Once upon a time there was a man named
Adam, who lived in a far-away land called Scotland, full of exotic creatures, including
lochs, Scots, Presbyterians, and a dragon named Monopolists. Every payday, the dragon
demanded higher rents from the people, until little of their pay was left. So Adam decided
that he would become a knight and slay the dragon. Off he went to the University of
Glasgow to hold a chair. That’s how people became knights in those days. Go figure.
Soon Adam became Sir Adam, the Moral
Philosopher. But before he could slay Monopolists, he had to forge a magic sword and
shield. So in the year numbered, exotically enough, 1759, he produced his shield, which he
titled Theory of Moral Sentiments. On the shield he painted a picture of a citizen
of the world, whom he dubbed Sympathy For All Beings. When his squire asked what it meant,
Sir Adam replied, "Before knights battle dragons, they must swear allegiance to
larger contexts—not only to their friends and family, but to the whole community and
ultimately the world." This sounded big-minded to the squire, so he nodded
thoughtfully. If he hadn’t, he’d have been back apprenticing with the
ironmonger.
In the even more exotic year of 1776, Sir
Adam forged his magic sword, which he titled Wealth of Nations. On its handle he
painted a baker trading with a shoemaker. When the squire asked what this meant, Sir Adam
replied, "It’s how all real economies work: exchange for mutual benefit. Without
this, no economy can prosper." The squire nodded enthusiastically. At least he’d
seen a baker trading with a shoemaker, and anyway baked goods appealed to him.
Armed with his magic shield and sword, Sir
Adam rode out to engage Monopolists in a lifelong battle. News of his exploits spread far
and wide, until he became the Father of a Discipline, whom he named Economics. Discipline
was exactly what Economics needed, since his nickname in earlier incarnations had been
Every Man For Himself.
When Sir Adam died, other knights took up
his battle. These knights were called Idealists, and they must have had something to do
with woodworking, because their adversaries, the Cynics, referred to them as coming out of
the woodwork.
One of the most famous Idealists in an
ancient century called the Nineteenth was Sir Henry Carey, a favorite of another famous
knight called Sir Abraham Lincoln. Sir Henry used many lances, swords, and shields to
attack the new reigning dragon: the fearsome Scarcity.
In a place called the British Empire at
that time—it’s now called the United Kingdom, because it lost all its
colonies—the Cynics were claiming that Scarcity was unslayable. "He’s
invincible," they argued, "because all the good land has been grabbed by the
dragon Monopolists, and only the poor land is left. As long as unlimited desires for good
land compete for the limited supply available, there will always be the few rich and the
many poor. Scarcity will be with us forever." Logic was one of their weapons.
A prominent Cynic, called The Malthusian
by his mother and his enemies, claimed that famines, wars, and other unpleasant pastimes
were necessary to keep the population low enough so that everyone would end up with at
least something, however meager that something might be. The dragon Monopolists, he
believed, would always own all the good somethings.
Brandishing a sword titled The Past,
The Present, and The Future, Sir Henry Carey replied to the English Cynics and The
Malthusian that no society ever used up its good land first: "In every civilization,
settlers began by working the easy-to-clear land on the mountain slopes and moved
gradually down to the more fertile, harder-to-clear land in the valleys. Better land was
always being discovered." When good land did become scarce, people found they could
do more with what they had by using energy (which fueled a noisy machine named the
Industrial Age) and by developing knowledge (which hatched a clicking creature called the
Information Age).
Sir Henry’s sword struck at
Scarcity’s heart. Because knowledge and creativity have no limits, no one need be
condemned to fight, starve, or die.
The dragon Scarcity was more than wounded:
he was hopping mad. Sir Henry had used historical development to undermine Scarcity’s
very existence, and nothing infuriates a dragon more than having his existence undermined
by historical development (just look at the dinosaurs). So in a desperate century called
the Twentieth, he brought in his son, Shortages, to undermine the undermining of his
existence and wipe history from the minds of everyone.
With the aid of super-wealthy Cynics
called the Robber Barons, Shortages reestablished Scarcity’s rule with such force
that all the people bowed low before him. Naturally, that did wonders for the
dragon’s ego. When some people even called out that he should be elected God,
Scarcity reduced his therapy to two hours a week.
Scarcity was happy, Shortages was happy,
the Cynics were happy, the Robber Barons were happy, and the people were miserable. So all
seemed in order.
But out of the woodwork rode another
Idealist knight named Sir Thorstein Veblen. Sir Thorstein told the people that Scarcity
had no absolute existence. Shortages, his son, was a mere phantom, a trick performed by
the Robber Barons to grab the good stuff, hoard it, make sure everyone needed it, and then
charge them the skies for it.
Sir Thorstein explained that as long as
the people used Sir Adam’s shield and sword, Monopolists couldn’t get away with
hoarding all the good stuff. Economies would prosper, because exchange would occur for
mutual benefit. Wealth would flow freely, empowering everyone to act as free and creative
agents.
Only when people imitated the Robber
Barons—grabbing and hoarding, scoring and scalping—did everything break down.
"This is no surprise," Sir Thorstein told his squires in knight school.
"Grabbing is stealing. It’s not economic exchange. Whenever stealing replaces
mutually beneficial exchange, nothing works. No one trusts anyone, so no one wants to do
business." The squires nodded solemnly, wanting desperately to believe Sir Thorstein,
but still fearing Scarcity and Shortages.
Sir Thorstein’s weapons enraged the
dragons, the Robber Barons, and the Cynics. He had used both history and logic against
them, and they couldn’t defeat both history and logic. If the squires believed Sir
Thorstein, the dragons would be out of luck and the Robber Barons out of business.
So the Robber Barons hired trained
killers, called Early Public Relations Firms, who had nothing to do with real public
relations, to get rid of Sir Adam, Sir Henry, Sir Thorstein and every other Idealist once
and for all. "We want you," the Robber Barons told Early Public Relations Firms,
"to entrench the dragons so firmly in everyone’s minds that no one will ever
again challenge Monopolists or doubt the existence of Scarcity and Shortages."
The Public Relations killers were more
successful than the Robber Barons anticipated. In a few years, everyone in Scotland, the
United Kingdom, and America—a place named after its discoverers, the American
Indians—believed the Cynics and ignored Sir Adam, Sir Henry, Sir Thorstein, and any
other Idealist knight who wandered out of the woodwork. Before long, stealing became the
creed proclaimed in every village square.
To capitalize on their success, the
Cynics, advised by Later Public Relations Firms—a newcomer who still had nothing to
do with real public relations—said to the people, "See, we told you so. Scarcity
is real, the dragon Shortages exists, and Monopolists always win."
The only problem was that Sir Adam had
been right from the beginning: without the principle of mutual benefit, exchange
collapses. As stealing replaced exchange, Economics fell ill. People became afraid to
exchange. Before long, everyone felt helpless and victimized; they became bitter and
joined the Cynics.
As stealing created more misery, even the
Cynics began to wonder, "What have we created? Will misery come and get us,
too?" What Sir Adam had once upon a time sired as Economics, the Science of Exchange,
was now transmogrifying into the Dismal Science.
Then one day, in-debt Idealists (everyone
was in debt by that time) began stumbling across the swords and shields of Sir Adam, Sir
Henry, Sir Thorstein and even older Idealists. They wondered to themselves, "Could
the Cynics and their killers be deceivers?" After all, wherever stealing wasn’t
taken as the economic Holy Grail, Scarcity and all the other dragons vanished in puffs of
smoke.
The Idealists began to network and dreamed
among themselves (that is what Idealists do): "When people realize that they’ve
been duped by the Robber Barons and their killers, things will change. Free, mutually
beneficial exchange will work its magic, Sympathy for all Beings will appear on every
shield, and economies will blossom as they did once upon a time."
So they told the people that Economics was
alive and well, that economic reality was the opposite of what Early and Later Public
Relations Firms had told them, that the Dismal Science was a pretender, and that Sir Adam
and the knights had been right all along.
The people rejoiced and began to follow
their bliss. This took some time, since they had to figure out what the heck that meant.
One sage, sitting in a cave called Stanford, said it meant, "Do What You Love, The
Money Will Follow," in contrast to the Cynics’ rule, "Do what makes money,
and the love will follow." Other sages channelled from caves in the Far Beyond said
it meant, "Do what both excites you and respects the universe." One sage
speaking from the afterlife said it meant, "Don’t do anything at all." But
a sage called New Age Advisor replied, "Just because you’re dead doesn’t
mean you’re smart."
One way or another, what with resurrecting
Sir Adam Smith, bliss-following and respecting the universe, the people began to examine
their philosophies, which was what the Idealists had worked for all along. The people
realized that the dragons’ only power came from persuading everyone to accept the
Dismal philosophy and then beating them up with it.
Thus occurred the Great Philosophy Shift,
the forerunner to the Great Paradigm Shift. The Dismal Science vanished, the dragons
dissolved before the people’s eyes, and everyone lived happily and creatively ever
after. (Look, this is a fairy tale. Anyway, did you expect us to sound like the Cynics?)
