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No they haven't really. The state control of money is very recent concept, post gold-standard. States and empires even rarely had their own coin. The opium war

No they haven't really. The state control of money is very recent concept, post gold-standard. States and empires even rarely had their own coin. The opium war was less than 200 years ago. Even passports werent enforced until WW1. Control on the scale we have today was never possible , for technical reasons

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notahacker 5y ago
State control of customs and excise pre-dates the Magna Carta, so the English state has devoted resources to chasing participants in transactions it deems unlawful for several hundred years. Modern money laundering controls weren't possible until electronic money and record keeping, but then for related technical reasons it was much harder to evade the primitive controls they did have.
chalst 5y ago
This is not very accurate. In ancient times, mints frequently adulterated the content of coins, so coins were usually worth more within the kingdom or empire than outside it. Gold was not the ubiquitous denominator of value: silver was widely used in ancient times. Generally empires needed coins to pay armies so gold and silver mines had strategic value. In medieval times, this was the story in Christendom, although interestingly the Islamic world was associated with mints that did not adulterate their coins, which therefore kept their value outside the Islamic world and were much sought after in China. You are right about the recency of passport enforcement.
- cblconfederate 5y ago
  Yet even those empires could not enforce their subjects to use only their coins. Hence why the gold/silver value was what mattered and why some coins like the fiorin were international designs. Fiat money is what allows governments extreme control on money
  - chalst 5y ago
    In ancient times, most transactions did not involve money at all. That is the big difference to the modern era. Generally, the gold/silver value was really hard to determine, but minted coins could be more valuable than their believed metallic value: they had exchange value dealing with the regime. I strongly recommend David Graeber's "Debt: The first 5000 years", which is an anthropological account of the changing role of debt and money around the world over history

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notahacker 5y ago

State control of customs and excise pre-dates the Magna Carta, so the English state has devoted resources to chasing participants in transactions it deems unlawful for several hundred years. Modern money laundering controls weren't possible until electronic money and record keeping, but then for related technical reasons it was much harder to evade the primitive controls they did have.

chalst 5y ago

This is not very accurate. In ancient times, mints frequently adulterated the content of coins, so coins were usually worth more within the kingdom or empire than outside it. Gold was not the ubiquitous denominator of value: silver was widely used in ancient times. Generally empires needed coins to pay armies so gold and silver mines had strategic value. In medieval times, this was the story in Christendom, although interestingly the Islamic world was associated with mints that did not adulterate their coins, which therefore kept their value outside the Islamic world and were much sought after in China. You are right about the recency of passport enforcement.

cblconfederate 5y ago
Yet even those empires could not enforce their subjects to use only their coins. Hence why the gold/silver value was what mattered and why some coins like the fiorin were international designs. Fiat money is what allows governments extreme control on money
- chalst 5y ago
  In ancient times, most transactions did not involve money at all. That is the big difference to the modern era. Generally, the gold/silver value was really hard to determine, but minted coins could be more valuable than their believed metallic value: they had exchange value dealing with the regime. I strongly recommend David Graeber's "Debt: The first 5000 years", which is an anthropological account of the changing role of debt and money around the world over history