History Main / ArtisticLicenseEconomics

* GaryGygax pretty much {{lampshade|Hanging}}d that the economic system of 1st Edition ''AdvancedDungeonsAndDragons'' didn't work, particularly with all the gold and jewels being taken into or out of the economy at different times, but it was {{justified|Trope}} due to {{Rule Of Cool}}: namely, it was just plain more impressive for the players to obtain large amounts of gold than copper. Not that this prevented many player characters from going after the copper and silver coins too...

*** Yeah, it's pretty odd that steel is used as currency because it's so "rare". It would make sense if you had steel ingots worth a significant number of gold ones, perhaps, but not as common coins. Also silly in that almost all D&D worlds by design are based in a time of strong conflict, where metal for weapons would be pretty valuable.
*** The problem is not the high value of iron but the fact that the iron items are worth less than the same amount of iron in coins. Of course, that makes sense if the coins are closely inspected and are guaranteed to be more or less pure iron. On the other hand, in some Central European communist-governed countries in the early 1970s it was not uncommon that coins were used as soft metal washers because they were made from very similar alloy and were worth less than actual washers. It was due to flawed price and production control that can also be applied to any medieval guild system that is basically a kind of centrally-governed economy.
* In a (probably 2nd edition) ''{{World of Darkness}}'' manual, the author describes in great length how the extremely long-term strategic planning of centuries-old vampiric masterminds make US and European companies competitive against Japanese ones. Whether it's an economic Fail or not is dependent on how ''rigid'' that long-term plan is, and a key thing to remember is that a business run by immortals is likely to be more patient about returns than one held by mortals. In theory, there should be less emphasis on small short term gains at the expense of larger long term ones.

* Anne Mccaffrey's ''DragonridersOfPern'' uses a bizarre form of competing currencies in the form of "marks", disks made of wood, which are supplied as blanks by one Hold (the territory equivalent of a country) and stamped with both denominations -ranging from 1/32 of a mark to 100 mark pieces- on one side and source -where the stamped mark hails from. However, each Hall (a type of Crafting guild, 10 in all) and each Hold (over 20 worldwide) has their own special and specific source stamp. The value of these marks has been shown, in canon, to vary on the cultural popularity of the Hall or Hold they hail from. In the first novel of the series [=HarperCraft=] marks were basically worthless, as Harpers were seen as trifling entertainers instead of educators. So in a way, it's not so different from global currencies today, but it's very badly defined, as any individual can refuse coinage from a source they just don't happen to like at the time, and completely up in the air as to what values can be ascribed to anything (when 1 mark can buy 1/8th of a cow, 192 hand-sized pies, or 1 whetstone, whereas musical instruments and riding horses start at 2 and 9 (and custom tack is 12) marks respectively, something is off).

* In TerryPratchett's ''TheColourOfMagic'' (part of the ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'' series), the then-Patrician (who does not appear to be Vetinari) explains to Rincewind that there is no trade between Ankh-Morpork and the Agatean Empire because the Empire is so fantastically rich, Ankh-Morpork has nothing they would want to buy, and the Empire has nothing Ankh-Morpork could afford. Comparative advantage does not work that way!

* Invoked in ''Renegade'', when Reno infiltrates a town of only a few people he suspects of being robbers, and asks them how they make money. The leader basically says he buys stuff, and the other people buy it from him. The skeptical look on Reno's face is hilarious.

* In ''{{Ultima}} VII part II: Serpent Isle'', you can learn a spell that summons money from nowhere. The question of inflation is obviously not addressed. Prior to acquiring this spell, the player runs into a group of corrupt pikemen who have 'arrested' the captain of the player's ship and want a [[strike:bribe]] fine of a gold bar to release him (and let you get on with the game). It has to be a gold bar. You can offer them thousands of Monetari (the local currency), but they will always demand a gold bar. Many walkthroughs have mocked this, but given the existence of the spell, [[FridgeBrilliance the pikemen may be more canny than one would think]].

* In [[DiscWorld Terry Pratchett's]] ''TheColourOfMagic'', the then-Patrician (who does not appear to be Vetinari) explains to Rincewind that there is no trade between Ankh-Morpork and the Agatean Empire because the Empire is so fantastically rich, Ankh-Morpork has nothing they would want to buy, and the Empire has nothing Ankh-Morpork could afford. Comparative advantage does not work that way!

* A strange, and amusing, example occurs in ''TheHeroesOfOlympus: The Lost Hero''. King Midas (yes ''that'' King Midas) is bankrolling the BigBad's efforts by...turning things lying around his mansion into gold and selling them to investors, thereby lowering the inherent value of said gold and making the price drop.

[[folder:Live Action TV]]

[[folder:Web Comics]]
* ''WebComic/OrderOfTheStick'': PlayedForLaughs when a pair of potion sellers [[http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0135.html don't seem to get]] that by selling nothing but potions at less than the cost to make them, they are going to put themselves out of business. Vaarsuvius tries to explain the problem to them, but after realizing that nothing is getting through, the annoyed elf decides to take advantage of the sale they just announced.

* Discussed in ''ElGoonishShive'':

** EveOnline has a very realistic economy. Unlike in most games where NPC shops have an infinite supply of items to sell, and will buy anything you offer them, Eve has no NPC buyers or sellers. If you want to sell anything, you have to find another player willing to buy it. All the ships, weapons and ammo in the game are manufactured by other players from raw materials mined at some point by even more players. If you suddenly need a large amount of a rare item, you have to make it yourself or pay someone to do it for you and then someone else to ship it to your location.

* {{Fallout3}} for using caps like Fallout 1 used. While in Fallout 1 its explain that the local trading hub (The Hub) backs them with pure water and makes a big deal with keeping the number of caps low, its never explane why the DC area uses them as they don't have any real form of community.

* In {{Tropico}}, their is an edict where you can print money if your in to much debt, but the prices of building everything goes up.
* Averted AND played straight in ''{{Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality}}. In an early chapter with Harry in Gringotts, he notes how the Muggle and Wizardry economies must completely be detached from each other, since the ability to bring in one's own gold/silver/bronze, and then being able to convert between Galleons, Snickles, and Knuts would allow Harry to utterly break the wizardry economy (and become VERY wealthy) "in a week."

*** Heck, some of the larger clans have been able to successfully engage in economic [i]warfare[/i] by buying up goods and weapons required for an up coming clan battle so their enemies are far weaker.

** ''SupermanRedSon'' also has the United States going into economic ruin for no apparent reason other than that the Soviet Union, with Superman providing its peoples' every need, is an economic success. No, just, no.

* In ''TheFifthElement'', Zorg espouses the "Destruction Equals Employment" mentality, and demonstrates it by destroying a glass and explaining how the machines that clean the glass shards away employ so many people. However, Zorg doesn't mention that only companies like his, which profits off of war, stand to benefit, rather than society as a whole. Which is why he, as Cornelius pointed out, had no "robot to pat him on the back when he chokes on the little cherry" or no one to depend on when he inevitably screwed up.

* In ''Film/StreetFighter'', Bison pays his underlings with "Bison Dollars", which are technically worthless due to having no economic backing, but Bison plans to force the Bank of England to value them at five pound per Bison dollar, by kidnapping their Queen. Brilliant plan. Even if they did agree to the plan, he'd have to hold her indefinitely since people would just exchange their B$ for ''real'' money (you know, with financial backing and stability) as quick as possible before the bank either collapsed or reneged on the deal when they got the Queen back. And that's assuming everyone involved would accept financial ruin just to save a figurehead nobility. Then again, Bison is ''completely insane''.

* The nobles in pretty much any [[TheDungAges medieval or feudal-flavored]] CrapsackWorld, for instance ''ASongOfIceAndFire'', shouldn't be able to fund their armies, with the [[ForTheEvulz callous]] way they let their peasants die in the thousands. For instance, no noble (at least none that had lived long enough to inherit a title) would refuse to let his peasants into his castle when attacked, let alone ''mock'' another noble who does. Keeping peasants alive was part of why castles were made that big (otherwise it's just more area the soldiers need to defend); without peasants, lords couldn't produce their own food, and lost their major source of revenue. Lacking food to supply their armies and revenue to pay them, they'd rapidly cease to ''be'' lords (and start to be various flavors of corpses).

* The Imperial Order from ''TheSwordOfTruth'' is an incredibly large empire with a massive standing army capable of sending millions of people hundreds of miles away to conquer the world. While operating under an economic system so ridiculous it should be totally incapable of supporting a single city, much less an army. Essentially, it combines all the motivation problems of communistic economics with a culture that actively despises hard work.

** The Petty-Dwarves in ''TheChildrenOfHurin'' and ''TheSilmarillion'' mostly sustain on "earth-bread", strange roots with bread-like taste and consistency that endure well over winter, and are easy to find if you know their secret, which elves and men never did. The elves seem to need very little earthly sustenance, being powered by the fire of their spirit; ''TheSilmarillion'' states that they can only die from violence or sorrow - not, for example, starvation. They too seem to have some esoteric ways of making foodstuffs that are kept secret from the outsiders, but the books never elaborate on them.

** The point of the lottery was to keep the population small, and other than the lottery the world was portrayed as a utopia

* ''TheTribe'' tries to institute an economy by having each vendor receive a loan of ten tokens at the start of the day to kickstart the system, and is expected to pay them back at the end of each day, and gets to keep the profit. To keep the system fair, the Mallrats also fix the price in tokens of each commodity. The system may be {{justified|Trope}} as the Mallrats are a bunch of kids with only the vaguest understanding `of how economies work, but the fundamental premise seems to be that if you start out with a fixed amount of money, and just move it back and forth all day, at some point, it will magically reproduce.

** Credits existed in [[StarTrekTheOriginalSeries The Original Series]], though seemingly only on the fringes of [[TheFederation the Federation]]. After Roddenberry passed away the galactic monetary standard of gold pressed latinum was introduced. These helped a little.

** From what we saw Federation is a communist state. Technological inventions such as replicators, extremely cheap and infinite sources of energy combined with humanity being more noble than it is today, can make the idea of communism actually work. In First Contact local woman from 21st century was told that humanity evolved from wanting more into perfecting oneself. Therefore having big ass apartment with a view on Eiffel Tower is not as big deal as it is for us. For them becoming a respected chef is more important than goods which are still scarce in their utopia. The life become about finding your place in the universe not about material things. So person waits tables because it can be enjoyable and maybe he can learn how to run a restaurant so he then can have one too.

* The steel based currency in D&D ''{{Dragonlance}}'' doesn't really make sense - you can end up with situations where a steel sword, if melted and forged into coins, would be worth more than its original cost (ie. say the sword cost 10 coins. By melting it down you could get enough steel to forge 15 coins). Putting rule issues like that and selling a 10 foot ladder as 2 10-foot poles, the ''idea'' is decent enough, the execution just stinks.

*** The problem is not the high value of iron but the fact, that the iron items are worth less than the same amount of iron in coins. Of course, that makes sense if the coins are closely inspected and are guaranteed to be more or less pure iron. On the other hand, in some Central European communist-governed countries in early 70's it was not uncommon that coins were used as soft metal washers because they made of very similar alloy and were worth less than actual washers. It was due to flawed price and production control that can also be applied to any medieval guild system that is basically a kind of centrally-governed economy.

* ''{{Legend of the Five Rings}}'' being based on feudal Japan and China, has a rice based economy where one gold (koku) is the equivalent to the amount of rice one man will eat in a year. Or possibly what one family will eat in a year. There's some confusion as to which. Also, the exchange rate between gold, silver and copper coins means that even the smallest denomination of money in Rokugan is a fairly vast fortune. The handwave given is that it is beneath a samurai's station to be concerned with money, and that there is a sizable merchant class to deal with such matters.

* The creator of ''DwarfFortress'' admits that as of now, the economy system basically doesn't work - and was removed from game. One reason, apart from the many sanity-related ones, is that computers asked to keep track of all those coins tend to struggle.

** [[FridgeLogic Also unwittingly played on V]] as V and the RPG system being mocked assumes all manufacturing costs are static on a per unit basis. They fail to consider economies of scale, time value of money, purchasing power, and market share into account when manufacturing goods.

* [[ZeroPunctuation Yahtzee]] claims during the ''VideoGame/FableIII'' review that the simplest solution would be to endure a year of hardship and then switch to good after the Crawler is defeated. Yahtzee, economies don't come equipped with a neat and clean good/bad switch, especially when you consider the level of the good and evil choices during the ruling portion of the game. Just for comparison, the first and last choices you make are, respectively, whether or not to repair a section of town utterly smashed by the rebellion, and whether to ''let the economy collapse or not.''** Arguable interpretation. Another way of phrasing what he said would be just a tightening of the belt until the end of the crisis.

* Parodied in ''SouthPark'' when Canada goes on strike and demands more money, specifically from the internet, and completely ignores the people who try to explain that that's not the way economics work.

** They are paid for consuming goods, presumably. If system is reversed 100-% then it would work the same real life works; just having money would mean you are poor and being one billion dollar in debt means that you are very rich.

* The "America The Bankrupt" fallacy is parodied in ''TheSimpsons'' episode where Lisa becomes president. Not only does it have China (amongst other countries) demanding repayment, but Bart (who's grown up to be a deadbeat) is able to use his own money-mooching skills to deflect them ("I totally remember mailing a check to you.")

* A Paul Murry-drawn MickeyMouse comic has a villain that has discovered a literal mountain made of diamond. This makes him incredibly rich, as long as no one else knows it exists, since he can control the amount he sells. Hence, his villainousness consists of seeing to that no one who has seen his property ever gets away alive. Disturbingly, this sort of artificial scarcity is pretty much TruthInTelevision for how the diamond industry actually works (and it was worse under the infamous [=DeBeers=] monopoly).

* Three oppressive Dystopias operate in perpetual war-economies in ''[[NineteenEightyFour 1984]]'', [[BalanceOfPower with it being explicitly stated even two on one, none of them can win the war.]] [[CrapsackWorld This is done to destroy surplus wealth and keep people's standards of living from getting better]]. The goal isn't to support their economies, but to keep them down. Using war to deliberately destroy wealth may be insane, but it works. It also theorizes that people could be forced to make very large monuments to use up wealth and keep the standard of living low, but [[PatrioticFervour war stirs more passion in citizens]], and ultimately [[BigBrotherIsWatching more love for their leader]].
** A similar problem to ''Brave New World'' arises, though-such a model requires infinite resources, unless incredibly efficient recycling methods have been developed.

* Similar to the ''Nodwick'' example, in ''TalesOfMU'' 'Delvers' (adventurers) have one of the highest tax-liabilities in the Imperium, but delving gear is tax-deductible. This encourages delvers to keep most of their wealth in the form of high-end magic items rather than simply flooding the economy with excess gold.

* ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hyperboloid_of_Engineer_Garin The Garin Death Ray]]'' is a [[OlderThanTelevision 1927]] [[AuthorTract Soviet sci-fi novel]] in which a MadScientist intentionally invokes this trope in a bid to TakeOverTheWorld. He invents a mirror-based [[DeathRay laser-like device]] and uses it to drill a mine shaft deep into the Earth's mantle where, apparently, there is [[ScienceMarchesOn a geological layer composed entirely of gold]]. He then sets sail for the (naturally) [[CorruptCorporateExecutive evil, corrupt, uber-capistalist United States]], starts selling bars of gold [[WorthlessYellowRocks for a dollar apiece]] to anyone who asks, and soon brings the entire economy to its knees (remember, the Gold Standard was still in use at the time). It is then up to our Soviet heroes to dodge FrickinLaserBeams and foil his plot, after which the United States [[AuthorTract promptly converts to Communism]]. (It's BetterThanItSounds).

* "Murder Most Fowl," a short story by Deborah Militello printed in {{Dragon}} Magazine, subverts the Money For Nothing type to hilarious effect. It's set in a world where Jack (he of the Beanstalk fame), has become lord of the realm on the strength of his gold-egg-laying goose. At the beginning of the story, the goose is found strangled, and a hapless courtier is set to finding out who had committed the seemingly senseless crime of destroying the source of the national wealth... only to learn that, in fact, the endless supply of cheap gold was wrecking local industry, undermining the basis of the feudal economy, and threatening to plunge the country into war. Meaning that EVERYONE from King Jack on down had an excellent motive. [[spoiler: And then it turns out that the culprit was the one person who had no motive: the castle cook, while drunk, had mistaken it for another goose and wrung its neck with intent to roast.]]

--> Isn't it strange that during every dragon hunt, some or other sorcerer strongly associated with the jewelers' guild always hangs around. For example, you. And later, when one could think gems must flood the market, they for some reason don't go there, and prices don't fall.

* ''{{Kazaam}}'' does at least twig to this. In one scene, the BigBad announces that the first thing he intends to wish for from the genie is "all the money in the world". TheKidWithTheLeash, panicking and trying to stall, points out that this wouldn't work, the economy would crash and all because no one else would have any money. "So I'll wish for all the money...''then give some of it back.''
* In the early novels in the ''Literature/HonorHarrington'' Series, the People's Republic of Haven has an economic model where anyone who wants to can live comfortably on welfare for their entire adult life. As a result of this practice having been practiced for generations, the vast majority of their citizens didn't see any point in working, so the employment rate was somewhere around 10%, at most. This resulted in low productivity, which meant that the government had a small tax base, which resulted in their slowly going bankrupt. The only thing they could think of to prop up their budget was to conquer their neighbors and loot their economies, something that only provided a short-term relief, as they introduced their flawed systems to their conquered planets, resulting in millions of more unproductive Dolists (people who spend their entire lives on the dole) draining away their budget. Of course the leaders ''knew'' that their system has failed, but they couldn't see a way to solve the problem, as the only places they could cut the budget enough to make a difference were the BLS (Basic Living Stipend), which would cause the Dolists to revolt, or the Navy, which would result in attacks from neighboring planets that were at the top of the 'to be conquered' list and revolts on recently conquered planets. The one nice thing you can say about the people who murdered the Legislaturists and took over was that while they may have been just as monstrous in their own ways, they ''did'' manage to fix their country's economy - by finding a propaganda spin that made the Dolists ''volunteer'' to actually work.

* Robert Anton Wilson's ''Schroedinger's Cat'' trilogy studies a number of [[AlternateUniverse Alternate Universes]], including an Utopian one, where a manual labourer who invents a way to automatize his work will get a high standard of living for lifetime, and everybody else in the same business gets a comfortable one, as machines multiply the production rates, allowing a part of the surplus to be used this way, since capitalism requires consumers in order to function. The system has its problems to a careful reader - one would imagine that people would cry foul when major parts of the formerly working class populace get free lunch without doing anything, while others continue to toil at least until someone in their ranks manages to mechanize that particular industry, as well. Still, the people who have jobs that can't be automatized are depicted as the lucky ones, since permanent vacation isn't all that it's cut out to be, and as result adult education flourishes.

* The Eldar in ''{{Warhammer 40000}}'' used to have an economy like this. Their technology had advanced to the point where all work could be done by machines and everything necessary could be easily produced, eliminated scarcity and the need for labour. It didn't end well, as their society eventually slipped into decadence and resulted in the creation of the Chaos God of {{Squick}}, annihilating the majority of Eldar in the process.
** Which is either something of a BrokenAesop (if you do away with the need for hard work, your civilisation will be annihilated by the personification of self indulgence) or highlighting exactly how [[CrapsackWorld unfair]] the [=WH40K=] universe is.
*** Not even necessarily a broken aesop, since some economists think that's a very real danger in such a society (related to why communist systems collapse when what workers put in has no connection to what they get back). For a modern comparison, look how quickly people start stealing movies, music and games when the internet makes it as easy as buying them.

** There's also some accuracy in that while TheCulture itself has no need for currency, they are careful about how their operatives act in societies where there still ''is'' a monetary system. In ''Excession'', they are peeved by the way one character throws money around, and in [[TheCulture/UseOfWeapons Use of Weapons]], they probably only allow the rather unstable protagonist to spend like a madman, because they are comfortable with him tearing that society apart, allowing them to step in.
** It's noticeable that whenever the Culture comes across something that ''is'' scarce (a [[{{TheCulture/Excession}} rare alien artifact]] or tickets to a prestigious concert) they suddenly become considerably more competitive. Some particularly noteworthy events are given the accolade, "they'd reinvent money for this". The concert in ''Look to Windward'' was one such event, with so many strange things being bartered or promised in exchange for tickets that an actual financial economy springing up to establish their value was a possibility.

** One community (or phyle, in the book's parlance) exists as a sort of pre-industrial commune providing various hand-made goods such as paper, fabric or horses to the prosperous neo-Victorian phyle. Pointing out that they can indulge themselves in such frivolous activity only because the neo Victorian industrialists and engineers and scientist are rich enough to be able to purchase such things doesn't necessarily go down very well.

* The whacky Zeitgeist movies/cult in general and The Venus Project in particular seems like a combination of Marxism, post scarcity economics and [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ceT11xDUZ70 spotty teenage]] SciFi. Maglev trains that can carry you thousands of miles underground. To get your lunch. Free of charge. Without ever needing to be maintained or repaired. [[PoesLaw OK, you're just taking the piss now, aren't you?]]. The third film explained more about resource-based economy.

* The last game in the ''Silicon Dreams''' trilogy of InteractiveFiction games explores how post-scarcity could turn a country into a ''dystopia''. All work is handled by robots, leaving humans almost no way to earn a living. Combine with a number of other insane economics policies reasoned out by robots with logical thought processes but no common sense, and many humans have to resort to theft and other crimes to pay their living expenses.

* In ''{{Baccano}}'''s "Children of the Bottle", Elmer cites his reason for getting into alchemy was to learn how to turn metals into gold and distribute it so he could end poverty... and the reason he ''gave up'' alchemy being that he realized that the economy simply does not work that way.

* [[ZeroPunctuation Yahtzee]] claims during the ''VideoGame/FableIII'' review that the simplest solution would be to endure a year of hardship and then switch to good after the Crawler is defeated. Yahtzee, economies don't come equipped with a neat and clean good/bad switch, especially when you consider the level of the good and evil choices during the ruling portion of the game. Just for comparison, the first and last choices you make are, respectively, whether or not to repair a section of town utterly smashed by the rebellion, and whether to ''let the economy collapse or not.''
** Arguable interpretation. Another way of phrasing what he said would be just a tightening of the belt until the end of the crisis.

* A strange, and amusing, example occurs in ''TheHeroesOfOlympus: The Lost Hero. King Midas (yes ''that'' King Midas) is bankrolling the BigBad's efforts by...turning things lying around his mansion into gold and selling them to investors, thereby lowering the inherent value of said gold and making the price drop.

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