THE TRAVAILS OF A CAPITALIST CAVEMAN
Wayne L. Parker
This story is set within a village of cave dwellers that existed about 20,000 years ago, in a part of the world that we now call Spain.
The story is, specifically, about a very unique caveman named Og. Now, Og was what we today would call the village nerd. He was quite different from your average brute. Being built considerably lighter than all the other men, Og was not macho. He was more of a thinker than a hunter; a lover, not a fighter. Og preferred to spend his spare time thinking and inventing instead of joining in the violent games that the other cavemen played.
As a young man, Og, like all the rest of the men in the village, earned his keep by participating in the monthly hunting expeditions that provided the villagers with food and skins.
It didn’t take Og long to grow weary of killing animals with rocks. Those things were heavy! And you had to get so close to the animals! So he invented the spear, and sold one to every man in the village.
Not long after that, Og invented the bow and arrow, which he also sold throughout the village. This village of cave-dwellers began to really like having Og around. His ideas and inventions made THEIR lives a whole lot easier. His greatest invention was the wheel. This he gave to the people, free of charge. He did this for two reasons. It was good advertising, and it made it easier for the people to get to Og's shop to buy more of his other goods.
We join Og as he is filing out of the village with the other men, for one of their monthly hunting expeditions.
Now, because he was not strong and macho like the other men, Og was given the job of "Shaker" when on hunting trips. The shakers would enter wooded areas and create a commotion within the trees, which would frighten the animals out of the woods, to be slaughtered by the other cavemen as they fled.
One day the men were on a mountainside and Og was circling up and around a stand of trees. As he moved on, alone, he became aware of a loud rumbling sound coming from over a nearby ridge. He clambered up and peered over the ridge and witnessed a huge rock slide tumbling down the side of the mountain.
Og watched the avalanche with intense interest. He noticed that when some of the rocks collided, they created huge showers of sun drops. What he didn't realize was that some of these rocks were flint, and these sun drops were sparks.
The sparks started a fire in a stand of trees some distance down the slope. This gave Og an idea. He went to the pile of rocks and began striking some of them together to see which ones produced sparks. When he figured this out, he began trying to determine which materials would provide fuel for fire.
After many attempts, finally! Success! He managed to ignite a small pile of dry twigs and leaves! He quickly tucked some of the pieces of flint under his arm and returned to the hunting party.
Later that night in the hunting camp, as the men were preparing for their meal of raw meat and vegetables, Og walked into the camp... with fire! The other men were greatly amazed! They begged him to show them how he did it! Og kept his secret to himself, but that night, for the first time in the history of humanity, the men ate roasted meat!
Throughout the meal the conversation repeatedly turned to Og's fire and how he got it started. Finally, Og decided to make a deal with the men. He gave them an option. He said, "My knowledge of fire-starting would be of great value to you, as it is to me. If I share my knowledge with you, I will have to be compensated. We can work it one of two ways. I can build a fire for each of you, in which case I would charge each of you 5 pounds of meat and one skin, or I can show each of you how to make fire for yourselves, in which case I'll charge 5 pounds of meat and one skin from each of you, each month for the next year.
The men liked the second option best. They all wanted to know how to make fire on their own. They cheered Og and enthusiastically embraced his offer. As the men were lining up to make their first payment to Og, Frock, the leader of the hunting party, made his presence known. "Wait!,” he called out. "What about the poor? They need this knowledge too, but they won't be able to meet your price!" To which Og replied, "If you're so concerned about the poor, you pay their share. In any case, they should be able to pool their resources and at least pay the price for me to build them one fire, which they could all share."
This seemed like a good arrangement to most of the men. But Frock was not satisfied. He stated, "The ability to start fires is too important to leave to the uncertainties of your method of trade, Og. I think you should just give us your knowledge free of charge, as a public service." Obviously, Og strongly disagreed with THAT idea.
During this exchange, some of Frock's men, anticipating a confrontation, began to quietly collect all the weapons in the camp.
Becoming frustrated with Og's refusals, Frock angrily growled, "If you will not give us your knowledge willingly, we'll just take it from you by force!" He lunged at Og and seized him by the neck. Some of Frock's men joined in and began to tie Og up.
Several of Og's friends sprang to his aid, but were forced back by Frock's men, who now had all the weapons! Jock, one of Og's supporters, shouted at Frock, "This is theft! You can’t do this!" To which Frock replied, "This is in the public interest, that justifies it!"
Once they had him strung up, Frock and his men threatened Og with physical harm if he did not give up his knowledge. To prove they were serious, they took a red-hot coal from the fire Og had built, and pressed it against his chest. Og cried out in pain, and quickly gave in to their demands.
Frock and his men rejoiced in their victory. Obviously, the only reason Frock was considered any kind of a leader was because of his superior strength and ruthlessness.
Upon their return to the village, Frock proclaimed, "Look everyone! Come see what I’ve brought you!" He promptly lit a fire and showed all the villagers how to do it. The people were greatly amazed, and very appreciative of Frock. They hailed him as their leader and benefactor. Jock, Og's friend, cried out, "Wait! Og deserves the credit for this. Firestarting is HIS discovery!" To which someone replied, "He may be the one who discovered it, but Frock is the one who gave it to us!"
Og went to his cave and shut himself off from the rest of the villagers. Over the next few days he bitterly recalled the events of the hunting trip. He vowed never to let that happen again.
Nevertheless, two weeks later while in his shop, Og looked up to find Frock standing over him with a threatening glare. "The poor people are cold", Frock stated. "Give me ten blankets or I'll hurt you." Og refused, so Frock beat him up and took the blankets he needed.
This scene was repeated in Og's shop several times over the next 6 months. Many of the cave-dwellers now saw Frock as the source of their wealth. He became a respected leader among this crowd. Many of the other villagers, however, spoke out against Frock's actions, but their protests were quickly rebuffed with charges of selfishness and greed.
During one of Frock’s beatings, Og received injuries to his brain. The people were told that he had taken ill. It was rumored that he had lost his memory, and could not function as he once had. The people felt sorry for him.
One day, as the men were preparing for their monthly hunting trip, it was noticed that there were no more arrows left. The last of the arrows had been used, and broken, during the previous hunting expedition. So, Frock went off to Og's shop to get some more. But when he got there, and informed Og of his needs, Og apologetically explained to him that he had no more arrows and, what's more, could not remember how to make them! His knowledge of spear-making was gone too!
This was very bad news indeed. Without arrows, the men would have to revert to the old ways of killing their prey with rocks. Consequently, the hunters brought back much less meat than usual, and hunger was felt in the village for the first time in years.
With the approach of winter, the need for more clothes was felt among the villagers. The productive citizens, many of whom were Og's friends, went to him and purchased what few skins he had left, due to the rather meager harvest from the last hunt.
The poor became cold as well, and asked Frock to obtain warm clothing for them. Frock went to Og, only to discover that he had no skins left.
Because of Og's debilitating illness, the villagers began to notice shortages of all the necessities of life. Tools which were broken could not be repaired. When someone's wheel broke, Og was unable to remember how to make another one.
The standard of living in the village quickly declined. People began to steal from one another. Violent crime rose dramatically in the village, primarily among the poor. Frock was powerless to do anything, even as the cries for him to "do something" grew to a feverish pitch.
It was at this point that Og's loyal friend, Jock, stood up among the villagers and shouted, "People! You are seeking salvation from the wrong source! All this time you've been looking to Frock as the provider of your wealth. Frock does not have the ability to make anything! He has simply been taking from Og and giving to you, while keeping a portion of the goods for himself! Now that Og is disabled, Frock is powerless! He is nothing! If we're going to save ourselves, we must first save Og!"
One by one the villagers went to Og's shop and offered to help him take care of himself. Amazingly, these efforts began to show results! When one woman cleaned Og's cave for him, he recovered his memory just long enough to repair her wheel for her. Another man cleaned out Og's fireplace, and Og was briefly able to remember how to make arrows, and gave the man six of them.
As more and more of the villagers came to Og and offered their services, Og's recovery accelerated. When every member of the village had made the trip to Og's shop and exchanged a service for Og's efforts, Og's recovery was complete!
The general public finally realized that Og was the TRUE source of their wealth and if they wanted to keep him around, they would have to respect him and ensure that any exchange that occurred between them and him would be mutually beneficial.
Frock was no longer considered a leader in the village. He was still valuable as leader of the hunting expeditions, but that was the extent of his authority.
Under these new conditions the village thrived! The people quickly reached, and surpassed their previous standard of living!