My theories – part 2

Part 1 was here

So perhaps I can give an illustration of what I mean when I say society must be only about calories, not about money. [Rod Serling voice on...] Imagine, if you will, a simpler time, far back in the past…

Let’s picture a simple society in which there are just two people.  Call them Jack and Jill.  Jack and Jill live in a field that has been planted with turnips.  Jack and Jill love turnips, so that’s a good thing, because that’s the only thing that there is to eat.  Other than picking and eating turnips, Jack and Jill don’t do much at all – they don’t have time to do.  It takes them twelve hours of waking time to pick and eat 10 turnips each, and by coincidence they each require 10 turnips per day to stay alive.  That is, if one of them were to eat only 9 one day, that person wouldn’t have the energy to survive the night and just wouldn’t wake up.

This is a tough situation – Jack and Jill consume just as much as they produce every day, and so their society continues.  Now, you might think it’s not much of a society when all there is to do is pick and eat turnips, but Jack and Jill don’t know any better.  They think that’s exactly what they’re supposed to do – pick and eat turnips.

So, for them, society is two people harvesting each day what they use during that day.  They don’t have “leisure time”, they don’t have rules and regulations, they don’t even have money.  Why would they?  What could they do with money?  If someone came up to them and handed them dollars, or francs, or rupees, what would they do with those?  They can’t eat dollars.  They can’t eat gold.  They can’t eat silver or yen or Euros.  So their society manages just fine without money.  As long as they continue to produce food (calories).

That, in a nutshell, is the simplest sort of society there is.  People subsisting at the basic level.  But from here, we can develop theories about all kinds of things.  We can see that there are natural resources, we can see that there is a standard of living, we can see that there will be value in specialization, in education, in regulation (where appropriate), in property ownership.

But for now, think about this:  What happens if Jill, one day, finds in the field a sharp rock?  And she, with that rock, is now able to dig and harvest 11 turnips in a day instead of 10?  What should she do?  Should she harvest 11, eat 10, and save 1 for another day in case she breaks her leg and can only harvest 9 that day, then eat the 1 she saved?  Should she harvest 11, eat 10, and give 1 to Jack so he doesn’t have to spend as much time digging turnips and can spend a little time thinking about that pointy rock and what he might do with it?  Should she actually give him the rock, and see whether he, too, can harvest 11 turnips in a day?  What if he were to harvest 12?  Or 15?  What should the society do then?

Stay tuned, more to come.  I know, the anticipation is killing you!

 

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