Tribal Capitalism

Sometimes I like to kick back and imagine life for our ancient African ancestors back in the day back on the continent. One particular instance I spend a lot of time dwelling on is the hunt of the large animals. I can see the tribe of men tracking their prey on the hunt. I can see the men working together to prepare their trap for one of the elephant’s ancestors. The ancient African elephant would be maneuvered into a gulch where the men could corner it with fire and stab at it with their spears and pummel it with boulders. It would take a coordinated team effort for the tribal men for no single individual could take down such a mighty animal on their own. Once the animal perished they would slice the meat off of it and anything else they deemed of value. The bounty would be taken back to the rest of their community. While the able men were off hunting men who were too old or were incapacitated continued to make and repair tools and weapons for the hunting party and the women would forage for vegetation and herbs and rear the children. Everybody had a job to do. Even the children would actively help to keep the community going. The pool of bounties would be divvied up and everyone would have an equal share.

There would be serious doubt that the leader of the people would figure that since he or she is so important that he or she should get half of everything while everyone else would make do with the rest. Besides, without the cooperation of everyone the community could not be successful. The hunters could not hunt and the foragers cannot dig and gather without tools and the toolmakers could not live without food. And so everyone depended on everyone to keep the community going. Remove one component out of the entire group and the community suffers. In this respect, I would imagine that it really isn’t much different than what is happening in communities everywhere today.

But then I would like to imagine what would happen if the concept of capitalism was introduced to our African ancestors. I can see one of the people setting up Elephant Hunt Cooperative, Inc (EHC). With the clever use of marketing and through the use of taglines like, “Bringing the hunt to your pot.” Everybody in the village will go to work for the EHC and get paid as small a percentage of the elephant meat as possible. We’ll call it a minimum living wage. So now the hunters are getting paid but the majority of the elephant profit stays with EHC.

But now EHC has to buy tools for the hunt and so somebody from the group sets up the Spears & Weapons Depot (SWD). SWD will have its own marketing campaign and tagline. “When your spear has to be the very best.” Because the owners of SWD is spending so much time on the marketing and sales they have to hire other people to actually make the tools and other hardware. But the company will only hire people who have experience in making tools. SWD will trade the tools to EHC for a percentage of the elephant and then SWD will give the toolmaker a wage based on a percentage of SWD’s percentage of the elephant. But the majority of the elephant profit will stay with SWD.

In response other people will have to form their companies. In order to stay as profitable as possible EHC, SWD, and any other companies that are formed will work hard to minimize the expense of producing or procuring their product. Therefore, only the absolute smallest number of employees will be necessary. Anything else would be counterproductive and wasteful. The end result is that there will now be a number of people in the tribe that will be unemployed. But the owners of all the tribal companies will have a pool of people ready to work just in case the people who do have jobs don’t workout. And with the new efficient setup the tribal companies will increase their wealth.

EHC has always gotten their tools from SWD. But during one of the elephant hunts the employees of EHC ran across another village with people who make tools and weapons. These people are willing to undercut SWD by ten percent. Realizing they could increase their profit by doing business in the new village EHC made the deal. But with the lost of its biggest trading partner SWD went out of business and the unemployment rate in the tribe went up.

Unable to work and feed themselves a number of people in the tribe started stealing elephant meat. The house used as the EHC storage facility now needed guarding. Someone else in the tribe saw a need and developed another company called Village Security Services (VSS). “We break heads like coconuts.” VSS made a deal with EHC to guard the warehouse and keep the other tribal members away. VSS also made a deal with the tribal leaders. They would patrol the village and make sure people who looked suspicious and deviant met the firm hand of tribal law.

The medicine man has to be get paid so he could get his share of the wealth coming into the community. The medicine man starts his company Medicine Man Medical (3M). 3M hires a number of people in the community as nurses and medical assistants. Now, no one in the village gets medical care without some form of payment.

The people in the tribe began to complain to the tribal leaders that the setup was unfair. People in their collective were starving while others were getting immensely rich. But the people at EHC made an offer to the tribal leaders that would make the leaders rich with elephant meat. Seduced by the idea of having all that meat to themselves the tribal leaders made decisions that helped EHC protect its business and its wealth.

But the people would not stop their protest and the tribal leaders and the company leaders began to worry. Somebody in the village came up with a solution to everyone’s problems. They started the Tribal News Network (TNN) so that people could be told what is good for them and what is bad. The idea of everyone having equal access to food, housing, and the medicine man wasn’t a positive thing for the tribe and that it could lead to all kinds of problems never imagined in their world. The leaders in tribal news also worked to distract the people by telling them the people on the other side of the valley wanted to steal all the rich people’s elephant meat and destroy the tribe’s freedom.

The people in the tribe began to gear up for a war with people they never met. The tribal leaders who made their decisions based on what was good for business instead of what was good for people began to tell the people that their freedoms and way of life was at risk. The people had to sacrifice so that the village could be ready. When someone in the village asked why the people in the next village were evil and why we should fear them, the leaders would tell the people that anyone who doubted the tribal leadership could not be trusted and they were actually spies for the tribe on the other side of the valley. TNN would repeat everything the leadership said on a constant basis without questioning.

There is little doubt that the introduction of the capitalist economic system would seriously impact the African living conditions. Instead of a focus on the community people would have been more focused on getting theirs. Some people claim that without capitalism there would be little incentive to progress. But it is these very incentives for more that drives a billionaire to continue to seek more and to steal every dime, nickel, and penny. Besides, it is rare that the developer or the inventor is the one who actually benefits from their invention. Usually, it is the business minded individual looking to patent or brand or somehow control the inventor’s work to maximize their personal profit that is the one that benefits the most.

George Washington Carver’s name was neither Skippy nor Jiff. Microsoft didn’t write the original DOS operating system that founded the company. Berry Gordy didn’t write or sing the songs that made the sounds of Motown. Gangsta rappers sing and make millions but it is the record company that makes the billions. Madame Curie, Louis Pasteur, Nikola Tesla, and even Albert Einstein were not the greatest beneficiary of their work. Their inventions, theories, patents, and writings became the foundation for other people’s riches. Capitalism was not the driving force behind these people’s work. The need for greed was not their incentive. These people invented because that is what they wanted to do. They wanted to help improve their community.

There was a time where the progression of the human species wasn’t driven by greed. It was driven by people striving to improve themselves and their community. It is only the modern western business model that requires progress to be motivated by financial incentives.