I haven’t seen any economic plans for the Crownlands or the Iron Throne itself. To be sure, its harder to develop a single systematic approach for the entirety of the 7K, but I’m curious if you do have any particular thoughts on the matter.

Were I on the Iron Throne, my first course would be three of your canals: Mander-Blackwater, Harrenhal, and Seaguard. Between those three, direct waterways are opened to four of the eight realms’ capitals, as well as the bulk of their economic potential.

My next would be a standing professional army built out of the Gold Cloaks. Call them the Gold Guard or King’s Watch or whatever you want. Hire more men, and train them, rotating them between garrisoning King’s Landing, drilling, and patrols of the 7K, particularly the major roads.

Politically, I would adopts a permanent parliamentary style council that represents, at minimum, each of the Lords Paramount, and hopefully all the major noble houses. I woukd expect each house to be represented by a full blood member, which would also serve as a valuable political hostage. Actually authority would be granted to it, though how much, I’m not sure.

Chartering royal cities would also be on the agenda. Ideally, I want them looking directly to the crown, though how much that can be done with the more established cities, I’m not sure. These chartered cities would, ideally, not be governed as feudal fiefs, but by elected councils.

So, this isn’t a bad start, but I do have some suggestions and corrections. The first of which is that you have to remember that if you’re going to do Crownlands economic development, that’s not the same as national development. It means economic development focused on boosting the economy of the Crownlands and King’s Landing, sometimes in ways that help other areas and sometimes in ways that don’t.

Infrastructure

So let’s start with the canals. A Mander-Blackwater canal is a good idea for the Iron Throne, because it means that more traffic will flow through King’s Landing, which enriches the Crownlands and the monarchy specifically. A Seaguard canal should be discouraged, because that would redirect trade from Blackwater Bay to the Bay of Crabs. (This is the same reason why the crown built roads connecting Maidenpool to King’s Landing and not to Lord Harroway’s Town) A Harrenhal canal might be a good idea, but it’s a secondary objective.

However, we’re still not done with infrastructure – namely, bridges. It’s a major limitation that there are no bridges over the Blackwater, which slows down traffic on the Kingsroad, the Roseroad, and the Goldroad. I would once again recommend swing bridges, which would allow river traffic to continue, but also allow me to dictate when land and river traffic could take place (which makes tolls easier to collect, but is important for warfare as well. If you’re dealing with riverrine invasion, you want the bridge blocking the river; if you’re dealing with a land army heading to the capital, swing the bridges away to deny them a crossing).

And down the road, I’ve got some projects in King’s Landing to take care of. 

Finance

Now, an army has to come after you’ve got the finances for it. Which means the next step has to be building up the monarchy’s finances. This is where timing becomes an issue: it’s a lot easier to turn the Crownlands into a financial center in 283 AC than it is in 297 AC, thanks to Littlefinger’s embezzlement. Assuming for the moment a fairly stable royal finances, building a Royal Bank of Westeros shouldn’t be that hard. Because in addition to the resources the King gets from King’s Landing and the Crownlands, they also get the taxes they assess both from their vassals and from ports throughout Westeros, making the King one of the wealthiest individuals in Westeros. 

Whether the king’s yearly income is 200k a year or 2 million a year, the royal incomes are clearly sufficient to provide the reserves of a bank. Beyond that, the crown also has two advantages that would endow that bank with the genuine power of a central bank: first, as with the regional banks we’ve discussed, the fact that the Royal Bank’s reserves would be funded with tax revenue that will keep coming in in perpetuity as long as I avoid being overthrown gives it the ability to be a true lender of last resort, with the added advantage of drawing in tax revenue from across a continent rather than a single region. 

Second, as King I have the unique power of seignorage, both in the sense of having the right to make coins and the profit I can derive from the difference between their face value and their metallic content. This means two things – first, until I distribute the coins I mint, I can count them as part of my reserves, and secondly, the bank’s notes are legally money. Not only does that greatly add to my ability to be a lender of last resort, but as long as I don’t abuse this power to the extent that those notes lose their value, I can print money and spend it. 

As with the infrastructure above, this is something I want to make sure doesn’t happen elsewhere. A Lannister bank is all of the sudden a real threat to the sovereignty of the king, because a Lannister banknote now threatens to become an alternate currency. So I will insist quite heavily that a royal charter is necessary to form a bank and very carefully not give one to any house that could challenge me, while using charters to woo the merchant class. However, loyal vassals might want to petition me for permission to operate a branch of the Royal Bank, which I would be happy to grant so that I can count Casterly Rock’s gold reserves as part of my reserves, while still keeping control over monetary supply and policy in Westeros. 

Production

Another thing that the Crownlands has going for it is an unusually high concentration of skilled workers. Some of the best smiths, weavers, tailors, cobblers, and tanners, to say nothing of bakers and fishermen, work in King’s Landing. That’s a good industrial base to be getting on with.

However, all of this production is on a typically medieval small scale and it’s not the best in the world. So with all of this finance behind me, it’s time to start expanding production in scale by building large-scale industrial suburbs (which will also help a good deal with pollution in the city). At the same time, it’s definitely time to start practicing some of the immigration and industrial espionage policy I’ve discussed before to start improving the quality of our goods. 

Another thing that large-scale industrial policy is good for is to upgrade the quality of my military forces. The Crownlands may only have 15,000 men, but if I can outfit all of my infantry in full plate and have them fight like dismounted knights, while improving the training of the Goldcloaks so that they can actually fight effectively as a military force, they will wipe the floor with the infantry of every other region. 

Political Development

So, politically, I’m pretty much in agreement. Basically, the idea is to move to a Parliamentary system by way of Versailles and Edo – generating political consent, but also creating hostages.

Militarily, I disagree. A large standing army is politically controversial (smacks of tyranny) and is expensive. (Remember how ruinous Cersei’s tripling the Gold Cloaks was?) I would instead create a new order of knighthood several hundred if not several thousand strong. A royal order is politically attractive – look at the response to Renly’s Rainbow Guard and the Brotherhood of Winged Knights – and it gets me highly trained soldiers who I don’t have to pay wages for.