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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;EWC3, post: 4580443, member: 93416&quot;]Yes – I agree up to a point. I suppose I would put my amateur opinion this way - China had a shot at what we might call ‘the full Keynsian’ around 1,900 years before the West.</p><p><br /></p><p>But there are a lot of grey areas. Most specialists now agree that (say) in late Anglo-Saxon type changing, the state gave out perhaps two new pennies for three old ones on a six year cycle – and that often had nothing to do with weight or quality of metal. If so there was way more fiat value in such Western systems than collectors often assume.</p><p><br /></p><p>Likewise, I suspect these Eastern Roman satellites we are discussing here were operating somewhat like 20th century soft currency zones, (where bullion values operated somewhat like 20th century black market rates).</p><p><br /></p><p>Perhaps I should clarify the matter I mentioned concerning the Chinese Gunazi – in case anyone is interested.</p><p><br /></p><p>That seems to date very early – before 300 BC. The scheme was to fund the state ‘secretly’ - without any overt tax collection at all. It does not matter if seigniorage is charged. All that matters is the state monopolises coin production. The scheme runs like this - at harvest time, grain is cheap – so the government buys a lot and stores it. So at that point the state ‘dumps’ coin into the market at a high price. Later in the year, grain prices rise. The state recovers its coin stock by dumping grain into the market at a high price. Then the cycle starts over.</p><p><br /></p><p>Rob T[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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