The Setup: Begin with 10 folks on a deserted island who are using pressed volcanic ash wafers as currency.
Situation Normal: Let's say they have 100 total wafers. Maybe a day's worth of fish costs a couple wafers to the fisherman, a woven vine net would sell to the fisherman for several wafers. One inhabitant maybe hauls fresh water from the lagoon in exchange for a wafer a day, an economy.
The Creation of Debt: One of the fishermen steps on a flint knife and is impaled through the foot, incapacitated. Reasonably averse to dying, the injured folk begs for aid. Perhaps from the water fetcher. "You earn one wafer hauling water, but when I recover I'll give you two wafers for each day that you instead spend helping me." The injured folk takes 51 days to heal, and now owes more wafers (102) to the water hauler than even exist.
Downward Spiral: This maimed fisherman is now working at a deficit. The first haul of fish per day goes towards paying his debt to the water-fetching nurse. The second to feed himself. He has to work, with a limp, harder than the other fishermen just to break even. Without discretionary wafers, he isn't buying as many leathers for his wife and things are tense at home. The situation is untenable.
Equal and Opposite: Meanwhile, the water fetcher is trading well, using his extra wafers to buy some fur insulation for the walls of his hut for winter. Tar waterproofing, the whole nine yards. Fetcher is living like a king. The womenfolk are competing among each other to win a place in his warm hut. Every folk with something to sell comes to Fetcher, because he's the one with the money. It seems everyone who interacts with Fetcher benefits... except for the maimed fisherman.
-- end chapter 1 --
So sorry, I thought this would be like two sentences, not a fucking rough draft for a kid's book.
The Setup: Begin with 10 folks on a deserted island who are using pressed volcanic ash wafers as currency.
Situation Normal: Let's say they have 100 total wafers. Maybe a day's worth of fish costs a couple wafers to the fisherman, a woven vine net would sell to the fisherman for several wafers. One inhabitant maybe hauls fresh water from the lagoon in exchange for a wafer a day, an economy.
The Creation of Debt: One of the fishermen steps on a flint knife and is impaled through the foot, incapacitated. Reasonably averse to dying, the injured folk begs for aid. Perhaps from the water fetcher. "You earn one wafer hauling water, but when I recover I'll give you two wafers for each day that you instead spend helping me." The injured folk takes 51 days to heal, and now owes more wafers (102) to the water hauler than even exist.
Downward Spiral: This maimed fisherman is now working at a deficit. The first haul of fish per day goes towards paying his debt to the water-fetching nurse. The second to feed himself. He has to work, with a limp, harder than the other fishermen just to break even. Without discretionary wafers, he isn't buying as many leathers for his wife and things are tense at home. The situation is untenable.
Equal and Opposite: Meanwhile, the water fetcher is trading well, using his extra wafers to buy some fur insulation for the walls of his hut for winter. Tar waterproofing, the whole nine yards. Fetcher is living like a king. The womenfolk are competing among each other to win a place in his warm hut. Every folk with something to sell comes to Fetcher, because he's the one with the money. It seems everyone who interacts with Fetcher benefits... except for the maimed fisherman.
-- end chapter 1 --
So sorry, I thought this would be like two sentences, not a fucking rough draft for a kid's book.