As Plutarch puts it,
“It was now impossible to buy foreign goods and no cargo of merchandise would enter a Spartan harbor, no teacher of rhetoric trod Laconian soil, no begging seer, no pimp, no maker of gold and silver ornaments – because there was no coined money. Thus gradually cut off from the things that animate and feed it, luxury atrophied of its own accord.”
The wealthy had no outlet to show off their wealth and were resigned to keep it in storage.
Craftsman, now released from useless jobs, began to work in the manufacture of essential goods such as tables and chairs, so the competition among them was fierce and the resulting quality of these products first rate.