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While the political shortcomings of this strategy are quite clear […] it’s interesting that they may well have been very beneficial for the economy of the Westerlands, given the tremendous importance of access capital for economic development, especially in an unusually industrial economy like that of the Westerlands.
Could you expand on what economic benefits you mean here regarding Tytos’s loose credit policies? For example, do you see it as the Lannisport goldsmiths’ guilds taking this opportunity to expand and set up more shops, or ? Or would the “private wars” being waged in the (Wild) Westerlands at this time cancel out most of these economic benefits, because. idk, maybe the merchants needed the gold to replace the damages to their business resulting from the West’s lawlessness at this time?
(Would there be competing guilds in the same industry in the same city, or would all the goldsmiths in a city be in the same guild?)
Where TWOIAF discusses merchants from Kayce, do you think that city is another important port for the Westerlands, albeit one that is much smaller than Lannisport or even Gulltown?
Do you think that Aerys’s “grand schemes” could have been an attempt to win the favor of other Lords Paramount? For example, more territory for Rickard Stark with a new wall, money to Jon Arryn for the Vale’s marble, more arable land for the Unnamed Princess of Dorne? Unfortunately Aerys was slightly insane even then, and his plans wouldn’t have worked, but could Aerys’s public works projects have been said to be politically motivated like Tywin’s were? (Interesting if Aerys was trying to form his own alliances while other alliances were possibly being formed against him, if Southron Ambitions were true.)
I know there’s very little to work with, but do you have any theories on why Tywin enacted his Pure Food Act in the first place? You said it only affects small businesses and has no effect on the nobility, but those seem to be more about why Tywin wouldn’t oppose the law going through, rather than motivations to pass the law in the first place, because Tywin still doesn’t really give a damn about the smallfolk. Is it just to limit the power of the merchant class, to make sure they aren’t rising above their station in this time of general economic prosperity?
Glad I could help!
So, the benefits of Tytos policies: access to credit is one of the key determinants of economic growth and economic development, especially when it comes to capital goods. So in Lannisport, it’s merchants buying/building ships or ordering cargos, it’s artisans buying shops and tools, it’s forges and furnaces and anvils and vaults. (And no, guilds are unitary – part of the whole point is that you can distribute labor supply so that everyone’s got work and agree on prices so that everyone turns a profit, so if there are competing guilds, everyone’s undercutting everyone else and there’s a glut of labor supply and wages drop the floor)
On the other hand, the lack of law and order means these new investments in capital goods are really vulnerable. So, in the best of all worlds, you want a Casterly Rock that invests its wealth in the local economy like Tytos – indeed, one of the examples of Cersei’s squandered potential is her idea for a Golden Bank – and a Casterly Rock that keeps the peace like Tywin.
Kayce is a town, not a city. So smaller, no charter, less economically developed. Especially after the way it got roughly handled by the Ironborn over the centuries. I’m guessing that it doesn’t really compete in the same industries as Lannisport – it’s a lot further away from gold mines, for example. My guess is that Kayce focuses more on fishing, ship-building, and trying to ruthlessly undercut Lannisport’s prices on harbor fees, port fees, warehouse fees, and the like.
Aerys trying to curry favor – maybe? I read his primary motivations as wanting adulation and to be seen as a “great” monarch due to an underlying inferiority complex. Hence, he’s not just trying to win support by handing out political favors, he’s trying to impress people by overpromising: not just more men for the Night’s Watch, but a whole new Wall! Not just money for irrigation projects but a tunnel through the Red Mountains! And these grandiose projects are often tied to wars meant to make him seem important in light of his father – his father fought a war on the Stepstones, he’ll conquer the Stepstones! His father borrowed heavily from the Braavosi for the War, he’ll put the Braavosi in their place by going to war with them too!
As for pure food and drug – I don’t know. It sort of stands out from the rest. It limits small shopkeepers and merchants, sure. It’s something for the lower-down smallfolk in place of Aegon’s (probably more political) reforms; it might even be a form of “bread and circuses” that doesn’t cost anything. It could also be about his focus on efficiency and good order – I imagine Tywin was very very strict about minimum standards of gold purity in Lannisport goldsmithing, for example, and very strict about not adulterating the currency once Hand. I’d need to know more about other forms of economic regulation that he put in place.
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