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| Egalitaria Egalitaria is a hypothetical world where everything is "fair". I put "fair" in quotation marks because the word is used on Egalitaria as a synonym for "equal" -- though equal and fair are not necessarily always the same thing, at least on other planets, such as real planets (where real people live). The people of Egalitaria only eat apples. Half of the whole planet is one giant apple orchard. If two siblings went out to pick apples and if one of them picked more apples than the other -- then they would even out their baskets so that each sibling gets exactly the same amount of apples. If those two siblings were accosted by two strangers from another family living down the road, and if the two strangers didn't have as many apples as the siblings, then they would divide the apples equally, four ways. If 4 new strangers happened upon the scene and didn't have apples, then ... well, you know the drill. One day someone was caught trading apples for a back massage. An onlooker spotted this economic activity and immediately informed the authorities. The cops arrested the man who had "bought" the back massage (which would have lead to the people having unequal apples) and they took him to prison for that victimless crime. Because there is variety among people, with some people being different in some ways than others, at least one of the citizens of Egalitaria routinely disrespected apples. He would pick a bunch of apples and then drift off and forget about them and leave his basket in the field -- and the apples would go bad by the time he remembered. He got mad and petitioned the courts. If he lost 100 apples, then that means that everybody around him should lose 100 apples -- either individually, or at the very least, cumulatively. In other words, due to his different behavior (which resulted in the loss of 100 apples), there is only one way to make things fair: destroy 100 apples from others around him. Another character liked to see how far he could throw things, particularly apples. But he could throw apples so far that they would get destroyed when they hit the ground. His mother petitioned the courts, and they ordered the cops to take apples away from this boy's neighbors -- whenever the boy destroyed apples by throwing them. Another character, equally wily, was an apple-pyromaniac who lit apples on fire and burned them -- using different kinds of flammable liquids or materials. The courts sided in his favor, too. For every apple he burned, someone else had to pay. The court said that this -- i.e., equality -- is the meaning of fairness (on Egalitaria). The courts said that if property is something that is improved or moral only whenever it is equalized, then there has to be a new concept: anti-property (to account for the different ways that different people respect or waste the apples). The alternative to this, the courts said, is to let people accumulate apples based on their willingness to respect apples, and to trade away surplus apples for other things that they may want or need from other people around them! Everyone in the courtroom gasped with horror at the thought of individuals, due to their differences in work ethic, character, and the valuing of apples -- ending up with more or less apples because of their behavior. They said it wouldn't be fair if individuals were allowed to have the freedom to do such a dastardly thing as to economize. So they outlawed economies. No thought was given as to how this put diligent people at risk from the behavior of others who, for whatever reason, were willing to live on less and less apples. Then one day, an unexpected drought came ... | ||||
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