Transcript - Izzit.org

MAN: But would you believe it They didn’t understand what money was. They’d never even heard of
it.
WOMAN: So I asked them how they managed without money on market days.
MAN: And the funny thing was: They didn’t even know what a market was. Would you credit it
WOMAN: They didn’t seem to want anything to do with our money, did they
MAN: Not at all. I checked to make sure they didn’t all produce small amounts of different things
inefficiently like we did in the bad old days. They agreed that they did specialize. Some produced cotton,
others pots, wheat, others sheep…and so on. “It’s more efficient that way,” they said.
WOMAN: But the big question was: How did they share everything out
MAN: They explained.
WOMAN: It starts with a council of elders. They decide how much of everything the village is going to
need next year: how much beef, how much cotton, how much fish…and so on. Then they produce a plan
for the whole village, saying how much of what product each family has to produce each year. When the
produce is ready- it all goes into the village store.
MAN: “Aha,” we said, “People like your Fisher family must be honest as anything, but some people
cheat you know, like those awful Shepherds in our village.”
WOMAN: Oh, they’re shocking they are!
MAN: Horrible!
WOMAN: Can’t trust them for a minute. “No,” they told us, “the guardians see there is no cheating.”
They allocate so much of each product to each family, the ration they’re given is the basis of the original
plan.
MAN: “But,” we said, “supposing you don’t grow what you’re told to, or don’t like what you’re given”
WOMAN: “Well,” they said, “you can apply to the elders for a change next time. And in any case, most
people have their own private patch where they grow things they especially like. And if they exceed their
production quota, they can keep some to swap with other families.”
MAN: That does make a certain amount of sense, you know.
WOMAN: Yeah, it does.
MAN: But we explained to them that that was the way we once ran the whole village, and that now we
have an even better system, and we don’t have to do what we’re told.
WOMAN: “How” they asked.
MAN: “Come and see,” we said.
45