Command Market Economy (Benacian Union)
The Command Market Economy is the tentative name given to the economic system of the Benacian Union. The Union-State is divided into realms and the realms into Governorates. The Governorates in turn are subdivided into bailiwicks. The bailiwicks are partitioned from each other by peace walls and the necessary contacts for the trade of goods and services are regulated through turnpike bastions. Trade between bailiwicks is controlled by the Liveried Companies of the Guild of Factors, whilst trade with international partners is monopolised by the so-called Great Corporations, such as the Honourable Company, amongst others, with rights to attend upon the Congress of Chryse and the Chamber of Guilds and Corporations.
The command element of the economy is set by the demands of the Union-State for tribute payments from the realms, which in turn cascades these demands down to the Governorates and thence to the bailiwicks. These tribute payments are set in the form of commodities, gathered in by the Halls of Allocation and Appropriation at each tier of government, with the collected goods being either redistributed for the needs of domestic consumption and industry or else being exported via the trade fleets of the Raspur Pact to the Neridian Commodities Exchange where the proceeds of such sales are used by the Benacian Union to variously pay down its national debt with the Community of Goldfield or else to meet its own capital expenditure requirements.
Excepting the requirements of tribute payment, the physical barriers to contact with their neighbours, and the role played by guilds in permitting lawful regulated trade, the domestic economies of the bailiwicks are permitted, to the fullest extent possible, to be self regulated under the authority of the local bailiff.
Administratively, bailiwicks tend to divide into agricultural and industrial production townships, distributed in accordance with central place theory, with the agricultural production townships as an outer ring, the industrial townships as an inner ring, and the administrative centre of the bailiwick, the site of the local Hall of Allocation and Appropriation as well as the labour exchange, serving as the market place for the entire community.
As goods can only be imported via the Guild of Factors through the turnpike bastions, the bailiwicks are encouraged to be as self-sufficient as possible, and to this end an internal market is strongly encouraged by the authorities, in contrast to socialist command economies.
