ONCE UPON A PAST a man opened a store on the principle of greatness. Much anticipation murmured around town as to what principle and greatness would actually sell for. That first inaugural day the doors swung open with a public announcement: “Each would pay what they could, no more, no less.” Business boomed as product flew from the shelves, but the end-of-day books told a different story. Given a choice, people tend to exchange little for more than they can carry.
The second day a crowd clambered at the stoop of the man’s store, filling the morning sidewalk. Each buyer envisioned their rush to grab up product, pay a pittance or nothing, then laugh their way to the outside world, happy to have found greatness on sale once again. Inside, notes attached to each product reminded them: “Numbers are the only universal law, and taking more than you need is broken math.” Business boomed and a flurry of activity whirled about the store, but that night the books again told a different story.
The third day a bigger, wilder crowd roared on the sidewalk, pushing ever more forcefully into the storefront. As more people arrived all semblance of order faded into a crescendo of chaos, then moved by visions of things, splintered into movements of sharp elbow and blind strides to move nearer to the doors. Liquidated and broke on the outskirts of town where he lived, the man never arrived to relieve the human tsunami of its tension. Those who arrived earliest, those with the grandest visions of cheap and easy greatness, were suffocated between the crowd and the unopened doors, and fell silently to the ground one by one, dead. Only when a sizeable pile of bodies grew a gap between the riot and the storefront did anyone notice the note taped onto the doors:
“There will be no true profit and no real peace until the Universal Law of Numbers is observed.”
The doors were unlocked; the shelves were empty.
LOCATION: Lincoln, Nebraska – Inspired by the global Occupy Wall Street movement against greed and corruption, I wrote a modern-day fable. As long as infinite growth with finite resources is the capitalistic golden rule, then I can’t help but feel we’re killing ourselves at an ever-increasing rate.
