What Happens When The Church Runs Out Of Money?

PeterZ wrote:The more the Writ is abused this way, the easier it will be to replace the Writ's more egregiously repugnant elements with reasonable alternatives.

And more than that: the standard for what to keep and what to disregard becomes what IS reasonable. It becomes the task of living people on Safehold to judge what's right, good, in accordance with God's plan, or in accordance with whatever they judge to be appropriate. The Writ gets to be a starting point rather than a last word.

evilauthor wrote:

Darman wrote:One important thing that will occur is that during the intellectual struggle to keep Church finances alive the various members of the bureaucracy will be attempting to create new means to achieve that end. Advancements aren't just being made in technology, but advances in finance and banking and the creation of bond markets, stock exchanges, etc are equally important and the crisis the Church is facing is giving its accountants/recorders/scribes an incentive to think outside the box. This is all towards the greater long-term goal of Merlin and Nimue.

The problem here is that since these things are being created by the LOSING side of the war, future attempts to implement such measures are going to be met with far greater skepticism than in real life.

The measures failed the side using it and left them in economic shambles. Not exactly a ringing endorsement for the other side and future generations.

That is a problem, certainly. A few points though:

Scrip drawn on respectable banks isn't unknown on Safehold and has been working out well enough with the respected and well-run banks of Siddarmark at least and probably Charis too. So hyperinflated paper money from the Church won't be the only data point for the whole idea.

The Imperial Charisian treasury has been issuing notes with an eye toward getting cash from the upcoming Silverlode silver, so it's presenting another good data point for paper money or the practical equivalent. Moreover, it's getting more of it in circulation.

As bad as they are treating paper money, the Church at least and likely Desnair is already or surely soon will be abusing minted coinage too. So as smeared as they may make the good name of paper money, the silver standard is going to suffer a plunge in trust too.

Last, the Church has a lot of properties and is a huge employer. Duchairn is a very clever and responsible man who can see what the jihad is doing. Insofar as he's allowed to, I'm sure he's going to be arranging the softest landing he can for the Church's credit (in every sense) in the face of vast amounts owed and properties lost to "heresy". I do think the Church really could meet all its commitments (not, of course, including pampering vicars and archbishops!) under his management if only the Grand Fornicator and his damn war can end soon.

JeffEngel wrote:

PeterZ wrote:The more the Writ is abused this way, the easier it will be to replace the Writ's more egregiously repugnant elements with reasonable alternatives.

And more than that: the standard for what to keep and what to disregard becomes what IS reasonable. It becomes the task of living people on Safehold to judge what's right, good, in accordance with God's plan, or in accordance with whatever they judge to be appropriate. The Writ gets to be a starting point rather than a last word.

And that, rather than anything that happens on a battlefield, will be victory in the war.

Expert snuggler wrote:

JeffEngel wrote:And more than that: the standard for what to keep and what to disregard becomes what IS reasonable. It becomes the task of living people on Safehold to judge what's right, good, in accordance with God's plan, or in accordance with whatever they judge to be appropriate. The Writ gets to be a starting point rather than a last word.

And that, rather than anything that happens on a battlefield, will be victory in the war.

I believe that the only way the Writ could have been made so vulnerable is by the CoGA's abuse. In this case the excesses of the Clyntahn and the Inquisition enabled Zhan Q. Safehold to begin to consider what is reasonable applied to the Writ. In that way Langehorn and Bedard's legacy is being and can only be destroyed through suicide.

Running out of money and compelling people into barter arrangements would impose sufficient dislocation on the population to trigger that suicide. Furthermore, suffering a complete military defeat before such dislocations are suffered would mitigate the damage to the CoGA. Well, what there is of the CoGA that is left. Such a defeat can be blamed for any economic dislocation by Safehold's citizens. If the CoGA by its own hand chooses to cause such dislocations, they damage themselves much more thoroughly.

So from the Nimues' view forcing the CoGA into every greater expenditures is the primary driver for achieving her long term goal. Those massive demands for expenditures will force the mainland nations to adapt their societies and economies to enable such expenditures. One of two things must follow.

1- The CoGA is successful at keeping society together during that period of massive change. This means that by their own volition they adapt their view of the Writ and the view of the mainland in general to accommodate the needed changes. Even if the CoGA adapts by dispensations, the statement will be made that the Proscriptions can be dispensed with.

2-The CoGA is unsuccessful at keeping society together in the face of the required changes. The economic dislocations will destroy what little remaining confidence Safeholdians have in the CoGA and their view of orthodoxy. Obviously God favors the Charisian view or he wouldn't have allowed Charis to piss all over orthodoxy the way they did.

Either way they will eventually lose. Running out of money AND maintaining the pace of the war will usher in all the changes the Inquisition have been fighting that much more quickly. The CoGA CAN continue the military war by forcing all sorts of financial expedients but in doing so they will lose the war to maintain orthodoxy.

Eventualy you will get to the point at which you can't buy what isn't there. As the supply areas for food, the manufacturing of areas that make things (and repair things) and the sources of materials to create both are lost to the other side, you just run out.

The end of the war should come before that but it keeps getting worse and worse for both the civilians, the army and even the top of the church.
When the coal to heat the buildings (except the Temple with it's energy supply) and the food to feed anybody, is cut off you are going to have also reached the point where you can't fight.

The church might keep enforcing the Writs and the punishment for heresy right up to the end but you can't make dead people fight from the trenches and dismembering heretics and burning them in punishment isn't terribly effective if they are already actualy dead. At that point the burning is probaly a public health issue but you have nothing to burn them with.

This easy sell war bond's. The CoGA can force everyone in its employ to by bond's. Instead of paying a person full pay of say 200 CM per week pay the unlucky sucker 100 in bonds and the rest in cash but make the bonds redeemable in 10 or 20 year's time.

saber964 wrote:This easy sell war bond's. The CoGA can force everyone in its employ to by bond's. Instead of paying a person full pay of say 200 CM per week pay the unlucky sucker 100 in bonds and the rest in cash but make the bonds redeemable in 10 or 20 year's time.

The problem is that the poor sucker probably needs his 200 CM to provide for his family and those 200 CM are buying less all the time. Cutting his pay and giving him essentially what amounts to worthess script isn't going to either get his good will or help the war effort. You will be using up and throwing him away. There is only so much blood in a turnip.

Besides, the issue is availability of resources. No amount of shenanigans can change that if the resources aren't available.

Don

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n7axw wrote:

PeterZ wrote:Nationalise everything and turn the economy into one driven by barter. Want food? Either work to produce what the CoGA wants or supply those materials the CoGA needs. Perhaps they don't need to nationalise everything, just food production.

They might not need to nationalise food production, just make any food purchase legal with CoGA scrip. Scrip are earned only through supplying the church what it needs to prosecute the jihad. Workers end up working for food.

This would be normal-- force payment with currency that would have no value other than what the inquisition could enforce.

Wars usually do not end due to lack of money even if the parties fighting them are bankrupt.

Don

I beg to differ Don. World War I ended as a result of the bankruptcy of Germany. Indeed, it was believed at the onset of the war that Germany could not possibly fund it's war effort for more than one year and they lasted four. Most of us here probably know enough about the trench warfare of WWI to know that all sides needed to maintain recruitment levels and funding levels for the ordinances needed to bombard the opposing side's entrenchments (and rush quickly across the no mans land to the opposes trench before they could return and man the machine guns). Yet France and Britain's war effort was eventually bankrolled by the US (when it finally entered the war), allowing them to continue to produce the necessary munitions. That and their access to raw materials from their colonies - access that landlocked Germany did not have.

So when Germany finally ran out of money and financial schemes to raise money, it started to experience defections along the front lines, as soldiers who were not paid for months simply refused to fight. And they began experiencing critical shortages in supplies, something the allies did not experience thanks to the US supplying them. This again proves the importance of maintaining the public's morale in war (so that they continue to support their government's policies) and the importance of logistics to any war effort.

But the real question is whether all those priests and lay brothers and sisters, who depend on mother church for their livelihoods, will continue to serve mother church without being paid - and that includes the inquisitors themselves. I wonder how many of them are willing to serve the Grand Inquisitor when they are no longer being paid. And these are the people who would need to enforce a barter system or confiscations when the money finally runs out.

thanatos wrote:But the real question is whether all those priests and lay brothers and sisters, who depend on mother church for their livelihoods, will continue to serve mother church without being paid - and that includes the inquisitors themselves. I wonder how many of them are willing to serve the Grand Inquisitor when they are no longer being paid. And these are the people who would need to enforce a barter system or confiscations when the money finally runs out.

For that matter, if your child is hungry enough and someone threatens you for food, you may offer them a surprising response. After you get someone's back to the wall, you can't push them around any more.

If the inquisitors aren't getting paid and just have first call on what they can threaten out of people - and they're getting aware of how close to the wall they've pushed people - they may decide their best bet for not getting fragged is to switch sides.

If you can't put your finger decisively on bankruptcy as "the" cause of a side losing a war, it may just be that it goes hand in hand with all kinds of other problems. You don't go bankrupt with successes on the battlefield, ample supplies, marvelous logistics, great warfighting technology, and splendid morale all around. If you've got even some of those, you can rearrange finances to remain solvent.

Therein lies the vulnerability of the CoGA. The religion purports to describe the real world activity in terms of divine intervention. So bad things happening require active intervention by divine forces to make that possible. So when heretics benefit from their heresies, they are viewed as receiving divine favor.

The CoGA is vulnerable tron Langhorne's and Bedard's brainchild of a seamless religious description of the Universe.

JeffEngel wrote:

thanatos wrote:But the real question is whether all those priests and lay brothers and sisters, who depend on mother church for their livelihoods, will continue to serve mother church without being paid - and that includes the inquisitors themselves. I wonder how many of them are willing to serve the Grand Inquisitor when they are no longer being paid. And these are the people who would need to enforce a barter system or confiscations when the money finally runs out.

For that matter, if your child is hungry enough and someone threatens you for food, you may offer them a surprising response. After you get someone's back to the wall, you can't push them around any more.

If the inquisitors aren't getting paid and just have first call on what they can threaten out of people - and they're getting aware of how close to the wall they've pushed people - they may decide their best bet for not getting fragged is to switch sides.

If you can't put your finger decisively on bankruptcy as "the" cause of a side losing a war, it may just be that it goes hand in hand with all kinds of other problems. You don't go bankrupt with successes on the battlefield, ample supplies, marvelous logistics, great warfighting technology, and splendid morale all around. If you've got even some of those, you can rearrange finances to remain solvent.