When can you be considered rich?

[Lutine]

In order to know what "rich" means in a high fantasy environement, we need to know a bit about real-world economics, particularly medieval economics. For example, a lot of people who have been raised in modern capitalism don't understand what "high taxes" really mean. In medieval cultures, everything was taxed. Births were taxes, deaths were taxed, every transaction was taxed, travel was taxed, weapons were taxed, and there were levies for special expenses on top of that. And of course the church tithes were mandatory, so they were also a kind of tax. Taxes were set by the Exchequer, sufficient to run the kingdom, but it's important to remember that this did not include one's debts to one's feudal lord. The king, for example, was expected to support his own army and the upkeep of his lands and castle out of his own packet and not the kingdom's funds. This means that the king levied taxes on his feudal vassals, who in turn collected rents from his freemen and everything from his serfs (who were considered chattel, his property). So in addition to all the taxes levied by the kingdom, there were also all of the fees, levies, rents, and dues you had to give to your priest, guild, lord, and every other middleman ready with a hand out.

 

In Skyrim, taxes seem to be simplified in the sense that we can assume they're included in the prices given by shopkeepers. Given the markup, we can assume that taxes are pretty reasonable (probably the result of "armies" in Skyrim consisting of, like, eight dudes), but what we don't know is how much rents are. The cost of purchasing a house doesn't include hearth taxes, which were extremely common in medieval times, roughly equivalent to property taxes today. The player seems to be a freedman (not quite the same as a freeman), as a result of escaping custody in the beginning of the game. Eventually the player becomes a thane (of at least one city), at which point sie would be considered a vassal, and subject to providing resources to hir feudal lord (either Balgruuf or Vignar). As a vassal, the player would also be expected to serve a set amount of time per year in military service or pay an amount established by the lord sufficient for purchasing mercenaries to replace the player. In addition, the player would be expected to collect a force of military retainers, who would also serve their time in the lord's armies. In the case of Skyrim, the player's housecarls would be part of that force, but the player would also be required to train and provide for a certain number of footmen and support personnel (such as pages and squires). This is why in order to become thane, it's necessary to purchase property.

 

What total percentage of a household's resources would be taxed (or levied or tithed or so on) depends on how the political winds are blowing. In a time with a weak king, the nobility and the merchants tend to do quite well, with taxes on them being minimal and having a free hand to tax the freemen, peasants, and serfs as heavily as they like. We see such a situation occur in England, under King John, where the bourgeoisie are able to force the king to sign the Magna Carta, thus giving professionals unprecedented protection from the Crown. On the other hand, a powerful king or queen was often much beloved by the peasantry, because it meant the excesses of their feudal lords were curbed, and the Crown used its own treasury to support itself rather then the kingdom's. When the Cromwell's Roundheads rebelled against Charles the Bald, for example, the well-to-do peasantry (the "kulaks" as the Russians call them) and the moneyed professional classes supported Cromwell, while it was the poorest serfs and peasants who gladly fought for the Crown against them. We know from talking to people in Skyrim that Torygg was a weak king, wuth little hold over his jarls. This suggests that while taxes are probably minimal on the merchant classes (which accounts for the relatively low markup in the shops), hearth taxes and the like are probably much, much more onerous. Indeed, we often hear the farmers complaing about how hard they're forced to work, especially given how poorly crops grow in Skyrim's climate. The real expenses for the player, then, are likely to come not from consumption, but from the requirements of vassaldom, which aren't really touched on in-game.

 

To give some idea of the scale of the taxes, the hearth tax in England generally ran about 2-3 shillings per year, per fireplace. 20 shillings made up a pound, which was literally a pound of silver. (Gold was too scarce to be used for ordinary transactions; people would no sooner pull out a gold coin than you would whip out a thousand dollar bill at a convenience store today.) In medieval Italy, a loaf of bread cost abour 4 piccoli. There are 32 piccoli to the grossi, which was the standard silver coin. A single silver coin would buy you 8 loaves of bread. Since we known the Skyrim cost for bread (~2 septims) we can calculate that a septim is worth 1/16th of a grossi. A grossi was 2 grams of silver, so we can estimate that 1 gram of silver = 32 septims. 454 grams = 1 pound, so 14,528 septims = 1 pound sterling. A shilling = 1/20th of a pound, therefore 1 shilling is the equivalent value of 500 septims. We can therefore estimate that the hearth tax on a small thatched cottage would run about 1000-1500 septims per year, or 80-120 septims per month.

 

The average income in medieval Europe was about 1 shilling per week for unskilled labour, and 1 shilling per day for a trained professional soldier in peacetime. Given six households and a *minimum* of six housecarls and at least one general-purpose scullery/cleaning/repair servant to support, wages will be about 7 shillings a day. or about 2500 shillings per year. That 125 pounds sterling, or roughly 1,800,000 septims per year in wages.

 

So, back to the original question of how much is "rich" in Skyrim, let's assume that the player owns a half-dozen homes across Skyrim. Each probably pays the equivalent of two hearths worth of taxes (being rather more than thatched huts), so figure the player will have to pay 12,000 to 18,000 septims a year in hearth taxes, plus 1,800,000 septims in salaries. We'll assume that each household will require about 10% of its value per year in upkeep, and we'll assume an average value of 20,000 septims per house, for a total value of 120,000 septims. A year's worth of upkeep, plus hearth tax, plus salaries, is going to be about 2 million septims per year to run six households. If we define "rich" as having so much money that one need never touch the principle of one's investments, and we assume a simple 10% return on investment, then we can see the player needs a *minimum* of 200,000,000 septims to be considered "rich".

 

You have very little posts, but they are bloody brilliant. Thanks for the insight on this.

 

Though, that still brings us back to the fact that a single Septim is made of gold. I don't think two million gold coins were circulating around the entirety of medieval Europe. If each coin was an ounce, that would be 2 million ounces or 56699kg of gold. To achieve "rich" status, that would be 5.6 Million kg of gold. I doubt that amount of gold even existed back then.

 

Now, if that 200,000,000 septim sum was copper... :whistling:

Edited July 24, 2012 by Lutine

[fraquar]

You have the power to turn Iron ore into Gold - that is the definition of rich. Math is basically irrelevant in that scenario.

 

Answer: As soon as you find the Transmute Mineral Orei book - which is probably no longer than 1-2 hours in the game.

Edited July 24, 2012 by fraquar

[PharmakosChroster]

Just a quick note that my calculations are a bit off. I forgot that a medieval pound sterling was nonstandard. Instead of 454 grams to a modern pound, the medieval pound sterling was actually about 350 grams, so it's 11,200 septims to the pound instead of 14,500.

 

@Lutine - The septim may be gold, but we know that metals on Nirn don't have the same scarcity they do here. That makes sense, since (1) Nirn has the same gravity despite being much smaller than Earth, meaning it's denser and has a higher proportion of metals, and (2) as fraquar notes, alchemical transformation of iron into silver and gold is fairly routine for mages. That's why it's important that we find a standard other than gold and silver so we can compare costs between Skyrim and the real world operating at a similar social and technological level. I chose bread, since it's the most common foodstuff and we have accurate prices for it in both Tamriel and the real medieval world. That's how we can estimate how much a septim is really worth in terms of expenses which aren't explicitly stated in the game, which allows us to work out how many septims it takes to be rich. It may indeed take a vault like Scrooge McDuck's filled with gold to the rafters to be considered rich in Skyrim, as suggested by the numbers.

[Lutine]

Hmm, I didn't take that into account. Makes sense now; there would be plenty space for all the gold too. After all, all the gold existing today in its entirety only fills up a space the size of a small office building. It'd certainly be a pain to move all the gold though.

[breakwind]

My ~ button never runs out of septims :smile:

[fms1]

Thankfully I haven't seen any inflation in Skyrim yet, but any time more currency gets put into circulation inflation always goes up too. You need only to look what happened during the gold rushes in the US, and Germany during WWII (printing more money to pay debts). This is why DeBeers limits the amount of diamonds in circulation. So If any mage can turn iron to gold it would eventually lead to massive inflation.

[chocklymon]

But then their equivalent of gold would be, like, ebony I guess.

That is a mod that I would like to see; instead of the typical, gold, silver, and copper coins most games with a medieval type setting have, use a ebony, glass, gold coin type system. This would explain why septims are worth so little relatively, and provide a unique currency system to the Elder Scrolls.

[fraquar]

Thankfully I haven't seen any inflation in Skyrim yet, but any time more currency gets put into circulation inflation always goes up too. You need only to look what happened during the gold rushes in the US, and Germany during WWII (printing more money to pay debts). This is why DeBeers limits the amount of diamonds in circulation. So If any mage can turn iron to gold it would eventually lead to massive inflation.

 

This is true, which is why you never have all your eggs in 1 basket. Use that gold to get into other markets and find the next "gold".

 

Personally, I really like the Spiced Wine, I'd buy that lady out and take that to market. Be the Maven Black Briar of the Spiced Wine industry.

 

Got a couple dozen sure fire winners, but if i ever get desperate I'd just hit up Brynjolf, I hear he has some doozies. :biggrin:

[Mydget]

Well really after you get good armour and a weapon, there really isn't much to spend on apart from maybe a few more houses or so. If someone implemented taxes though, that would be an interesting mod. It wouldn't be that difficult to decrease gold in inventory every, let's say, month. If they don't have enough gold, then send some pissed off NPCs after them. Of course, that's not really helping immersion. The difficult part would be adding a reasonable system to pay taxes. Well, difficult relative to me, as I can't imagine doing that. Still trying to get my head around placing objects, seems a bit wee difficult compared to Oblivion's CS. (I'm pretty noob.)

[Lutine]

A rudimentary tax system could be put x amount of gold into a chest that is collected by a Tax Collector actor.