Symzonia: Voyage of Discovery

Their circulating medium consists of tokens for every variety of things, and every description of services. These tokens are originally issued by the government, for services performed and articles supplied for the national benefit. One description represents one day's labour; a second, a standard measure of grain; a third, a small measure of pulse; a fourth, a given quantity of a particular fruit; a fifth, a measure of cloth, and so forth. There being a sufficient variety to represent all the articles which are in common use, they have all the advantages of exchange, without the trouble of delivery when the things are not wanted for actual consumption. When, by any circumstances, the supply of any particular article in any district falls short of the demand to such a degree, that the tokens will not command what they represent, it is the business of the government to draw from the more fruitful districts a sufficiency to equalize the value, either by direct purchase, or by requiring the contributions of the fruitful districts in kind, and sending the articles to the place of scarcity, or by receiving the contributions of the district in which scarcity prevails in tokens, and thus raising their value, or by both these operations in extreme cases. Commerce is practised only for the common convenience of society. The accumulation of wealth, and indulgence in luxury, being disreputable, and a bar to admission to the distinguished orders, an overreaching and avaricious spirit is not generated by traffic, as in the external world, but every operation of trade and transfer is performed on the most reasonable terms, which will enable him who performs it to live upon an equality with his fellow-men.