It points out "the dungeon builders were part of a coinage economy just like the current one. There hasn’t even been significant inflation or deflation since the dungeons were built.", which doesn't seem compatible with a far-future post-post industrial setting interpretation.
I think "fantastic American history" is a rational description.
Not American history- set so far in the future that the idea of 'America' is as widely understood as we currently understand 'Sea Peoples'. Think Gene Wolfe's 'Book of the New Sun'
There's no evidence that it does stay stable- the author is making a lot of assumptions about the 'implied setting' of OD&D that aren't really supported by the game materials at the time. 40 silver pieces couple be 40 Roman denarii, 40 pre-1965 US quarters, or 40 chunks of a silver bracelet. They could represent the pocket change of a dungeon builder, but be a considerable sum to the barbarian that finds them. The implied uniformity is just because the author lacks imagination.
Even in the US, "free silver at a ratio of 16 to 1" worked - at least somewhat - by government fiat, not commodity value. (Great, I've now got the urge to write "Gresham's Law" while I flash back to high school history class.)
So I was ready to type "it's just a game", but the truth is OD&D isn't even really that- it's a set of mechanics from which a games master could select in order to make their own game. How closely you wanted to hew to the socio-economic truth of the 'Medieval period' was 100% up to the GM. "Chivalry and Sorcery", "Empire of the Petal Throne", and "Runequest" were all games that tried to implement more 'realistic' simulations of pre-modern society that came out soon after to specifically address D&D's lack of setting detail.
"'The Tempest' as an allegory for European colonialism? It's just a play."
My comments in this thread concern textual evidence which cast doubt onto A_D_E_P_T's proposal that "The only rational way to interpret D&D is not as medieval, but as a distant far-future post-post-industrial setting."
I found the thesis that OD&D draws from US expansionism to be interesting. The fact that later games tried to implement more realistic simulations is besides the point.
In fact, the essay author observes that by doing so it takes away from the 'American fantasy of empowerment and upward mobility' which was perhaps 'the last un-muddled example of the genre it inspired'.
Funny thing, the price of silver is pretty closely pegged to the amount of labor needed to dig it out of the ground and smelt it, and that doesn't change too much without late 20th century technology being involved.
Transport is a big issue. The price of silver in 1550s Iceland, where there are no silver mines, was certainly going to be far higher than Joachimsthal where silver was mined and Joachimsthalers mined.
The Great Bullion Famine[1] and subsequent Price revolution[2] fueled by Spanish expropriation of New World gold and silver tell me that prices weren't so stable over the pre-20th century period.
It points out "the dungeon builders were part of a coinage economy just like the current one. There hasn’t even been significant inflation or deflation since the dungeons were built.", which doesn't seem compatible with a far-future post-post industrial setting interpretation.
I think "fantastic American history" is a rational description.