Stage 4: Competing Currencies
This era of political instability in Europe created opportunities for power to concentrate in the hands of feudal princes and regional churches when, finally, the wealthy established mints for coin making.
While ambitious parties fought to determine the future of trade, taxation, and government on the continent, mint owners stole from one another, even from the poor.
How?
Coins could be melted down, precious metals could be separated, and thinner alloys could be reissued.
These production patterns concentrated wealth and value, when based upon materials that are not hydrogen-bonded, like gold, at the top.
These competing currencies gradually formed the European nation states.
While royal families used domestic coinage and currency manipulation to maintain control over their own subjects, nonetheless, the trade power of each country among others continued to be based upon the H bond theory.
