Second Grade Economics Class

Scene: Tuesday, Mama and children at the kitchen table, eating a snack of pumpkin muffins

John (8) (out of the blue): "Mama, I think everything in the world would be better if everything was just free."

Mama immediately spots the necessary stage of every child to explore the Utopian idea that inevitably leads to enforcement at the end of a gun. As they say, if you're not liberal when you're young, you have no heart. If you're not conservative when you're old, you have no brain.

Mama: "Oh, really?"

John: "Yeah! Everything one could want or would need would be free. You could just get whatever you wanted."

Mama: "So, who would supply all this free stuff?"

John: "The people who had the stuff."

Mama: "Okay. And who would provide the labor to build all the free stuff? Do you know what labor means?"

John: "Working, building."

Mama: "Right. So who would do the labor?"

John: "The usual people."

Mama tries really hard not to laugh at the boy's ready superiority. "So, why would the usual people work to build the free stuff?"

John: "Well, they'd get as much free stuff as they want, so they'd be happy to work. They could have ten hamburgers per day!"

Mama: "But they'd get as much free stuff as they want even if they don't work, right?"

John (triumphantly): "Right!"

Mama: "So, why exactly would they be willing to work to build the stuff if they can get the stuff without working?"

John: "Oh."


And that was that!