Discussion Inflation of Currency in Novels

Just something that I thought about after reading dozens of different novels over the years. But what novel have you guys read that had the highest inflation in regards to currency?

To clarify what I mean in this case for inflation is where over time as the story progresses and the MC becomes richer, the price of goods that the buys MC goes up. Usually theres some limit to this in most stories I’ve read. Some stories however don’t seem to have a limit, where in the beginning the MC is eating meals costing the equivalent of $10, later $100 meals and much later is eating $1,000,000 meals. Its a case that for whatever reason simple meals where the MC is is enough to feed an entire town from the beginning of the story for years, while equipment cost enough to BUY an entire kingdom if not a continent. That the author has to make up new units of currency else there would be too many 0’s using the old currency.
This was the case for 1 of the novels i was reading years ago but don’t remember the name of.

 

Most of the novels I’ve read either hand way inflation/currency off (looking at you Re:zero,) or make up their own. I think Overlord address this but I can’t remember.

Ironic that this thread is before Christmas.

 

In JP novels I find that its not that bad. Sure, MC's start spending more lavishly. But then again, they gain more fame, do better paying jobs or find some crazy expensive item/ get acquanted with royalty etc.

The biggest inflation happens in Chinese cultivation novels. The currency changes along with the "discovery" of a new set of cultivation levels. Some crystal that's worth waging a world war over for a couple pounds of it? Basic currency when you leave your little well/home contient or planet.

(As a sidenote/rant: Gold? Who uses that? DARK gold is where its at! -> Crimson Dark Gold -> ... -> Super duper shiny gem of awesomeness only-5-in-existence blabla -> currency is unneccessary 'cus im da strongestest)

 

This is only tangentially related, but oh well... I have played an interesting board game where you get to see inflation go crazy during the course of the game. I'm such a cautious player that I lost completely, but it was still really fun.

The game is called Q.E. and players take turns bidding on property each round until everything is bought up. The thing is the money is just made up. You don't have physical "cash" you can bid whatever you want (e.g. $10 or $10 million). The person that bids the highest gets the property. So how is that interesting / make a good game? Why wouldn't everyone just bid huge numbers to start with? At the end of the game everyone adds up the total they have "spent" on their winning bids and whoever spent the most automatically loses.

It depends on the group, but the escalation can be staggering. In the beginning I was scared to bid $1,000 to win an auction, but by the end we were bidding millions.

Your post just made me remember that game.

 

Cultivation novels tend to be the worst when it comes to inflation.

One of the best "inflations" of currency i've seen is in Lament of the Fallen, an EN novel. At the lower levels of the world, whatever power you have can be used as currency because of it's relative scarcity in the atmosphere. Once you enter the "top half" levels of the world, general types of power become useless as currency because of the increased amounts of power in the atmosphere, and the higher quality of the goods and services, so physical currency is used mainly and the only powers accepted as payment are types of powers that are rare even in the upper levels.

 

There are two versions :
1) Where the MC earns more and spends more, keeping the economic circulation in place
2) Where the MC earns more, but saves most of it, thus maybe creating a possible money crisis due to lack of physical money if they do it too much

 

Every Cultivation novel


just to show how higher is expensive...

 

Everybody loves large chests, its not clearly specified how expensive are things at the beginning but as the MC settles in a country and starts hoarding gold coins the currency actually deflates, people suddenly notices stuff has become cheaper and wonders if they are paying tribute to an elder dragon or something

In The avalon of five elements they switch currency, first they use yuan but as the technology develops they manage to make beads that can be charged with energy and are used as currency, its stated that very often poor practitioners make a living by producing them as they cannot cultivate while storing energy

 

DE of IET. Had 1,000,000,000,000% inflation over 2-3 volumes.

 

Wtf does MC eat plain diamond covered with gold?

 

Korean novels seem to be slightly worse about this then Chinese novels. Chinese novels often have a excuse with the cultivation stuff, but many korean novels take places in earths south korea, yet end up getting all these abserd numbers after only a few chapters.