes the steel from Planet A, gives it to Planet B to produce tanks, takes the medicine from Planet C to give to Planet A (in exchange for more steel, above and beyond the tithe) and gets the vapor condensers from Planet D, which might need nothing as its a self-sufficient world.

However, most of the exchanges between Planets A, B and C will not be done by the Imperium, but by private business concerns, like Rogue Traders, who will move medicine from B to A, trade it for steel, and then trade the steel for lasguns on Planet D, and then trade the lasguns to Planet E so that the Captain can finally have his latinum-and-diamond encrusted codpiece made.

I very much disagree. The price system, which requires commonly-accepted money, is MOST important on a macro scale. This is precisely WHY we have prices, as opposed to barter. The price system is an information system, which transmits the information about who needs what, where, and how much, faster and more accurately than people can gather the information involved and make conscious decisions.

The system you're describing is precisely the one the Soviet Union used; from each according to his ability, to each according to his need. That system collapsed catastrophically. Why? Because you can't centralize an economy. It simply cannot be done. No group of people smaller than 'all the people, everywhere' has enough knowledge and expertise to manage an economy. The problem of making sure that the people who need a particular thing get that particular thing is precisely the problem which a free and open market is capable of solving, not perfectly, but better than any central direction can. Attempting to put an economy under central control, like you're proposing, leads to massive inefficiencies, failures of industry, and the disintegration of the body politic.

If the Imperium actually tried to manage on that scale, they would have collapsed long since. They certainly would not have lasted for ten thousand years. How much stuff is transported? From where? At what time? By whom? In what ships? Where do they go afterwards? By what route? How do they eat? Where does the food come from? If the Imperium is doing what you're claiming, they have to answer all those questions and many more for every single planet, every single day, multiple times. That alone would require. . . well. . . basically the whole population of the Imperium. And that isn't even accounting for the time lag of getting the information to the Adeptus Terra, having it work its way into the system, getting a decision made, getting the decision back . . . The entire reason monetary economics exists is to solve this exact problem, among others.

Furthermore, as to 'private business concerns'; why on earth would they want to barter? Barter makes, frankly, absolutely no economic sense if there is any possible alternative. The Rogue Traders will want to transport the most profitable good; that will be a low-mass, high-value commodity of some sort, which they know the worlds they plan to visit will accept in trade. They will buy that preferentially, and as a consequence the worlds they visit will make more of that good because they know they can sell it profitably; it will become a major item of trade as production rises. Because everyone recognizes this good and acknowledges that it is valuable, it will begin to be valued because of its worth in trade, rather than solely because of its usefulness; it will gain exchange-value, as well as utility-value. It will become a local currency, in short.

That currency will tend to spread, because people are USING it now, and that gives it even more exchange-value. Bills of credit will begin to be denominated in terms of it, which will allow it to spread even further because bills are more convenient than goods. When merchants from the area in question enter a new area, they will continue to use this denomination for their internal accounting, perhaps offer credit or sign loan contracts denominated in this currency, and so long as they honor that credit as claims against their assets when the bills are presented for redemption, the currency will hold value. Since this unit is what is being used by these merchants, if they become successful it will become more and more prominent in society. If there are other currencies circulating, it will coexist with them and may survive, grow or die out depending on the strength of the other currencies in circulation; if the society in question is entirely barter-based, on the other hand, the currency will supplant barter because it is self-evidently more efficient and easier to manage.

At this point, we have an entirely abstract but valuable currency. It is no longer backed by the original good, at least not in whole; rather, it is now a measure by which OTHER goods are denominated, and by which value is measured. In short, the currency has evolved into 'banknotes', letters of credit backed by a major commercial institution. This is the stage where it becomes 'universal'; the financial institutions begin to buy each other's credit and assets, which means that different 'banks' now honor some or all of the different banknotes. The ones which honor a wider variety of banknotes gain a larger customer base, and so have a significant advantage over their competition; absent some intervention into the market, those which refuse to honor some currencies will tend to lose out, and the universality of currency will increase over time.

BeRzErKeR wrote:Attempting to put an economy under central control, like you're proposing, leads to massive inefficiencies, failures of industry, and the disintegration of the body politic.

If the Imperium actually tried to manage on that scale, they would have collapsed long since. They certainly would not have lasted for ten thousand years. How much stuff is transported? From where? At what time? By whom? In what ships? Where do they go afterwards? By what route? How do they eat? Where does the food come from? If the Imperium is doing what you're claiming, they have to answer all those questions and many more for every single planet, every single day, multiple times. That alone would require. . . well. . . basically the whole population of the Imperium. And that isn't even accounting for the time lag of getting the information to the Adeptus Terra, having it work its way into the system, getting a decision made, getting the decision back . . . The entire reason monetary economics exists is to solve this exact problem, among others.

You've just described the Adeptus Terra

Furthermore, as to 'private business concerns'; why on earth would they want to barter? Barter makes, frankly, absolutely no economic sense if there is any possible alternative. The Rogue Traders will want to transport the most profitable good; that will be a low-mass, high-value commodity of some sort, which they know the worlds they plan to visit will accept in trade. They will buy that preferentially, and as a consequence the worlds they visit will make more of that good because they know they can sell it profitably; it will become a major item of trade as production rises. Because everyone recognizes this good and acknowledges that it is valuable, it will begin to be valued because of its worth in trade, rather than solely because of its usefulness; it will gain exchange-value, as well as utility-value. It will become a local currency, in short.

That currency will tend to spread, because people are USING it now

Yeah... kinda..

Imagine a world where the only way to commuicate with other continents was to physically swim there and talk to them. Now imagine there is one global agency whose job is basically to regulate inter-continental trade, and you're getting close to the Imperium. The currency might spread, but only as far as the people can. Each 'area' is almost completely isolated from the others, and rogue traders are few and far between.

You're right, it would take a monstrous and pendulous bureaucracy, prone to making severe errors that could see entire populations lost, with massive communications problems, areas trying to seccede and rebel, etc. But thats what makes the Imperium such an interesting place!

Kaldor wrote:

Joey wrote:That's...not how governments work. People pay tax because it's part of being in a society. You don't just tell parts of the economy to manufacture a good that will never be paid for. Who'd work in a factory where they never got paid? You're hardly going to attract talented, motivated people with no money.

Think of it more like the Roman empire, with the various planetary governors acting as regional taxation dudes (I forget what they were actually called, the progenitors of regional governors). It's their job only to suck all the surplus out of the local economy. In return, the Imperium will defend them from any and all threats, as well as the rest of the benefits that come from being part of an intergalactic empire.

The tithe is a tax. The tax pays for "protection" and the right to call upon the rest of the Imperium for help when attacked. It is like paying tax which then pays for the police.

Now, this doesn't give the planet itself any disposable income from the disposal of it's goods. The Imperium takes, and doesn't pay. BUT, the planet also has no need to buy goods. Anything it needs will be provided by the Imperium, like food and water for example. This isn't a case of equals trading amongst themselves, but of a central agency regulating what planets will have taken from them, and what they will have given to them. The planets are not like counties or towns in a country, but vassal states of the Empire.

The Imperium is neither fully a centralized command economy, as evidenced by the existence of local sector currencies and markets such as in the Calixis Sector.

Psienesis wrote:
Remember, also, that the Imperium is not unending planets populated by humanity from Sol all the way out to the fringes of the galaxy. Each sector of space is more like an island, an oasis, that has a few stable warp-routes connecting it to neighboring sectors, but is otherwise surrounded by space that has never been explored, never been visited by humanity, and may actually contain entire Xeno empires that have yet to make any sort of contact with humanity. Each little sector of the Imperium needs only its own, internally-functional economy in order to supply the Imperium, at large, with the needed tithes. The Imperium requires no universally-accepted currency, because the *vast* majority of people will never, ever leave their homeworld, and of those that do, the vast majority of them will never leave their home sector. Of the relative few who will actually see another region of space, they don't really need money. Space Marines, for example, are simply provided everything they need by the Imperium. The Inquisition (though rare is the Inquisitor involved in more than one sector of space) is a galaxy-spanning authority, and can have pretty much anything it wants with the snap of its fingers. The Guard is, likewise, almost never found outside its home sector or that of a neighboring region of space. The Navy, likewise, is generally raised, its ships constructed, and its duties assigned to a given region of space, where the Naval pay-script is used aboard the vessel, from which most of its crew will never, ever depart.

Right there is a good description of the situation of the Imperium. An important distinction to clarify in this thread is that it isn't about a pure barter economy for the Imperium vs. a monetary economy. We know local and sector currencies exist, and there are local markets and even corporations (that resemble merchant/noble houses more than modern corporations). It is about whether the Imperium as a whole has any universal accounting. That is what is doubtful and which evidence is lacking beyond simple statements of opinion that there "must" be.

That and again there is the feudal aspect. Why did the serf work his master's fields during the medieval era? He wasn't paid in money. He did it because it was his duty. His "payment" was in being allowed to live on that land, eat from the produce of that land, and in being protected (in theory) by his master. His labor was his tax payment, just as modern people pay money, which is a representative account of their own labor, to the government in return for government services (which includes use of infrastructure like roads). Ultimately all of these transfers are backed by the threat of coercion whether one is in a feudal system, centrally planned economy, or free market. If one didn't pay one's taxes, punishment in some form was coming, whether in the form of fines, imprisonment, eviction, physical punishment, or death.

Although there is interstellar trade and merchant houses in 40K, the feel is very much intentionally that of the medieval era. Trade contracts could last for generations. Chartist captains are described as plying the same routes as their fathers and grandfathers, year after year. At that point, it becomes less a commercial contract and almost a feudal obligation between the two parties. An agri-world could be transporting its crops via a Chartist captain to a hive world for decades on end, and the Chartist captain in return is either paid in the local currency as his fee (or perhaps takes a cut of the produce to sell for himself to cover his expenses) . Then on the round trip, he takes a portion of tractor and combine parts from the hive world back to the agri-world. This transaction may or may not involve cash if it has been formalized over generations. The same noble house could be his customer and therefore just supply the machine parts directly in exchange for the food, plus maybe some cash on the side for the captain's fee. This can take place entirely off the open market.

Overhanging all of this is the Administratum, which cares for none of this, but every so often demands the agri-world give up a certain number of tons of food and the hive world to yield up a certain number of lasguns and infantry regiments. How the individual worlds go about meeting their tithes is up to them, not the Administratum. The Administratum isn't shown directing every single shipment manually through a central accounting office.

For example see Necromunda:

To the greater universe Lord Helmawr is Necromunda and the planet is his to rule as he pleases. The patriarchs and merchant families of the Noble Houses vie for his attention, and are eager to perform whatever favours are necessary to secure landing and shipping rights, trade licences and tax concessions. Even whilst they curry Lord Helmawr’s favour the Noble Houses scheme behind his back, hoping that one day House Helmawr will be brought low and a new Imperial House will inherit its domain -p. 62, Necromunda rulebook

What we see is the Imperial Governor exercising a monopoly on access to space, and therefore also a monopoly on access to the necessary commodities for life to continue on the planet. As acknowledged Imperial Governor, he has the support of the Imperium and the Arbites in maintaining order, for which he pays for in the form of meeting the Imperium's tithe requirements of men, taken from the PDF. In turn, he sits at the top of the feudal pyramid for Necromunda, parceling out landing and shipping rights to other noble houses for them to secure their goods, presumably taking a fee or cut along the way to ensure he can meet his Imperial tithe requirements. The Administratum isn't shown as directly deciding what gets shipped to or from Necromunda. Lord Helmawr decides through what rights he grants to others, and he if messes up in a way that disrupts his ability to meet his tithe requirements, he is replaced by the Administratum by somebody that can meet the needs of Necromunda and the tithe. It is delegation and a 40K form of subinfeudation.