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To: Martin Olveyra <molv@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Cc: freeciv-dev@xxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [Freeciv-Dev] Re: more considerations about trade routes
From: Per Inge Mathisen <per@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Tue, 9 May 2006 13:29:04 +0000 (GMT)

On Tue, 9 May 2006, Martin Olveyra wrote:
In the real world, trade is a spontaneous conduct of people. They dont need to be directed by governments in order to trade each other. Instead, the function of government is to obstaculize trade (think in customs, customs duty, protectionism, taxes, etc). When two governments celebrate a free exchange pact, a commercial agree, etc, they are not impelling trade, but they are establishing exceptions to the obstaculizations themself impose.

So ¿why, instead of leave a system in which we, the players, must act in order to establish trade routes, they instead are created spontaneously unless we obstaculize them? This alternative only takes from us the establishment of the degree of customs duty and of customs control, with the benefits for the government of more tax revenues, at the cost of less trade.

I could nitpick and say that historically this is not entirely accurate, as governments have sometimes been quite involved in trade, but the more important objection is that what the player (the government) gets in tax revenues, and trade, is the same thing.

You could say one is gold, and the other is, say, luxuries, representing private wealth, and have a control that would balance between them, but then you would merely reinvent the tax settings.

  - Per

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