(If you've read Taking the Feisty One, you might be confused because goblins in that story do have money. Simply put, this was written as a gift for a friend based on their headcanon, and none of my stories are in continuity with one another unless explicitly stated.
Today, January 23rd 2018, is the third anniversary of the movie's theatrical release! Happy birthday, dear movie, happy birthday to you!)
"You're joking," said the Bog King flatly, when Marianne showed him the shiny disks. "Your country bases its trade on metal tokens?"
"It's easier than a barter system," Marianne insisted. "If you want something and don't have something the shopkeeper wants in exchange, you just give them coins and get what you want, and they can trade the coins for whatever they want later."
"More efficient for the 'buyer', maybe, but it increases the overall number of transactions for the shopkeeper, making it less efficient for them."
"But this way they aren't dependant on waiting for a customer to bring in just the right thing, and can get it for themselves a lot faster."
"Assuming they don't mind carrying the dead weight around." Bog scoffed. Marianne glared.
"Coins are a reliable system. They're specially designed to be hard to fake." She held one up and indicated the small but detailed picture on it. "Whereas in a barter system, somebody could be cheated into trading for … spoiled food or a poorly made tool or something."
"A con artist could still trick someone into buying such a thing regardless of how they're paid."
The Fairy Kingdom had a robust economy based on buying and selling things with coins, which Bog didn't fully understand – the metal could be useful if melted down for other purposes, but not that useful in such a small amount. The concept seemed to be deeply rooted in trust. The seller was to accept that the buyer's coins had value because the buyer claimed they had value.
The Dark Forest had a thriving network of trading and bartering, where the value of what was being offered up was tested either during the exchange or soon enough afterwards that any con artists were usually caught swiftly.
Marianne and Bog had to work out some way to translate those systems so that they worked together, to avoid the unpleasantness of some fay offering a goblin merchant 'useless metal bits' for their wares, or some goblin being accused of theft for offering goods or services 'instead' of payment.
"On a large scale," said Marianne, tapping her freckle, "I could see the Fairy Kingdom paying the Dark Forest in money for imports, and the Dark Forest keeping that money to 'trade back' for our exports, but that doesn't solve the issue of an average fay or goblin crossing the border and needing food on the other side."
"Going into your kingdom, something could be set up for goblins to exchange goods for coins at the border? I don't know how well that would work going the other way, though."
Marianne groaned. "I do. I'm picturing a huge border marketplace, every shopkeeper crying out to each hapless tourist that they have just the thing that goblins will find useful; please, stop in and buy a few items to trade once you go into the Forest …"
"That actually doesn't sound bad. Maybe a bit of a nuisance for the towns if the markets are close enough that the noise carries."
"The concept is probably fine, it's just that I'm sure some merchants would charge a lot more than the goods are actually worth, and if they haven't spent any time in the Forest before, then whatever the tourist buys might end up being useless over there, and they'll have spent all that money for nothing."
"I suppose we could share the barter reports." Bog wrapped one hand around his chin and tapped the claws of his other hand on the table. "The Dark Forest is divided into a few regions, mostly by geographic borders like wetlands, and the Castle receives notice about which goods and services are most in demand in each. I was planning to show that to you anyway, for trade purposes, but if your public also had that information –"
"They'd know what goblins would want in the area they wanted to explore!" finished Marianne triumphantly. "And then a border marketplace could actually be useful, not just an excuse for merchants to line their pockets –"
"To do what?" Bog squinted at her, not unlike how he squinted at Thang for mixing up a message from the mushroom line.
"Oh, that's an expression. Um, pockets are … bags sewn into clothing, to carry stuff without holding it in our hands. A lot of people keep their money in a pocket."
Marianne demonstrated, reaching into one of the folds of her skirt and pulling out another coin.
"And 'lining your pockets' is – the full version, I think, is 'lining your pockets at someone else's expense' – it's about unscrupulous merchants who charge more money for their goods than the goods are worth, so they take more money than they've earned; or it can be about unscrupulous employers who don't pay the people who work for them enough money for those people to buy things they need; or," here she flushed, "about royals and nobility who use tax money for personal benefit instead of the benefit of the Kingdom."
"Tax money?"
Marianne blinked at him, looking as confused as he was.
"You don't have – right, without money it would be different. Okay, so, do goblins … send food and such to the Castle, since you're all so busy there running the country that you don't have time to hunt full time as well?"
"Oh. Tithes and tributes. Yes, we have that."
"Right. So, taxes are basically that, but with money. How it's supposed to work is that the local nobility gets money from taxes and forwards most of it to the Royal Family, and then if we need … for example, say that a town needs their main road repaired. Then the royals or nobles use the tax money to pay for the materials, and to hire people who can either fix the road or tear it up and rebuild it properly, so it won't just wash away with the first rainstorm, and the money basically gets spread back out around the kingdom."
Bog nodded.
"But if we were 'lining our pockets', then we'd be getting all that tax money and doing nothing with it, just having a heap of gold in the treasury for the sake of having one, or spending it on things for ourselves while the town's road never gets repaired."
"I would think you'd just be deposed for that. That's happened in the Dark Forest before, with food hoarding."
"Yes, that is probably how it would end, but some people are selfish and short-sighted."
"So a border market could work," said Bog, "but we need to keep an eye on everyone to make sure they're trading useful items."
"And real money," said Marianne. "The coins are hard to fake, like I said, but forgeries do happen and if goblins don't normally use money then they won't know what to look for."