For those interested, the practice of debasement actually predates the middle ages by, a lot. By 301 inflation was so bad Diocletian had to put out a price fixing edict. It didn't work. It took Constantine's Solidus (basically solid gold coin - that will stay stable for almost a thousand years) to stabilize the currency. By the early fourth century the denarius that used to have 50% silver contained almost no silver at all (something like 1 to 5%).
It's just a way to bypass the cantillion effect and hoard the benefit of debasement for the lord. That's why he exempted the aristocracy, he had to cut them in to maintain his power.<p>So, suppose the ruler begins a debasement. You have a lot of coins. You take them into the mint and exchange them for debased coins but more coins than you had minus a cut to the king, go buy some asset that can't be debased like salt, wait and then sell it on the market after price inflation occurs. You benefit from the cantillion effect because you got the fresh minted money before prices rose to compensate.<p>Now with the extortion scheme, you lose that. The revenue goes straight to the king in the form of the tax, the king might make do with the same revenue as before, thus significantly reducing the inflation that occurs, or maybe raises his revenue to the match the cost to the economy before but now the aristocracy get nothing. To compensate, he had to exempt them or they would overthrow him, and now they get benefit in that regular people get directly fleeced, price deflation occurs but regular people don't gain purchasing power because it was their money taken from them out of circulation, but the rich people don't have that problem so their purchasing power increases.
"democracies have not resorted to modern version of debasement as a revenue source due to the unpopularity of rising prices."<p>The USA got rid of silver in its coins in 1964 and I believe copper in its pennies recently.<p>The modern version of debasement is in the feds balance sheet, they've gotten so efficient there's no need to affect the physical substance.
Ah yes, taxes on money holding and land, two of the most evil taxes ever invented.<p>The average citizen prefers paying income taxes, payroll tax and sales tax and VAT to the government and paying the land tax aka rent to land holders and the money tax aka interest to money holders to maximize the dead weight loss. Then they complain that the government is bankrupt and is doing inflation.<p>The average citizen is incorrigible.
Bitcoin fixes this for the first time in human history. I’m excited about a future without monetary debasement. How many wars have been started by the “print more money until it is worthless, oops I have to start a war to fix it” spiral?<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debasement" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debasement</a>