You’re not the first person to bring this up, but no, the Grand Canal of China is not the only example of premodern canal-building as an economic development strategy, only the biggest and most extravagant example.
Indeed, the reason why I put canals at the center of my Economic Development plans is that canal-building was a quite common part of Early Modern European economic development, as the Commercial Revolution offered enormous advantages to European states that could move goods faster than their competitors:
In France, canal-building was a major part of the economic policy of more than a few monarchs and finance ministers: you had the Briare Canal (35 miles long) built to link the Loire to the Seine, and most impressively you had the Canal des Deux Mers which connected the Atlantic to the Medittarnean (270 miles long).
In Germany, the Prussians were absolutely mad for canals, so you had a series of canals built by zarious Hohenzollerns to link the Elbe to the Oder to the Weser.
Due to the nature of their geography, the Dutch and the Belgians were huge innovators in canals going back to the 13th century, building canals to protect their cities from armies and floods but also to encourage water-based commerce, and to connect Amsterdam to Haarlem, Haarlem to Leiden, and so on and so forth.
While most English canals were built during the “canal mania” of the 18th and early 19th centuries, there are quite a few canals built during the Early Modern period (the Exeter Canal in 1566, the Oxford-Burcot improvements to the Thames between 1605-1635, the River Wey improvements in 1653, the Stamford Canal in 1670, etc.)
In general, I opted for canals because you can build them with existing technology (they mostly involve a lot of manual labor, and various forms of simple locks were well within the technological capacity of Medieval Europeans) which means that the plan doesn’t rely on the discovery of new technology, they have a broad economic impact across a wide area by reducing transportation costs and lowering the price of bulk goods, and because Westeros has a lot of major river systems that almost, but don’t quite, connect so that relatively short canals can have an outsized impact on travel.
As far as House Lannister is concerned, the Iron Throne belongs to House Baratheon; indeed, they must uphold that fiction at every point if they are to have any pretense of legitimacy. Hence, the debts of Robert Baratheon are passed on to his heirs, Joffrey and Tommen.
Now, it is entirely possible for Tywin to forgive those debts, as Tyrion asks him to. Tywin’s refusal is more personal in nature; he’s spent his entire life paying the king’s debts, first with Aerys II and then with Robert, and he views the reign of King Joffrey as where he will be repaid in every sense of the word.
Tywin’s refusal, and Cersei’s blind spot in this matter, points to a certain failure of imagination on the part of the Lannisters, that they don’t think of the Iron Throne and House Lannister as part of a single institution – in which case, the best strategy would be to forgive the Iron Throne’s debt, massively improving the Crown’s financial standing and allowing them to deal with Braavos and the Faith without need for default or concession – but rather see the Iron Throne as a means of extracting power and wealth for House Lannister.
In A Storm of Swords, Tyrion states that while “crown incomes are ten times higher than they were under Aerys… [so] are the crown’s expenses. Robert was as generous with his coin as he was with his cock… the incomes are considerable, but they are barely sufficient to cover the usury on Littlefinger’s loans.”
As I explain in my essay, this claim on its own is suspect, because if incomes have grown by tenfold (highly unlikely on its own) and so have expenditures (likewise highly unlikely), then debt-to-income shouldn’t have grown, but somehow a tenfold increase in income is only sufficient to cover the interest rate, let alone the principal of the loan.
To me, this makes Littlefinger’s claims from Gulltown part of a pattern of behavior, where he makes extravagant claims of increased income, and then takes on much larger levels of debt than would be necessary to meet expenditures. (For example, his practice of not paying back any principal on the debt and taking out new loans to pay the interest, which is accounting malpractice likely covering up fraud.)
Who Stole Westeros? One of the most persistent controversies of fact among fans of A Song of Ice and Fire is the question of whether Robert Baratheon or Petyr Baelish is responsible for the Iron Throne’s bankruptcy. Many leading scholars of our community have tackled the question (including one of the contributors to this volume); it’s a common topic of debate on r/asoiaf and Westeros.org, as…
anonymous asked: How feasible would a grain dole be in westeros? Could you have a Roman style aystem at least for a major city like King’s Landing, sort of as a primitive social safety net? Where/how could you develop this? Thanks!! Excellent question! Judging from the WOIAF, we do have some crude systems of regional redistribution of grain in times of crisis, as seen by the fact that Aegon V…
Judging from the WOIAF, we do have some crude systems of regional redistribution of grain in times of crisis, as seen by the fact that Aegon V sent grain up to the North during a particularly bad winter. I would argue that the North’s intense attachment to guest right (and its less frequently mentioned tradition of self-euthanasia during long winters) has a lot to do with a sort of crude welfare state of seeking food and shelter at Winterfell. (We also see the Starks exercising very close control over food reserves, for example)
But in terms of a regular grain dole, we actually have an example from Westerosi history:
“Ultimately, some have wondered if the king’s near death in Dorne did not affect his mind in some way, for as the years of his reign progressed, his decisions grew ever more zealous and erratic. Though the smallfolk loved him—he emptied the treasury regularly to fund his charitable acts, including the year when he donated a loaf of bread daily to every man and woman in the city—the lords of the realm were beginning to grow uneasy.” e
Ultimately, some have wondered if the king’s near death in Dorne did not affect his mind in some way, for as the years of his reign progressed, his decisions grew ever more zealous and erratic. Though the smallfolk loved him—he emptied the treasury regularly to fund his charitable acts, including the year when he donated a loaf of bread daily to every man and woman in the city—the lords of the realm were beginning to grow uneasy.
So Baelor the Blessed supposedly bankrupted the monarchy by (among other things) providing a bread dole for the population of King’s Landing. Now, according to AGOT, a tart costs around three coppers, which I’ve been using as a pre-war price for a loaf of bread. That would suggest that it would cost around 127 dragons a day to buy everyone in King’s Landing a loaf of bread, or 46,355 gold a year.
At that rate, a grain dole for the whole of Westeros would cost 3.7 million gold a year, or 0.7% of GDI, or 7% of total tax revenue. This seems surprisingly affordable, although based on my old estimates of royal income, it would bankrupt the monarchy.
However, you have to keep two things in mind: first, it’s all based on the estimate of how much bread costs. If bread costs more than 3 coppers a loaf as I had originally estimated, the price skyrockets. Second, I could be quite wrong about GDI and thus tax revenue.
So let me see if I can approach it from another angle. I’ve estimated that the average yearly income is between 3-5 gold. During the Ancien Regime, the average worker spent about half their income on bread, although this could spike as high as 88% during crop failures. (That suggests that the average Westerosi spends 48 coppers (or ~1 silver) to 80 coppers (or 1.5 silver) a day on bread.)
In turn, this would suggest that a grain dole would cost 60 to 100 million dragons a year. That’s 11.4 to 19% of GDI, or 114% to 190% of total tax revenue.
So I’m going to go out on a limb and say that either three coppers is the wrong price for a loaf of bread, or the smallfolk of Westeros eat 16 tarts a day, which seems unhealthy.
Excellent question! No, it hasn’t, for the most part, because of the extreme financial conservativism of House Lannisters, which I’ve covered here. This is the key quote:
“…some borrowed heavily from Casterly Rock, then failed to repay the loans. When it was seen that Lord Tytos was willing to extend such debts, even forgive them, common merchants from Lannisport and Kayce began to beg for loans as well.
“
Given their enormous liquid reserves, it came as something of a shock to find out that it was seen as a major (and negative) departure from policy for the Lannisters to loan money to their commercial sector. While dumping all of their reserve onto the market at once would be a bad idea, not providing any liquidity to the merchant class has beyond a shadow of a doubt held back the economic development of the Westerlands economy.
So how do the Lannisters use their wealth? Well, certainly they are less dependent on their bannermen, although as Tytos showed, it’s not a good idea for them to let their bannermen get away with not paying their taxes. But mostly, the Lannisters use their wealth for political advantage, lending out money to houses within and without the Westerlands in exchange for political favors.
Ah yes, the factors. Factors are, indeed, agents who buy and sell goods on commission for a principal. Historically, factors were useful intermediaries who could do the buying and selling for a principal who couldn’t be at an important location, they warehoused people’s goods, they guaranteed credit, etc. The word factory actually originally meant a factor’s place of business, a trading post.
However, I think you’re getting too focused in on the idea of them being royal officers. Let’s take a look at the passage from Tyrion IV of ACOK as a whole:
“The Keepers of the Keys were his, all four. The
King’s Counter and the King’s Scales were men he named. The officers in charge
of all three mints. Harbormasters, tax farmers, custom sergeants, wool factors,
toll collectors, pursers, wine factors; nine of every ten belonged to
Littlefinger.”
These are all men who are loyal to Littlefinger, but not all of them are royal officials. The Keepers of the Keys, the King’s Counter and the King’s Scales, the harbormasters, and customs sergeants are government officials. But tax farmers are private citizens who buy the right to tax from the government; pursers are the officers on ships responsible for handling supplies and repairs, and factors are commercial intermediaries.
All of them rely on Littlefinger in different ways, as I discuss here. The royal officials and tax farmers bribed him to get their posts and now pay him kickbacks, but the wool factors are tied to him because Littlefinger “bought wool from the north…stored it, moved it, dyed it, sold it” and thus controls a good deal of the textile trade, and the wine merchants are tied to him because there’s a royal excise tax on wines. And the pursers are tied to him because Littlefinger has close ties to King’s Landing merchants who supply the merchant ships.
After I did this post, @joannalannister asked if I could do a similar set of estimates for the other Great Houses, so I figured I might as well knock them out.
So what are the incomes of the .01% of Westeros?
House Lannister
Now, this is the one where I have to admit I may have under-estimated in the past. I had previouslyestimated that the Lannisters earn at least a million a year based on their lending to the Crown, but my population-based methodology put the Starks easily at or above that level, so I definitely need to do a rethink.
Given that the Westerlands have a population of around 4.5-5.5 million (depending on which estimate you use), the GDI of the Westerlands would be around 13.5-27.5 million dragons a year if we use the average peasant income. (Which would suggest a Lannister income from taxes alone of 1.3-2.75 million a year…)
However, we know from the text that the Westerlands have an unusually high GDI per-capita due to their vast mineral resources, high levels of urbanization, and high levels of human capital in their skilled artisans. So I would start at the upper range and add on perhaps another third to half, suggesting that their GDI is somewhere around 35-41 million dragons.
This would place House Lannister’s revenue at 3.5 to 4.1 million dragons a year, more than three times as much as House Stark – which would fit the Lannisters’ reputation for ostentatious luxury and the Starks’ reputation for spartan austerity.
House Arryn
I’m actually working on my essay on the politics of the Vale right now, but all evidence points to the Arryns being on the high side of average: we hear that “The Vale of Arryn—a long, wide, fertile valley entirely ringed by the great grey-green peaks of the mighty Mountains of the Moon—is as rich as it is beautiful,” and that “though the Vale itself is famously fertile, it is small compared to the domains of other kings (and even some great lords)…Trade is therefore of paramount importance to the rulers of the Vale.”
So I would put their per-capita income on the high-side of average, but this is offset by their lower population. Given a population of 3-3.5 million, the GDI of the Vale is probably around 15 to 17.5 million a year. This would bring in 1.5-1.75 million a year, but Gulltown’s port incomes probably brings it up to 2-odd million a year – substantially higher than the Starks despite having a roughly equivalent population, but significantly below that of the Lannisters due to their low population.
But as I’m sure the Arryns would be the first to tell you, money can’t buy good manners…
House Tully
House Tully is a fascinating case in how failed governance can waste the advantages of nature. Given that the Riverlands are “rich and fertile…the waters of the Trident make the lands ripe for settlement, farming, and conquest, whilst the river’s three branches stimulate trade and travel during peacetime,” the region’s 4 million inhabitants should produce a GDI of around 20 million dragons a year (taking the high average of peasant income), producing tax revenue of around 2 million dragons a year.
However, whether it’s due to underdevelopment or the weak grasp of the Tullys on their subjects, their actual army size compared to their potential army size suggests that they only have an income of 1 million dragons a year. Obviously in comparison to ordinary smallfolk, this is a staggering sum, but in comparison to their neighbors to the west and to the east, you can see why the Riverlands have struggled to maintain their independence.
House Greyjoy
These estimates are all rather crude, but this is especially true for the Ironborn, since so little of their income is generated by the Iron Islands themselves, and so much of their income is generated from reaving, which makes it very very “off the books.”
However, based on their poor soil and downright Dickensian levels of squalor, I would say that the Iron Islands population produces perhaps4.5 million dragons a year in GDI, which means the Greyjoys earn only 450,000 dragons a year in “legitimate income.” No wonder they turn to piracy to make up the difference.
House Tyrell
As has been said repeatedly, House Tyrell’s incomes likely fluctuate depending on the price of foodstuffs, given that the Reach is the breadbasket of Westeros. It’s also home to one of the oldest and largest cities in Westeros, and more towns and villages per capita than any other kingdom in Westeros, so you have to add that into the equation. As a result, it’s also the most populous region in all of Westeros.
Add all of these factors together, and you should adjust upwards from the initial projection of 60 million dragons a year in GDI. For consistency’s sake, let’s take the lower bound of the Lannister adjustment, and say that the Reach produces 78 million dragons a year in GDI.
This would suggest that the Tyrells have a yearly tax revenue of around 7.8 million dragons, almost twice what the Lannisters do. However, a few factors probably reduce that somewhat – first, the Tyrell revenues are probably less liquid than those of House Lannister, with much and more being held “in kind” as grain; second, the Tyrells don’t have additional income from Casterly Rock, which is no small factor.
All the same, no wonder they can afford a political strategy of bread and circuses for the people of King’s Landing…
House Baratheon
Given that the Stormlands are notoriously “thinly-peopled,” subject to poor weather for growing cereal grains, and rather under-urbanized compared to other regions, I would peg the Stormlands at the lower end of Westerosi per-capita incomes. This in turn suggests a GDI of around 7.5 million dragons a year, which is only a little bit above that of the North – which makes sense when you consider that the North has about 10,000 more men under arms despite the Stormlands having much better weather (relatively speaking).
This would put House Baratheon’s incomes at only 750,000 dragons a year, making them among the poorer Great Houses of Westeros. And that’s a hell of a step down from where they used to be, consider that the Stormlands once owned the Crownlands and the Riverlands, which would have made them richer by many times over.
How the mighty have fallen.
House Martell
House Martell is a difficult calculation indeed – Dorne is also thinly peopled, and much of its land is not arable. On the other hand, Dorne also has an unusual level of manufacturing and many high-valuable export commodities, which compensate for its desert climate.
Adding those two factors together, I’d put them around the middle for per-capita income, which suggests a GDI of around 10 million dragons a year – richer than the Stormlands largely due to trade and manufacturing, substanially poorer than the Vale despite roughly equal populations due to the Vale’s legendary fertilty, and way below the Reach or the Westerlands.
This is turn makes for an tax revenue of around 1 million a year, putting them roughly in the middle of the pack.
I doubt that the Manderlys are richer than the Starks, since the Starks get income from the entire North in addition to from the Manderlys, so they’re taxing 3.5-4 million people rather than a hundred thousand or so. And even though the per-capita income of the Manderly’s subjects is way higher than the rest of the North, it’s not enough to outweigh the Stark’s manpower advantage.
I did a rough estimate of Great House incomes here, but let’s try to do some calculations based on the ones I did for the Seven Kingdoms as a whole. The North has 3.5 to 4 million people, and assuming that 90% of them earn around 3-5 dragons a year, we’re talking 10.5-20 million gold a year as the rough GDI of the North.
Now, medieval taxation thankfully was generally simple (because medieval states lacked the bureaucracy to get fancy) so we’ll be using the English “tenth” (i.e, a 10% tax on moveable property and income) as our model. That would suggest that the North generates 1-2 million in tax revenue. Now, a good part of that goes to the King, but the Starks probably keep the bulk of it.
Now, the North is considerably less fertile and prosperous than the rest of Westeros, so we might want to start with the low range for peasant income and then adjust further. So if the North is half as prosperous as the average, then the North has a GDI of 5.25 million and produces 525,000 gold in tax revenue. If we say it’s two-thirds, then we’re talking a GDI of 7 million and 700,000 in tax revenue.
The Manderly’s income is a bit harder to figure out, because we don’t have a firm number on their total population – we know that White Harbor has 50,000 people living in it, but we also know that the Manderlys control a broad swathe of territory beyond just the city and have a higher per capita GDI than the rest of the North between their silver and their artisans. I would say that at a minimum, the population of White Harbor brings in 15,000 golden dragons to the Manderlys just on the regular tenth, not counting taxes and fees coming in from the port.
RFTIT Tumblr Backup 