by MC5, December 3, 2001
Part I
Paradise island
We do not know if they are monkeys or if they are humyns or something in-between, but thousands of years ago there were 12 or 14 of these creatures that we will call monkeys for lack of better information on a very large island. On their island they have coconut trees and beaches.
The first two monkeys to meet are Ivan and Super Monkey.
I. A simple and somewhat unfortunate situation for trade
Ivan and Super Monkey survive by consuming one fish and two coconuts every day.
Ivan can catch a fish every 5 hours and pick one coconut every 2 hours. Super Monkey can catch a fish every 2.5 hours and pick a coconut every hour.
To survive, Ivan and Super Monkey have to each get 7 fish and 14 coconuts a week. Ivan's survival work hours are 63 hours, but Super Monkey works 31.5 hours a week.
When Ivan and Super Monkey meet, Super Monkey is fishing and Ivan plans to pick coconuts. They consider trading their production for the upcoming week.
Toward this end, Super Monkey catches 11 fish instead of 7, and takes 27.5 hours and only picks 4 coconuts for a total of 31.5 hours of work just as he usually works when he works by himself with no trade. Super Monkey keeps 7 fish as usual and offers the other 4 to Ivan in trade. Ivan this week catches only 3 fish, but he picks 24 coconuts. That means 15 hours fishing and 48 hours picking coconuts for a total of 63 hours. He gives Super Monkey 10 coconuts in exchange for 4 fish.
Each monkey still works the same amount of hours as if working by himself and each receives the same production. It just so happens that Super Monkey prefers to fish and Ivan prefers to pick coconuts, so this arrangement continues for some weeks.
II. Appearance of Small Monkey
After several weeks of trading like that, Ivan and Super Monkey meet Small Monkey, a third monkey who also lives near the southern beach on the island. The three monkeys come to realize that they live close together.
Small Monkey is not so large as to have high calorie requirements herself, but she has a baby and she makes soap and other products from fish and coconuts to take care of herself and her baby. According to one zoological historian, Small Monkey may have used coconut residue to paint her eyebrows and other fur white. Another scholar who is an expert in early humyn history said that Small Monkey could not afford to use the coconut residue to paint her fur and it was impossible. In any case, all the analysts agree that Small Monkey also lives on 1 fish and 2 coconuts per day.
Small Monkey takes 10 hours to catch a fish and 2.5 hours to pick a coconut. In her usual week before meeting Ivan and Super Monkey, she worked 7(10) + 14(2.5)=105 hours a week to survive. Many monkeys in her situation have died from exhaustion and living too close to the edge of survival.
No one knows why, whether because Small Monkey preferred to pick coconuts and Super Monkey preferred to fish or just by accident one day when the two monkeys ran short of their preferred items, but the Super Monkey and the Small Monkey started trading.
In fact, one week, Ivan took a trip--working 63 hours to take care of himself while travelling around the island. In that week only Super Monkey and Small Monkey traded. That week, Super Monkey caught 12 fish and traded five to Small Monkey in return for 14 coconuts, for a total of 30 hours work for himself, 1.5 hours less than usual. Small Monkey caught two fish for a total of 7 fish for herself and picked 28 coconuts, 14 for herself and 14 for Super Monkey. To pick 28 coconuts it took Small Monkey 28(2.5)=70 hours. To catch 2 fish took another 20 hours. Hence Small Monkey worked 90 hours that week.
When Ivan came back, the other two monkeys told Ivan of their arrangement. Ivan asked Super Monkey why he traded with Small Monkey. Super Monkey said he preferred to fish and anyway, somehow he worked 1.5 hours less by trading. Then Ivan asked Small Monkey why she traded. She said she did not know which she preferred, fishing or coconut-picking, but now she only works 90 hours instead of 105.
Ivan then had the realization that it did no matter whether someone preferred fishing or coconut-picking. Ivan founded the science of economics then and there and said, "you mean even though Super Monkey is better than Small Monkey in both coconut picking and fishing, you still traded and somehow both ended up better off?" Super Monkey and Small Monkey answered in the affirmative.
Then Ivan asked why it was that when Super Monkey and Ivan traded, the two monkeys did not end up better off. After all, was not Ivan better than Small Monkey in both fishing and coconut picking and so shouldn't he be a better trade partner for Super Monkey? Small Monkey and Super Monkey said they did not know why it was that previous trade did not save Super Monkey and Ivan any time.
Ivan was much disturbed by this. He went off to travel by himself, again supporting himself by working 63 hours. However, in his spare time, he sat on the Mountain of Wisdom to ponder this strange occurrence he had found.
Super Monkey was so much more efficient than Small Monkey that it seemed absurd that trade made any sense, but in fact, it did more for Super Monkey than trade with Ivan did.
While sitting on the Mountain of Wisdom, Ivan had a coconut drop on his head. "Ah hah, what matters is the proportion of labor time spent in producing two goods. Super Monkey's ratio is 2.5 to 1 to pick one fish to one coconut. For Small Monkey the ratio is 4:1. Super Monkey relative to Small Monkey is good at fishing while Small Monkey is good at coconut-picking--if we look strictly at the ratio of time."
With this realization, Ivan came up with a second realization while sitting on the Mountain of Wisdom. "My ratio is like Super Monkey's, 2.5 to 1. That is why trade did not benefit us so much except that we each did what we preferred to do. That means if my theory is correct, I will also benefit from trading with Small Monkey."
III. Ivan initiates three-way trade based on his theory of "comparative advantage"
In every week in his life that he could remember, Ivan worked 63 hours to survive. When he arrived back at the southern beach he immediately proposed to Small Monkey that she no longer fish at all. She would trade for 5 fish from Super Monkey and 2 fish from Ivan. Small Monkey agreed and here is what happened.
Ivan produced 2 fish for Small Monkey plus his usual 7 fish for himself that week. That was 9 fish taking 45 hours. Then he worked another 16 hours for a total of 61 hours. In those 16 hours he produced 8 coconuts. Hence, he traded 2 fish for 6 coconuts from Small Monkey.
Small Monkey found herself in the following situation. She did no fishing at all. Meanwhile, she picked 14 coconuts for herself, 6 for Ivan and 14 for Super Monkey. That was a total of 34 coconuts. It took Small Monkey 34(2.5)=85 hours to produce the 34 coconuts, a record low hours worked in a week for Small Monkey.
When Ivan saw this, he confirmed his theory. All three monkeys were working fewer hours than ever to get their 1 fish and 2 coconuts each day just by trading amongst themselves. It did not matter what the monkeys called themselves or even if they were bad in both coconut-picking and fishing. Trading was good.
IV. Spaceship and new monkeys land
The three monkeys traded amongst themselves in this manner for several weeks, each quite optimistic about the new situation and trying to contemplate what it meant. Homes became tidier; monkeys played a little more and Ivan spent more time philosophizing.
Then one day a spaceship landed and to the surprise of the three monkeys, two monkeys walked out of it. They announced that their names were Morgan and Vader and that they had come from the future in order to conduct an experiment.
Morgan and Vader showed the three monkeys that they had thousands of fish and coconuts on their spaceship. Then Morgan announced that he had pieces of paper he called "money." One piece of paper had a fish on it and the other one had a coconut. In addition, he said one fish paper was worth 3 coconut papers.
Morgan's spaceship fish and coconuts were every bit as good as the ones on the island, so Morgan started trading with the monkeys. Morgan promised to keep supplies fresh on his spaceship and to travel amongst the monkeys so that they would not have to meet each other to conduct trade.
At first the three monkeys could not see any reason to be bothered by Morgan, except that his spaceship was much faster than walking. So when the monkeys did not want to meet that day, they traded with Morgan instead of each other. Morgan kept things the same, so Small Monkey still worked 85 hours a week, Ivan 61 and Super Monkey 30 hours just as in the past.
One day, Super Monkey decided he wanted to plan for a one week trip around the island. He worked 60 hours that week in order so that he would work not at all while he traveled. That week he took 7 fish and 14 coconuts and accepted money from Morgan for 7 more fish and 14 coconuts later, since Super Monkey did not need them now. After that little lesson all the monkeys occasionally varied when they worked and took money from Morgan in order to be guaranteed consumption in the future.
The monkeys carried on like this, getting used to "money" for a few weeks. Then one day Vader brandished an item he called a "light saber." With this weapon, he scared Ivan into turning over all his week's production in return for paper worth less than one half his week's requirements. The paper Morgan gave Ivan was only good for 3 fish and 7 coconuts. To make matters worse, neither Super Monkey nor Small Monkey were around to see this and Ivan could not contact them. Morgan profited that week from all monkey production thanks to Vader, to the tune of 4 fish and 7 coconuts.
For Morgan it was no secret that he could reduce Ivan's wages by more than half using force. In fact, in the situation, Ivan had no choice but to accept the 3 fish and 7 coconuts. This became uninteresting to Morgan, so he pushed his experiment further by also turning Vader loose on Small Monkey. Now when Super Monkey was away on a trip, Morgan gave Super Monkey not only 7 fish and 14 coconuts for his 7 fish bills and 14 coconut bills, but Morgan gave Super Monkey 14 fish and 28 coconuts total, exactly doubling the value of Super Monkey's money. Meanwhile, back at home, Ivan worked his usual 61 hours and then worked another 34 hours to make up the food that Vader forced him to turn over through his lower wages. Ivan was working 95 hours and Small Monkey was working even more, with both Ivan and Small Monkey becoming exhausted and sick.
In this situation, Super Monkey decided to extend his vacation another week, by working one week in three. He was not aware of how Vader had lowered the wages of Small Monkey and Ivan, and it is not clear that he could have done anything had he decided to defy Vader and Morgan.
In any case, it now appeared to Super Monkey that he was benefiting more than ever from trade and he thanked Morgan and Vader for this invention of money. The following week, Vader turned the screws even further on Ivan and gave him only 3 fish and 5 coconuts for his week's work. When Morgan met Super Monkey though, he gave him 14 fish and 30 coconuts. Then Morgan asked Super Monkey whether he would be willing to give Morgan 2 coconuts a week to keep this arrangement going. Super Monkey said yes, and this satisfied Morgan's curiosity. In effect, Super Monkey was now paying Morgan and Vader to torture Ivan and Small Monkey.
As this happened, Ivan contemplated the lessons he was learning. In the past, trade neither really helped nor hurt him when it came to dealings with Super Monkey. He only got to do more coconut picking, which he preferred over fishing, which was the preferred trade of Super Monkey. Now with Vader threatening him with violence, Ivan still received pay, but so-called trade with Super Monkey benefited Super Monkey and hurt Ivan.
Meanwhile, whenever she could, Small Monkey attempted to escape Vader's ever watchful eye in order to work by herself for 105 hours a week. The alternative was much worse as Vader helped Morgan ship off Small Monkey's products to Super Monkey after spending time on the Morgan spaceship.
Small Monkey and Ivan were nearing death, when Morgan from the future decided he knew enough about his ancestors and ended his experiment. He and Vader took their spaceship and flew away.
The use of paper money had concealed from Super Monkey the use of Vader's force against Small Monkey and Ivan. When Ivan thought about it, he guessed that Morgan could have persuaded just about any monkeys to believe that they deserved almost anything in exchange for their "money."
In fact, according to planetary historians, Morgan took the knowledge from his experiment on Paradise Island to another set of islands. There he found that even if he told one island called "Empire Island" he and Vader were torturing the monkeys on three other islands, the monkeys on "Empire Island" still accepted Morgan's assistance and readily helped him by paying him for his services and repairing Vader's "light saber" whenever necessary. Empire Island monkeys also went on to invent "cattle prods," "stun guns" and "neutron bombs." Empire Island monkeys stopped picking coconuts and catching fish except in sporting contests. The highest paid Empire Island monkeys won these sporting contests, but other monkeys had jobs as referees and announcers in these games. Still others had jobs keeping statistics on the games.
V. Blockades
Back on the island of Small Monkey, Ivan and Super Monkey, the spaceship was gone. The three monkeys resumed trading amongst themselves as in the days before the spaceship. Small Monkey and Ivan recuperated their temporarily depressed health.
After a month of normalcy, the spaceship returned. Vader told Small Monkey to stay away from the other two monkeys and imposed what he called a "blockade." Every time Small Monkey tried to trade with the other monkeys, Vader stood in the way with the light saber and chanted "sanctions." Small Monkey went back to working 105 hours a week, Ivan 63 hours and Super Monkey 31.5 hours a week to support themselves.
Morgan tried to tell each monkey that they were from different "countries" and to have "national pride," but each monkey only remembered that they used to work less hours when there was no blockade against Small Monkey.
Then Morgan said that people cooperating with Small Monkey were "communists." The monkeys did not really see any point to what Morgan was saying, but he told them that they used to live in "sin" against "God" in a "socialist world" tending toward "communism."
The monkeys were very happy when the spaceship went away.
VI. Ivan invents boats and ladders
Ivan was playing with dead coconut trees and coconut shells when he invented both a boat and a ladder. Eventually he found that he could make a boat and ladder in 40 hours work, but his boat and ladder only worked for a week before disintegrating, the delicate coconut hairs and threads not holding together and the wood then splitting open.
Ivan traded his boat and ladder with Super Monkey. With these new inventions, Super Monkey could catch a fish every 15 minutes and pick a coconut in 10 minutes.
Ivan traded with Super Monkey and asked for 7 fish and 14 coconuts in return. Super Monkey accepted. The result was that Ivan reduced his work week from 61 hours to 40. Super Monkey now produced 14 fish in 3.5 hours, and 28 coconuts in 4 hours and 40 minutes. Super Monkey worked a total of 9 hours and 10 minutes.
After one week of this two-monkey trading, Small Monkey arrived, because the blockade was over and the spaceship gone again. She asked Super Monkey for 7 fish. Super Monkey agreed to the trade if he could save 10 minutes from his work day. Small Monkey said, "OK, work 9 hours or less." Super Monkey calculated that it took him 21*(.25) hours to catch 21 fish. If he worked another 3 hours, he could collect 18 coconuts, which meant that Small Monkey had to collect 24. Small Monkey then worked 24*(2.5) to collect the coconuts, 60 hours, a new record low for her. Meanwhile, Super Monkey only worked 8.25 hours, a 55 minute savings by trading with Small Monkey.
No one knows why Small Monkey did not use the ladder or boat. Perhaps they fell apart after Super Monkey used them. After all Super Monkey was bigger and more energetic than Ivan, who handled the ladder and boat with greater care. Perhaps the boat and ladder could not stand the rigors of transport to Small Monkey or perhaps Small Monkey was just afraid to use them or perhaps Super Monkey wanted to keep the ladder and boat for himself to use as toys in his spare time. Even so, the technical advancement of Super Monkey still benefited both Super Monkey and Small Monkey as they continued to trade.
VII. Monkey Joe
On the north side of the island, unbeknownst to Ivan, Small Monkey and Super Monkey, there were another three monkeys. One was unknown to anyone. Another monkey was named "Joe" and the third "Brown Bear." One day, when Brown Bear finished collecting his 7 fish and 14 coconuts for the week, Joe snuck up from behind and killed Brown Bear with a blow of a large rock to the head.
Joe now had his 7 fish and 14 coconuts plus Brown Bear's. Ordinarily, Joe took 63 hours to collect 7 fish and 14 coconuts, just like Ivan did. This week it took him 63 hours for one week's food and one blow of the rock to get another week's food. He undertook a journey to the southern part of the island where he met the three monkeys there.
VIII. Monkey Joe trades with Ivan
Joe observed the trading amongst the monkeys in the southern part of the island and then proposed to Ivan the following. "Ivan, sell me the boat and ladder and I'll give you the 7 fish and 14 coconuts now, so you won't have to wait until after Super Monkey collects them."
Ivan realized that Joe was speeding up the production process for him, so he worked 40 hours and got his fish and coconuts on the spot in return for the boat and ladder. Ivan was also curious if even newer forms of economic cooperation would work.
Joe now had a boat, a ladder and Brown Bear's 7 fish and 14 coconuts left over. Joe consumed Brown Bear's 7 fish and 14 coconuts that week and offered his boat to Super Monkey in exchange for 14 fish and 28 coconuts.
Since Small Monkey was away traveling, Super Monkey calculated that without the boat and ladder it would take him 31.5 hours to produce his needs. Meanwhile, to produce 21 fish and 42 coconuts with the boat and ladder would take 12.25 hours. Hence, Super Monkey agreed to the trade with Joe.
The following week, Small Monkey returned. Ivan made the same trade with Joe, who again ended up with a boat and ladder plus 7 fish and 14 coconuts left over to eat.
Next, Joe traded the boat and ladder to Super Monkey again. In turn, Small Monkey traded with Super Monkey. Super Monkey now had to produce 7 fish for himself, 14 fish for Joe and 7 for Small Monkey. That was 7 hours. Then he worked another 5 hours collecting coconuts with the ladder and collected 30 coconuts that way. He traded 7 fish to Small Monkey for the remaining 12 coconuts he needed. Small Monkey had to produce 12 for Super Monkey and 14 for herself, a total of 26 coconuts. 26*(2.5)=65 hours.
One week Super Monkey toughened his bargaining stance with Small Monkey. In the past he worked 8.25 hours and now he was working 12.25. He wanted to cut back to 8 hours and 10 minutes in his new deal with Small Monkey. That meant he only collected 7 coconuts. Small Monkey would have to collect the remaining 49 for the island. That meant 49*(2.5) hours=122.5 hours, but Small Monkey said no, because if she worked by herself, she would only have to work 105 hours. Suddenly trade with Super Monkey no longer seemed to her benefit. At this time, Super Monkey and Small Monkey realized why their trade no matter how they arranged it could not bring them back to their previous high living standard: Joe was doing no work.
Thanks to the trade Ivan made with Joe, Super Monkey was working almost 4 hours more and Small Monkey was working 5 hours longer per week. Meanwhile, Joe had worked 0 hours the last two weeks.
IX. Small Monkey and Super Monkey bribe Ivan
Small Monkey and Super Monkey realized they were working longer hours because Ivan traded to Joe instead of Super Monkey directly. However, only Ivan could make the boat and ladder inventions each week and it seemed most sensible for him to do so. He had to work 40 hours a week, and he was still happy to do so considering that he used to work 63 hours a week.
Ivan told Super Monkey and Small Monkey that it was better for him to receive pay on the spot than to wait for them to collect up their fish and coconuts. Next, Small Monkey and Super Monkey offered to bribe Ivan with more coconuts than he received from Joe. According to another version in recorded folklore, Super Monkey worked extra one week to save the fish and coconuts so as to be able to pay Ivan on the spot like Joe did. Regardless, all scholars agreed that Small Monkey and Super Monkey calculated that there was no way for Joe to outcompete them if they got the boat and ladder first.
Super Monkey generously offered to work 9.25 hours instead of his past 8.25 hours before Joe arrived. In that extra hour, he would produce six coconuts in order to give Ivan 20 coconuts a week instead of 14. Ivan accepted this offer for some weeks. Meanwhile, in those weeks, Joe was thinking about starving to death when he realized it was better to work than die. So instead of working 0 hours a week, he returned to working 63 hours a week to survive. Nonetheless, Joe maintained his savings of 7 fish and 14 coconuts with the idea of returning to the idle life again some day in the future.
X. Ivan switches back to trade with Joe
Ivan accumulated extra coconuts for months. Meanwhile, preferring to live by himself with his 63 hours of work per week, Joe refused to trade with Super Monkey and Small Monkey, hoping that some day the tide would turn. He built what he called a "country club" where he only socialized with Ivan.
One day Ivan did grow tired of his surplus in coconuts. He also wanted Joe to spend less time working and more time in the "country club." So he went back to his trade with Joe and the benefits of getting his pay on the spot for his boat and ladder.
This time, however, Joe turned the screws on Super Monkey and Small Monkey and demanded 8 coconuts more than last time, for a total of 14 fish and 36 coconuts for his boat and ladder. Since Super Monkey and Small Monkey would still be worse off without the boat and ladder, they paid up the 14 fish and 36 coconuts to Joe, who turned around and bribed Ivan an extra 8 coconuts a week without being asked. Now Ivan was getting his 8 coconut bribe and getting it faster than ever before when he received the 6 or 7 coconut bribe from Super Monkey and Small Monkey.
XI. Ivan's quandary
Ivan was in a strange situation. He was working 40 hours a week, because only he knew how to make the boat and ladder. Yet, Joe worked 0 hours a week.
Meanwhile, the ever larger number of coconuts he was receiving each week convinced him that his situation could change yet again. Meanwhile, Joe was meeting him each week in the country club.
Ivan proposed to Joe that he would sell the idea of how to make boats and ladders to Joe in return for which Ivan would never work again. Joe realized that this meant he would have to work 40 hours a week to make the ladder and boat, just like Ivan did, since after all, the two monkeys had similar productivity rates.
Joe knew that he was better off with this idea than working by himself. 40 hours work was better than 63, but far worse than 0.
Ivan then threatened to resume trade with Small Monkey and Super Monkey directly if Joe did not agree to the idea. Joe was panicked but asked for a day to think about it.
Joe thought about what would happen if he too turned his back on Ivan and made a deal with Super Monkey and Small Monkey on the side. Ivan would work 40 hours. Super Monkey would expect to work 8.25 hours or less if he decided to live without bribing Ivan, who was bored of all the extra coconuts anyway. Small Monkey would also resume her lifestyle of working 60 hours a week, a record low.
Now what if Joe convinced Super Monkey to fish more? If Super Monkey caught 28 fish, it would take him 7 hours. Then if he just dumped the ladder without using it, how would Super Monkey make out? With Small Monkey's 60 hours of labor, she would produce 10 coconuts beyond the ones she consumed. Could Joe produce all the other coconuts? To produce his own plus those of Ivan would be 28 plus four more for Super Monkey not produced by Small Monkey. Hence to cut Super Monkey down to 7 hours work, Joe would have to come up with 32 coconuts, which would take him 64 hours. That did not seem a good idea to Joe.
Then Joe considered catching 8 fish and trading for the rest of his coconuts. He quickly realized that that would not work. He might as well take up Ivan's offer rather than go on the side to make a deal with Small Monkey and Super Monkey. Having been used to working 0 hours a week, Joe felt revolted that he was negotiating in this range and he was close to giving in to Ivan's idea of buying the technology to make boats and ladders or of learning how to use ladders himself.
XII. Guido monkey arrives
While Joe was contemplating whether to buy the technology or learn how to use ladders, a monkey named Guido showed up, the third monkey from the northern side of the island that no other monkey had met before. Guido showed up floating on a raft with food remains on it that made it clear he had eaten well.
Nonetheless, the monkeys discovered that Guido either did not know how to fish or collect coconuts or never tried. Joe noticed that Guido had blood on his club.
No one knows whether Joe bought the technology from Ivan or whether he simply hired Guido to beat it out of him. According to one journalist working for "New Russia," what happened was that Ivan and Joe spent some time in the "country club" with a new substance called "Vodka" and Ivan gave Joe the technology secret for a bottle of "Vodka."
Nonetheless, Guido was now Joe's employee. Also clear was that Joe declared that the southern beach "now has the rule of law." The most important law was called "intellectual property." From now on, no one could use boat or ladder technology without paying Joe for it first. If a given monkey would not pay up, then Guido would beat up the monkey. While beating monkeys in caves known as "dungeons," Guido chanted "copyright infringement" and the like. It got to the point where the monkeys knew that when Guido chanted "incentives for innovation," they had to turn over fish and coconuts for the idleness of Joe and Guido.
Through these means of "negotiation," Super Monkey, Small Monkey and even Ivan agreed to pay for a life of idleness for Guido and Joe. Despite the new situation of "law" and "property," Super Monkey, Small Monkey and Ivan worked less than they did in the old days when they did not have any social interaction but more than before Joe moved into town.
XIII. Small Monkey gets training
For some reason, Joe started training Small Monkey to make boats and ladders. In fact, Joe let Small Monkey cut her hours to 55 hours during which time she produced one boat and one ladder.
When Small Monkey produced her first boat and ladder, Joe took them to the eastern side of the island, where he knew that three other small monkeys lived. As Small Monkey of the southern beach once did, these monkeys each lived on the edge of survival, working 105 hours a week to survive without trade that benefited themselves.
When Joe arrived with the boat and ladder, he found that the small monkeys could use it to produce 1 fish every 1.5 hours and 1 coconut per hour. If he had given the ladder to them for the cost of the 7 fish and 14 coconuts he fed Small Monkey on southern beach, one monkey on the eastern beach could work a mere 49 hours to survive. Instead, he asked each of the monkeys on eastern beach to bid for a job. One offered 50 hours, another 60 and another monkey offered 70 hours for the right to work with the ladder and boat.
Joe accepted the 70 hour bid and profited 14 fish after paying both Small Monkey of the southern beach and Estelle of the eastern beach. Guido's intimidating presence kept the eastern beach monkeys from trying to gain the boat and ladder for themselves.
After a few weeks, Joe held bidding again, and this time he accepted a bid from Estelle for 90 hours of work. Estelle was afraid the other eastern beach monkeys would outbid her, which is why she raised her bid from 70 hours to 90 hours of work a week. So now Joe profited 14 fish and 20 coconuts each week from the eastern beach. At this time, he also proclaimed "the rule of law" in eastern beach. In addition to the "intellectual property" of the boats and ladders, Joe declared ownership of the coconut trees and the beaches of both southern and eastern beaches.
When one of the two unemployed eastern beach monkeys tried to pick coconuts, Guido beat her to death. The other did not try to pick coconuts and she starved to death. Joe encouraged Ivan to say that the new island situation was an achievement known as "100 percent full employment." All monkeys known to Joe were employed by him directly or through trade.
Meanwhile, on southern beach, Joe used his profits to hire another monkey in the image of Guido named "Guido Jr." in order to have one there permanently and Guido on eastern beach permanently. Hence, Joe lived in idleness and two monkeys lived by wielding the club.
A new problem arose, because now there was only one working monkey on the eastern beach. That monkey started working fewer and fewer hours. Joe could see that she could single-handedly ruin his profits from the eastern beach. Joe began to wonder if killing off the two small monkeys to protect his monopoly on property was a mistake. Now the remaining monkey worked only 49 hours and Joe was making 0 percent profit. One more holiday by the eastern beach working monkey and Joe was going to be taking losses.
Joe weighed several options. 1) Joe tried "slavery" by getting Guido to force the eastern beach working monkey to work 90 hours again, or at least 70 per week. Instead of the bidding system of agreement with Joe, Guido simply forced the eastern beach monkey to work the hours Joe demanded. However, any time that Guido fell asleep, Estelle escaped and Guido then spent long hours tracking her down. In this way, hours worked also fell. Joe gave up on slavery. As usual, he was quite afraid Estelle would end up somewhere he could not reach her. Rumors held that there was even another community of monkeys on the western beach.
2) Next Joe wondered what would have happened if he had kept the two other eastern beach small monkeys alive. He called this idea "welfare." When he pondered this "welfare" idea, he liked that keeping the monkeys alive would provide some competition to Estelle. Joe paid Ivan five fish and five coconuts as a "consultant" to figure out if the "welfare" idea could have worked to increase Ivan's profits.
Ivan set about to calculate if with this arrangement Joe could work Estelle to feed Estelle, Small Monkey (who made the boat and ladder), the two "welfare" recipients and still make profits. To feed the other four plus Guido would require 35 fish and 70 coconuts. However, Ivan could see that Estelle would not agree to produce 35 fish and 70 coconuts. The situation would revert to slavery, because Joe would need more hours than possible from Estelle.
Ivan told Joe the idea would not work at present. However, one group of historians say that Ivan then founded the "Democratic Party" and another group says it was the "Social Democratic Party" to look into finding a situation where "welfare" would work and still maintain or expand Joe's profits. Ivan calculated that if he found better boats and ladders produced in the same labor time as in the past or a monkey who could produce 35 fish and 70 coconuts or a combination of a superior monkey and a superior boat and ladder, welfare could work and even reduce the work week for all monkeys including the one working monkey.
3) Next Joe thought about putting small monkeys in caves and covering them up with wooden bars. Unlike dungeons where Guido was beating monkeys so they would respect "property" and "rule of law," the point of this new type of cave called "prison" would be to have monkeys disciplined, consuming little and serving as possible competition to Estelle. Joe figured that if small monkeys did not run around the forest and instead stayed in prison, they could survive with half as much food. So if Joe put two eastern beach monkeys in prison for "theft" of his coconuts from his coconut trees, then the total production requirements would be 7 fish and 14 coconuts less than the welfare system. For 28 fish and 56 coconuts a week, Joe could keep two small monkeys in prison, feed Guido and pay Small Monkey from the southern beach to build the ladder and boat. This meant that Estelle would have to work 98 hours before Joe would break even. Joe liked this prison idea. After all, Estelle used to work 105 hours. Now if she worked 100 hours and Joe put two monkeys in prison, Joe would turn a profit of 2 coconuts a week. If Estelle refused to work 100 hours, he would put her in prison and release one of the other monkeys. If that released monkey would not do it, he could release the third monkey. After all, 100 hours was still better than 105 hours of work per week. Joe definitely thought this "prison" idea was a leading candidate for a solution the next time he faced an eastern beach situation.
4) Another alternative was to kill one eastern beach small monkey and imprison the other. Then Joe would break even at even less than 98 hours of work by Estelle.
5) Next Joe considered what would happen if he had trained one more eastern beach monkey to make ladders and boats. Then all three monkeys would be employed. Estelle would use the boat and ladder from Small Monkey on southern beach. One small monkey on eastern beach would make another boat and ladder pair while the third small monkey used the boat and ladder. However, Joe remembered what happened the last time he had "full employment." Furthermore, he started to think that even if he succeeded too much there would be such a glut of coconuts and fish.
6) Next Joe considered what would happen if he made Guido a part time worker called a "foreman." However, Joe calculated that at full employment, having a foreman could only temporarily restore his profits. Thus Joe started to settle into one idea--killing one beach monkey, imprisoning one and making Guido a foreman. He called this "strategy 6."
7) Next Joe considered the scenario where fish and coconuts were already rotting on southern beach because of his business success. He paid Guido 5 fish and 5 coconuts to think in his spare time how to fix the rotting fish and coconut problem.
Guido came back to his boss and told him to invent the "Fascist Party." First of all by killing all the monkeys on eastern beach through "genocide," Joe would cut back the number of coconuts and fish lying around. He would also keep his coconut monopoly on eastern beach (though not necessarily used at all) and show all of Paradise Island who was boss.
Another idea was to take the coconuts and fish that were going to rot and give them to "warrior" monkeys to go take over other monkey communities. The only problem was that Joe and Guido did not know of any more monkey communities to take over.
8) Joe also considered relaxing his monopoly on coconuts and fish. What if he hired Estelle but instead of killing the other eastern beach monkeys he had let them use his coconut trees and beaches. Since these monkeys would still then be alive, they could compete with Estelle for the job on eastern beach. Joe considered setting up "Monkeystans," where small monkeys on eastern beach would be allowed to forage for food, but only the worst coconuts and fish. He decided he would have to try in practice which worked better, "Monkeystans" or "prisons." Joe was reluctant to relax his monopoly on coconut and fish property and would prefer prisons over "Monkeystans" if at all possible. He could never be sure if competition against his business would arise on the "Monkeystans."
After considering all eight strategies, Joe decided he liked the "fascist" idea. He decided in normal times that he would use "strategy 6" and when coconuts and fish piled up too much, he would use "strategy 7." At this time, Joe thought he would turn to fascism soon, because coconuts and fish were piling up, except for one thing: Ivan told Joe that he would invent "rum" and other things soon and that eastern beach could be used to open new trading business. Joe realized that if he killed off Estelle and other monkeys that he now met, that he would have fewer monkeys around to do new business with. Hence he hesitated to use the "fascism" idea yet.
XIV. Western beach appears in history and sets up a trade bloc
Joe was from the northern beach where he, Guido and Brown Bear once lived. Now Joe is profiting on southern and eastern beaches and eating without working.
However, it turns out that three monkeys also live on the western beach. In fact, two monkeys there are very good with clubs and also work. Guido and Joe attempted to set up "rule of law" on the western beach, but the monkeys there proved strong enough to fend them off and set up their own "rule of law," by which no trade with southern or eastern beach monkeys was allowed.
In this situation, Joe finds he can make no profit from trade or operations on the western beach. The monkeys on the western beach trade amongst themselves much as the monkeys on southern beach did before the arrival of Joe.
XV. Ivan invents again
Ivan is still producing the boat and ladder that Super Monkey uses each week. Ever since Joe hired Guido, Ivan has surrendered the idea of living in idleness.
In fact, in his spare time, Ivan still invents things. One day, Ivan invents a hand-held device that he calls an "algae farm." It turns out that this algae is good for monkeys and that monkeys can survive just eating this particular algae--with no fish or coconuts.
Joe found out about this invention. Joe hesitated to kill or imprison Ivan, because Ivan was producing the ladder and boat that Super Monkey used each week. Joe knew that he was benefiting by the diversification of the economy Ivan partook in. Nonetheless, Joe sent Guido to kill Ivan and smash his algae farms to bits.
Upon reflection, Joe knew he would take a temporary hit in profits. Super Monkey would have to go back to production of an inefficient sort while Joe trained new monkeys to make boats and ladders. It was a shame to waste the talents and experience of Ivan, but Joe was most afraid of what would happen if Ivan's algae farms found their way to western beach. If the algae farms found their way to western beach, productivity would rise there in the first place. In the second place, eastern and southern beach monkeys would have added reason to try to escape to western beach.
Worse yet, what if western beach monkeys invaded southern or eastern beach and brought algae farms? Certainly Joe's coconut and fish monopoly property would be destroyed in value. No one would demand fish or coconuts anymore.
XVI. Ivan Jr. invents tofu
Ivan was dead, but Small Monkey's baby finished monkey school. Ivan Jr. was barely a few weeks out of school when he invented tofu from edible items found on the island. While in school Ivan Jr. also took political economy classes.
Ivan Jr. learned about Ivan, the boat inventor. Ivan Jr. recognized that Ivan the boat inventor had aspirations to live a life of idleness as a capitalist.
With his new invention "tofu," Ivan Jr. realized that he was threatening the wealth of Joe. Once monkeys started eating tofu, they would have no reason to eat fish and coconuts.
Ivan Jr. thought about it. He could try to go to western beach and take the chance that the monkeys there would make him a capitalist who lived in idleness. However, on the way to western beach, it is possible that "rule of law" would result in his death, imprisonment or merely the destruction of his scientific work.
Another possibility would be that Joe would bribe Ivan Jr. to keep the tofu secret in Joe's hands, never to be applied. Then again, if Joe had the secret, maybe he could be convinced to start a tofu monopoly and share the profits with Ivan Jr. This seemed doubtful though, because again, tofu competed with coconuts and fish.
Thinking about the assassinations, beatings, imprisonments and destruction of the past, Ivan Jr. made up his mind to take the proletarian road, the only surefire road to scientific advancement. Ivan Jr. realized that if he tried to become a new capitalist, Joe might try to kill him or repress his work one way or another. It would be such a shame to monkey civilization if he took any chance with a crucial third food source.
Hence, Ivan Jr. decided to spread his tofu idea free and simultaneously to all monkeys on the island. It's true that Joe could try to kill or imprison Ivan Jr., but his idea of tofu would still spread. Much to Joe's consternation, tofu production took off on the island, and there was nothing Joe could do about it. Historians say that Ivan Jr. called his simultaneous spreading of technological innovation "Internet," but there are anthropologists who dispute that account of the past.
XVII. Trade bloc war
Joe was feeling in a bad mood. His coconut and fish monopolies did not have the same preeminence as before and every day advanced monkeys were thinking new thoughts and possibly driving his business further into irrelevance. No matter how he sliced it, the most damaging fact his business faced was the western beach trade bloc. The possibility that the western beach monkeys would innovate and outstrip his own trade bloc made Joe nervous. Hence he went to war with the hopes of avoiding going out of business at the hands of technologically and economically superior foes.
In this war with the western beach, Joe's original rented enforcer Guido got killed by the monkeys of western beach. Western beach also made off with some coconut trees and burned down some others on eastern beach.
The death of Guido caused the southern beach enforcer monkey called Guido Jr. to think about his life. On the one hand, he hardly worked, except to brandish the club now and then. On the other hand, the risks in the job obviously included death.
Guido Jr. was much younger than Guido. Guido Jr. calculated that he would expect to live another 80 years ordinarily, but he was taking a chance western beach monkeys or even rebellious monkeys working for Joe would kill the southern beach enforcer some day, maybe soon.
At this time, Guido Jr. remembered he read what Ivan Jr. was calling a "proletarian pamphlet" that said the proletariat has no interest in war with the western beach monkeys. Why should Guido Jr. die fighting for Joe's profits the proletarian essay asked.
Guido Jr. thought about whether he could take up another line of work and whether Ivan Jr. and others could spread more ideas that would make the new proletarian-run economy work better than the old one.
Finally, Guido Jr. read the argument that tipped the balance. As long as there was business competition, there would be war with the western beach or other trade blocs. Guido Jr. was not sure what would happen with proletarian economic leadership, but Guido Jr. was sure he deserved to live another 80 years and he could no longer deny the steady stream of war, assassinations and repression that local history included.
Guido Jr.'s rebellion was successful. The monkeys expropriated Joe and finally made friends with western beach monkeys. All monkeys traded with each other and worked less hours than ever before. The days of wars and blockades ended.
This resolution is to accompany an explanation of a math problem set we are circulating. Specifically we want people to understand some aspects of efficiency and the division of labor in the party, as well as the movement.
People looking for a reason to degenerate from the communist movement often ignore cardinal principles and invent a story about the division of labor and efficiency. Usually what happens involves a pretty random theory used for degeneration.
One problem is that when we have leaders or see other people who can do tasks, we dump those tasks on them. Then we quit.
Connected to this is often a very simple idea--someone else can do the job better anyway. At that point, degeneracy has a veneer of rational explanation to it.
As we showed in the problem set, what matters even on a per-comrade basis (never mind total communist labor) is not absolute efficiency, but the ratios of abilities and diversity. Sappy as it sounds, diversity does underlie the strength of cooperation as the mathematical examples prove. This is also a reason that with any luck, even a bourgeois Soviet like the Soviet social- imperialists under Brezhnev are better off cooperating among themselves than thinking they are subsidizing each other. It could be true in very unlucky and coercive circumstances, but there is substantial "luck" at work that loads the dice so that cooperation works better than not. The vast majority of ex-Soviet republics lost out from dissolving their bonds of bourgeois cooperation. They'd have done better going from bourgeois to socialist, but going from bourgeois Soviet to bourgeois provincialist was even another step backward--something the EU has figured out but can't implement. That's why the collapse of Soviet social- imperialism did not come with an 18 month rush to prosperity the way many nationalist and Liberal theorists thought. The economy broke into bits often with outright embargoes placed, as between Armenia and Azerbaijan. There are also added costs from such political problems that the people call "mafia," which is just the black market resulting from the bourgeoisie's confusion about its own nature.
The U.$. mainstream economists and their patrons the capitalist class are not able to implement the cooperation necessary in economic life and they are in fact at this moment undergoing a major shift of the textbook theory they've been spouting for decades because of the emergence of China and India. The bottom line problem for these people is that they cannot admit publicly why China and India can do everything more cheaply than the West can and why the division of labor does not work the way it should. All the uproar about NAFTA, GATT and the EU centers on this problem of implementing something that only a handful of professional economists have learned. Their votes can never bring their utopias to fruition.
On a smaller scale, the division of labor is important in parties and movements. Failing to appreciate the division of labor may result in an underestimation of one's contribution to social efficiency--the same way the Soviet Union did not understand the roots of its own economic success and failure. It's not something easily apparent for either the bourgeoisie or the proletariat. The imperialists just went all out and could not impress the public with an argument about the division of labor in France when it comes to the EU, and France is the origin of the EU. Nor could the bourgeoisie convince the Dutch in 2005, despite the Dutch population's long history of trade. Likewise, we proletarians have problems in bringing a certain truth to the surface too. The only difference is that we proletarian scientists have nothing to hide.
From the point of view of the individual--which is not the right point of view anyway but just to handle the question of degeneration-- cooperation among similar people is less useful than cooperation among radically different people. Two identical people can work as anarchist individuals as effectively as vanguard party members as long as they are identical or even the same in terms of a ratio, where one persyn is like the junior of the other in every regard-- "the spitting image of the father (or mother)" as they might say. Over time, that is not likely to be true, nor at any moment is it likely that even any two people are quite exactly the same or exact multiples of each other in skills-energy. That's if we look at the per comrade contribution to the overall labor from the point of view of cooperation. In fact, the gains of cooperation may cause the contributions of the radically different but seemingly inept to exceed the overall contributions of people with higher efficiency as measured when left on desert islands alone. Another way to say this is that there is a question of how much each individual contributes in terms of absolute energy and skills, taken alone on a desert island. Then there is how that impacts --and this is the hard part-- once the nature of all the other individuals in the organization is accounted for. This is not something easy to see for anyone.
Even the distribution of knowledge about division of labor theory is a part of the division of labor. We are trying to fix the worst aspects of that now with this article and problem sets, because it becomes a political problem that prevents obtaining the most possible from cooperation. It's also relevant to why it's generally NOT a good idea to split from a party and do your own thing. If you can work with other people as an anarchist, that is good and can be as good as the party. If you can't cut it as an anarchist and find yourself not working with other people then confess and come back to MIM circles, because the political math is inexorable. Probably the only advantage of the party on this point is systematic training. Anarchists who read MIM stuff and work together with other people can accomplish much of the same effect. At the same time, if the effect is that circles are smaller, that IS going to cost some overall revolutionary efficiency and this is another reason to oppose sectarianism and do the most we can with what we have at hand. For any true anarchist individualist who thinks it's about expressing oneself and not working with others--hopefully the problem sets show why that is completely wrong. Again, people who read the problem sets and need to repent, there is no reason to be embarrassed. MIM is ready to work with ex-individualists who have seen the light.
The next point we need to handle is that people's skill and even energy levels vary from year to year, till finally we die. It is important to have an all-conquering attitude as a scientific communist. So what one is good at and appreciates will change over the years. In this regard we cannot say who is going to pick coconuts and who is going to fish over the long run and being able to handle that instability and uncertainty is again good for cooperation. The worst thing is to have comrades who both complain about the division of labor and instability. Those who complain about division of labor can set off those who complain about instability. The division of labor is inevitable and so is instability in connection to it: neither complaint is good. People hoping for a permanent stability and division of labor in the party only drag it down. People who want to change jobs should do so by finding replacements and plodding on in new jobs with no let up. People who don't like instability should just can it. That's no dialectical attitude.
In this connection, it is also important to keep plodding. PIRAO reported a number of unexpected gains this past year just from people plodding their way to unexpected gains--people who could just as easily have said they don't see the effectiveness of their work. If you quit, or you don't concentrate, you can't have those gains of efficiency, even if you are an anarchist.
One conclusion that people may not like but which we have to tell people is that in our situation it will often be the case where people working in isolation will make their greatest cooperative contribution. It's an irony but true. People may think they join a party not to be isolated, but in fact the party works best at this point with isolation of tasks. At the simplest level, if you have an Amerikan party of only two people and one knows how to write Chinese, it would be pretty stupid if the second comrade went to school to learn Chinese. (We had a degenerate complain about the division of labor but admit, "it's not going to be me publishing in Chinese!") The reason is that we need a diversity of tasks accomplished to counter bourgeois dominance. Likewise, if the comrade writing Chinese feels isolated because other comrades are not jumping in to learn Chinese, that will be wrong also. People need to work together but they need to contribute distinct content to the party, the more distinct the better. From looking at the division of labor one conclusion is that there are aspects of cooperation that make people feel more isolated if the logic of the situation is followed through.
This is not the same thing as saying people cannot change roles or learn new ones. Nor is it saying people can't take vacations. If that's what people are thinking, they should just say it, but do not undercut the division of labor, cooperation or the need to plod steadily and don't whine about isolation of work. Unfortunately isolation in the work is literally in the math or the political numbers of our movement in the majority-exploiter countries. When we seek new roles, though, again the goal is to plod along with distinct content, not to draw attention and break isolation. When we really succeed of course, the society will be revolutionary and that will make us all feel less isolated. Unfortunately, at this time, we need the kind of people who are leaders. There is no other word for being able to stand alone in isolation and still function. Well, probably anyone who contemplated the lack of revolution in the majority-exploiter countries knew there was a price to pay because of that, something we have to make up for, a challenge.
The conclusions are as follows and it is important to debate these and not numbers or persynalities. MIM has proved that it is the most effective public opinion generator within u.$. borders calling itself socialist on a per-comrade basis. If we have any internal doubts about that, we should ask and we should make sure we understand this per-comrade concept and how it leads in a scientific direction, including among other things, the contribution of the individual at the margin in cooperation. MIM's per comrade public opinion generation is only one example of the kind of concrete application that comes from knowledge of the division of labor, but we want to use it, so if we don't understand it or doubt, we need to ask. We also do not want to go in public with something that is wrong, so we need to check it out and we should try to shoot this essay down.
The less people understand the theory of the division of labor and efficiency in an absolute sense, the more there is going to have to be an authoritarian hand in the party. It will definitely lead to unnecessary conflict.
So here are some conclusions we hope to be promoting in problem set solving discussion groups: 1) The difference between individual efficiency and cooperative efficiency. 2) Per-comrade efficiency total and per-comrade contributions at the margin. 3) MIM as the most efficient on a per-comrade basis by far and how that ties into what we call the primer and potential authoritarianism and conflicts.