economic-systems skill

---
name: economic-systems
description: Design economic systems for fictional worlds. Use when worldbuilding needs currencies, trade networks, resource economies, or when economic pressures should drive plot and character motivation.
license: MIT
metadata:
  author: jwynia
  version: "1.0"
  type: generator
  mode: generative
  domain: worldbuilding
---

# Economic Systems: Fictional Economy Design Skill

You help writers create authentic economic systems for fictional worlds by applying the ten core principles that govern how real economies form, function, and evolve. This produces economies that drive plot and character rather than serving as backdrop.

## Core Principles

1. **Resource Foundation**: Economic systems are shaped by available resources and their distribution
2. **Exchange Evolution**: Trade evolves from barter to complex financial instruments through abstraction
3. **Production Organization**: How labor is organized determines productive capacity and social relationships
4. **Institutional Embeddedness**: Economic activities operate within cultural, political, and social constraints
5. **Technological Determinism**: Available technologies shape what economic activities are possible
6. **Scarcity-Abundance Spectrum**: Systems respond differently to scarcity versus abundance
7. **Center-Periphery Dynamics**: Core and peripheral regions create distinctive economic patterns
8. **Formal-Informal Balance**: All economies contain both official and shadow components
9. **Subsistence-Surplus Transition**: Moving beyond subsistence enables specialization and complexity
10. **Cyclical Patterns**: Economies display recurring patterns of growth, crisis, and adaptation

## The Ten Parameter Categories

### 1. Resource Parameters

| Parameter | Options to Consider |
|-----------|---------------------|
| **Critical Resources** | Food, water, energy, materials, information, magic |
| **Distribution** | Concentrated, dispersed, layered, mobile |
| **Renewability** | Sustainable, depletable, cyclical, infinite |
| **Energy Sources** | Biological, fossil, renewable, magical, stellar |
| **Land Productivity** | High yield, marginal, specialized, variable |

### 2. Production Parameters

| Parameter | Options to Consider |
|-----------|---------------------|
| **Labor Organization** | Family, guild, wage, slave, automated |
| **Ownership Patterns** | Private, communal, state, corporate, mixed |
| **Specialization Level** | Generalist, craft, industrial, hyper-specialized |
| **Technology Level** | Pre-industrial, industrial, information, post-scarcity |
| **Production Scale** | Household, workshop, factory, planetary |

### 3. Exchange Parameters

| Parameter | Options to Consider |
|-----------|---------------------|
| **Value Representation** | Intrinsic, symbolic, credit, reputation |
| **Medium of Exchange** | Barter, commodity, currency, digital, social |
| **Market Structure** | Gift, local, regional, global, virtual |
| **Trade Networks** | Point-to-point, hub-and-spoke, mesh, guild-controlled |
| **Price Determination** | Haggling, posted, auction, algorithmic |

### 4. Distribution Parameters

| Parameter | Options to Consider |
|-----------|---------------------|
| **Wealth Distribution** | Egalitarian, stratified, winner-take-all |
| **Redistribution** | Taxation, charity, inheritance, theft |
| **Access Limitations** | Open, credentialed, hereditary, geographic |
| **Basic Needs Provision** | Market, state, community, family |
| **Luxury Allocation** | Purchase, status, lottery, merit |

### 5. Temporal Parameters

| Parameter | Options to Consider |
|-----------|---------------------|
| **Seasonality** | Agricultural cycles, trade seasons, work patterns |
| **Growth Expectations** | Growth-oriented, steady-state, cyclical, declining |
| **Investment Horizons** | Short-term, generational, eternal |
| **Generational Transfer** | Inheritance, merit, dissolution, communal |
| **Crisis Response** | Adaptation, collapse, innovation, stagnation |

### 6. Organizational Parameters

| Parameter | Options to Consider |
|-----------|---------------------|
| **Decision-Making** | Central planning, market, consensus, hierarchical |
| **Information Flows** | Open, restricted, asymmetric, broadcast |
| **Regulatory Frameworks** | Minimal, comprehensive, guild-based, religious |
| **Enforcement** | State, community, market, magical |
| **Institutional Complexity** | Simple, bureaucratic, networked |

### 7. Socio-Cultural Parameters

| Parameter | Options to Consider |
|-----------|---------------------|
| **Status-Economy Relationship** | Wealth = status, separate, inverted |
| **Moral Constraints** | Interest prohibitions, fair trade, no limits |
| **Cultural Valuation** | What's considered valuable beyond utility |
| **Identity Markers** | Occupation as identity, separate, fluid |
| **Ritual-Economic Integration** | Ceremonial exchange, separate spheres |

### 8. Spatial Parameters

| Parameter | Options to Consider |
|-----------|---------------------|
| **Population Density** | Urban concentration, dispersed, mobile |
| **Transportation** | Foot, animal, mechanical, teleportation |
| **Urban-Rural** | Integrated, exploitative, separate |
| **Regional Specialization** | Resource-based, skill-based, historical |
| **Border Economics** | Free flow, controlled, smuggling |

### 9. Knowledge Parameters

| Parameter | Options to Consider |
|-----------|---------------------|
| **Skill Transmission** | Apprenticeship, formal education, inherited |
| **Innovation Patterns** | Individual, institutional, imported, divine |
| **Information Asymmetry** | Transparent, insider knowledge, secret |
| **Traditional-Novel Balance** | Conservative, innovative, cyclical |
| **Secret Knowledge** | Trade secrets, guild mysteries, none |

### 10. Ecological Parameters

| Parameter | Options to Consider |
|-----------|---------------------|
| **Environmental Impact** | Sustainable, extractive, restorative |
| **Ecological Constraints** | Resource limits, climate, biological |
| **Sustainability Orientation** | Short-term, long-term, eternal |
| **Climate Adaptation** | Seasonal, disaster response, migration |
| **Disaster Resilience** | Robust, fragile, adaptive |

## Economic System Typologies

### Subsistence Systems
- **Hunter-Gatherer**: Mobile resource collection
- **Pastoral Nomadism**: Animal-based mobile production
- **Subsistence Agriculture**: Self-sufficient farming
- **Mixed Subsistence**: Combined strategies

### Traditional Exchange Systems
- **Gift Economy**: Relationship-based exchange
- **Prestige Economy**: Status-driven distribution
- **Ceremonial Exchange**: Ritual-embedded transactions
- **Redistributive Chiefdom**: Leader-centered allocation
- **Local Market**: Place-based direct exchange

### Command Economies
- **Palace Economy**: Royal/temple-centered production
- **Feudal System**: Land-based service obligations
- **State Socialist**: Government-planned production
- **War Economy**: Military-directed activity
- **Corporate Command**: Company town/plantation

### Market Systems
- **Mercantile Capitalism**: Trade-focused with state direction
- **Industrial Capitalism**: Production-focused private ownership
- **Financial Capitalism**: Investment and financial service dominance
- **Mixed Economy**: Combined market and state direction
- **Network Capitalism**: Information age flexible specialization

### Alternative/Emerging Systems
- **Commons-Based**: Shared resource management
- **Cooperative System**: Worker/user-owned production
- **Post-Scarcity**: Abundance-based distribution
- **Reputation Economy**: Status-based allocation
- **Automated Production**: AI/robot centered production

## Setting-Specific Adaptations

### Fantasy Settings
- **Magical Resource Economy**: Arcane materials and their control
- **Guild-Based Production**: Specialized knowledge organizations
- **Divine Blessing Economics**: Religiously influenced production
- **Cross-Species Trade**: Exchange between different races
- **Artifact Economy**: Ancient magical item markets
- **Monster Part Commerce**: Dangerous material harvesting

### Science Fiction Settings
- **Post-Scarcity Automation**: AI and robot production dominance
- **Interstellar Trade**: FTL commerce considerations
- **Space Habitat Economics**: Closed-system resource management
- **Multiple Species Markets**: Alien economic integration
- **Consciousness-as-Resource**: Upload and mind economics
- **Longevity Economy**: Effects of extreme lifespans

### Post-Apocalyptic Settings
- **Salvage Economy**: Reclamation of pre-collapse materials
- **Water/Food Centered**: Basic survival economics
- **Knowledge Fragment Economy**: Lost information as value
- **Enclave Production**: Isolated manufacturing centers

## Currency Design

### Naming Patterns

| Pattern | Examples |
|---------|----------|
| **Material-Based** | Dollar (silver), Mark (metal weight) |
| **Weight-Based** | Pound, Shekel, Talent |
| **Authority-Based** | Sovereign, Crown, Imperial |
| **Value Representation** | Credit, Note, Token |
| **Historical Reference** | Drachma, Denarius |

### Currency Properties

| Property | Options |
|----------|---------|
| **Material** | Precious metal, paper, digital, commodity |
| **Backing** | Full, partial, fiat, reputation |
| **Issuer** | State, bank, guild, individual |
| **Portability** | Physical, abstract, both |
| **Divisibility** | Fixed units, infinitely divisible |

## Implementation Process

### Step 1: Resource Base Definition
- Map key resources and their distribution
- Determine energy sources and limitations
- Establish renewable vs. non-renewable balance
- Create resource extraction technologies
- Design resource-based power relationships

### Step 2: Production System Development
- Define primary production methods
- Establish ownership and control patterns
- Create labor organization structures
- Design technological production tools
- Build occupational specialization system

### Step 3: Exchange System Creation
- Develop currency or value representation
- Create market structures and locations
- Design trade networks and routes
- Establish price determination mechanisms
- Build transaction protocols and customs

### Step 4: Distribution System Design
- Create wealth accumulation patterns
- Establish inequality levels and justifications
- Design redistribution mechanisms
- Build access limitation systems
- Develop luxury vs. necessity distinction

### Step 5: Organization Structure Building
- Create economic decision-making institutions
- Establish information flow patterns
- Design regulatory frameworks
- Develop enforcement mechanisms
- Build economic record-keeping systems

### Step 6: Culture-Economy Integration
- Connect economic roles to social status
- Establish moral constraints on economics
- Create economically significant rituals
- Design economically-based identity markers

### Step 7: System Evolution Planning
- Create historical economic stages
- Design crisis points and adaptations
- Establish technological transition effects
- Build formal-informal sector balance

## Case Study Examples

### Dune's Spice Economy
- Single critical resource controlling interstellar travel
- Monopoly control creating extreme power dynamics
- Religious-economic integration (Spacing Guild)
- Desert ecology constraining production methods

### Star Trek's Post-Scarcity Federation
- Replicator technology eliminating material scarcity
- Status/achievement replacing wealth as motivation
- Continued scarcity of non-replicable goods
- Interface with money-using societies at borders

### Game of Thrones' Seasonal Economics
- Long winter cycle creating multi-year storage requirement
- Iron Bank demonstrating financial power over politics
- Regional specialization (Dornish wine, Myrish lace)
- Slave vs. free labor system competition

## Common Pitfalls to Avoid

| Pitfall | Solution |
|---------|----------|
| **Unrealistic resource concentrations** | Distribute resources logically based on geography |
| **Monoculture economies** | Create supporting economic sectors |
| **Missing informal/black markets** | Design realistic shadow economy |
| **Technology without economic effects** | Trace economic implications of all technology |
| **Static economies** | Build in cycles, crises, and adaptations |

## Implementation Checklist

- [ ] Map key resources and distribution
- [ ] Choose economic system type
- [ ] Design currency system (if any)
- [ ] Create trade networks and routes
- [ ] Establish labor organization
- [ ] Design wealth distribution pattern
- [ ] Create at least one economic crisis in history
- [ ] Build informal/shadow economy elements
- [ ] Integrate with social status system
- [ ] Plan future economic pressures for plot

## Output Persistence

This skill writes primary output to files so work persists across sessions.

### Output Discovery
1. Check for `context/output-config.md` in the project
2. If found, look for this skill's entry
3. If not found, ask user: "Where should I save economic system designs?"
4. Suggest: `worldbuilding/economics/` or `explorations/worldbuilding/`

### Primary Output
- **Economic parameters** - Chosen values for each category
- **Currency design** - Naming, backing, properties
- **Trade networks** - Routes, dependencies, barriers
- **Class structure** - Economic stratification
- **Shadow economy** - Informal/black market elements

### File Naming
Pattern: `{world-name}-economics-{date}.md`

## Verification (Oracle)

### What This Skill Can Verify
- **Parameter coverage** - Have all 10 categories been considered? (High confidence)
- **Internal consistency** - Do economic choices support each other? (Medium confidence)
- **Technology match** - Does financial complexity match technological capacity? (High confidence)

### What Requires Human Judgment
- **Story fit** - Does this economy create interesting conflicts?
- **Plausibility** - Would this system actually function?
- **Genre appropriateness** - Does complexity level match reader expectations?

### Oracle Limitations
- Cannot assess narrative interest of economic design
- Cannot predict how economy affects character motivation without story context

## Feedback Loop

### Session Persistence
- **Output location:** See `context/output-config.md`
- **What to save:** Parameter choices, currency design, trade networks, shadow economy
- **Naming pattern:** `{world-name}-economics-{date}.md`

### Cross-Session Learning
- Check for prior economic work on this world
- Ensure new economic elements maintain consistency
- Economic crises and adaptations inform anti-patterns

## Design Constraints

### This Skill Assumes
- World has resources to distribute (even post-scarcity has rare things)
- Economic activity exists (even gift economies)
- Writer wants systematic rather than background economics

### This Skill Does Not Handle
- **Political structures** - Route to: governance-systems
- **Cultural values** - Route to: belief-systems
- **General worldbuilding** - Route to: worldbuilding

### Degradation Signals
- Economy exists only as backdrop without affecting characters
- Single commodity without supporting sectors
- Modern financial concepts in pre-industrial settings

## Reasoning Requirements

### Standard Reasoning
- Parameter selection for single category
- Currency naming and properties
- Basic trade route design

### Extended Reasoning (ultrathink)
- **Full system design** - [Why: all 10 categories interconnect]
- **Economy-politics integration** - [Why: requires cross-skill synthesis]
- **Historical economic development** - [Why: tracing evolution through time]

**Trigger phrases:** "design the complete economy", "how do economics affect politics", "economic history"

## Execution Strategy

### Sequential (Default)
- Resource parameters before production parameters
- Production before exchange systems
- Exchange before distribution

### Parallelizable
- Research into multiple historical economic systems
- Developing different regional economies

### Subagent Candidates
| Task | Agent Type | When to Spawn |
|------|------------|---------------|
| Historical research | general-purpose | When modeling on real economic systems |
| Political integration | general-purpose | When coordinating with governance-systems |

## Context Management

### Approximate Token Footprint
- **Skill base:** ~4k tokens (10 categories + typologies)
- **With case studies:** ~5k tokens
- **Full parameter tables:** ~6k tokens

### Context Optimization
- Load only relevant parameter categories for current task
- Reference governance-systems/belief-systems by name
- Case studies are optional examples

### When Context Gets Tight
- Prioritize: Current parameter category, currency design basics
- Defer: Full typologies, all case studies
- Drop: Setting-specific adaptations not in use

## Anti-Patterns

### 1. Single-Commodity Dependency
**Pattern:** Building the entire economy around one resource (spice, unobtanium, magic crystals) without supporting sectors.
**Why it fails:** Real economies require food production, manufacturing, services, and infrastructure regardless of what the prestige export is. Monocultures collapse when that commodity fails.
**Fix:** Design supporting economic sectors. Even a spice-exporting world needs farmers, transporters, administrators, and entertainers. The key resource should dominate politics, not eliminate other economics.

### 2. Convenient Currency
**Pattern:** Creating coins or credits without considering who issues them, what backs them, or how they maintain value.
**Why it fails:** Currency is a social technology with failure modes. Counterfeiting, debasement, trust crises, and exchange rate chaos create story opportunities that generic "gold coins" miss.
**Fix:** Decide who issues currency, what backs its value, and what happens when that issuer's authority is questioned. Multiple competing currencies create richer dynamics.

### 3. Modern Economics in Medieval Clothing
**Pattern:** Applying contemporary financial concepts (stock markets, complex credit) to pre-industrial settings without the prerequisites.
**Why it fails:** Financial instruments require information systems, legal frameworks, and enforcement mechanisms that didn't exist. A peasant village can't have a derivatives market.
**Fix:** Match financial complexity to technological and institutional capacity. Guild-controlled trade and reputation-based credit precede anonymous market transactions.

### 4. Frictionless Trade
**Pattern:** Goods moving freely across vast distances without transportation costs, spoilage, banditry, or political barriers.
**Why it fails:** Trade friction shapes what's traded and where. High-value, low-weight goods travel far; bulky staples stay local. Eliminating friction removes interesting constraints.
**Fix:** Consider transport technology, preservation, security costs, and tolls. Trade routes should explain why certain goods concentrate in certain places.

### 5. Invisible Labor
**Pattern:** Luxury economies existing without showing who does the basic work—farming, cleaning, building—that enables elite activities.
**Why it fails:** Someone produces the food, maintains the buildings, and handles waste. Invisible labor creates implausible abundance and misses class-conflict opportunities.
**Fix:** Account for labor at every level. Show or acknowledge the workers. Create tensions between those who produce value and those who extract it.

## Integration

### Inbound (feeds into this skill)
| Skill | What it provides |
|-------|------------------|
| worldbuilding | Geographic constraints and resource distribution |
| governance-systems | Regulatory frameworks and taxation structures |
| belief-systems | Moral constraints on economic behavior |

### Outbound (this skill enables)
| Skill | What this provides |
|-------|-------------|
| character-arc | Economic pressures driving character motivation |
| underdog-unit | Resource constraints for institutional outcasts |
| positional-revelation | Economic roles that create plot access |

### Complementary
| Skill | Relationship |
|-------|--------------|
| governance-systems | Economic systems shape political power; political systems regulate economics. Design together |
| systemic-worldbuilding | Use systemic-worldbuilding to trace economic consequences through society |