Shouldn’t your hearthlings eventually have to use an ecomony amongst themselves? For example: at the start of the game, the population is smaller and everyone has to share in order to survive in this brutal world, but as your town improves, the population grows and hearthlings are able to take it a bit easier, not everything would be public. Eventually hearthlings would want to have houses, possessions, and things like that all to themselves! The solution would be economy. When you first introduce ecomony into your town, which will be at a certain point of your net worth increasing, hearthlings wouldn’t jump to it right away, but would rather begin to start getting money from you/your mint (blacksmith) as a reward for their goods production and services, with more unique services earning more money. Once you/ your blacksmith/ your townsfolk have decided they have enough money circulating through town, they would start to charge each other for things, such as services like building houses as well as buying personal/non-personal possesions. Ovbiously, hearthlings with better profesions would actually be happier, since in order to get them to work, you’d have to pay them more, thus they get more money and more stuff.
Tell me what you guys think in the comments, and please, help me refine the system!