Economics Simplified

 Imagine there are only five people living in a small community, and they have no contact with the outside.

The first person is good at farming.  The second person is good at fixing things.  The third person is a good cook.  The fourth knows how to weave clothing.  The fifth doesn't have any special skills, but he can clean up and do other small tasks while the others are busy with their jobs.

After a while, they run into a problem, where they can't keep track of how well each person does his job, and how much of each resource each person is taking for himself, so they devise a system.  Every time someone does his job correctly, he gets a five poker chips, taken out of a community bowl of poker chips.  Every time someone uses a resource, such as food, clothing, etc., he puts one poker chip back into the community bowl.

For a long time, this system works, and the five do their jobs well, they each get a fair share of the resources, and the taking and giving of chips equals out by the end of each day.

Then one day, a traveller comes along and gives them five robots that can do any job faster and better than any human, and they have no need for consuming resources.  At first, this seems like a good thing, because it would give the humans lots of extra free time to relax.

After the first day, they notice a problem.  The robots have done all the work, and there's nothing left for the humans to do.  According to the system, this means that no one gets a poker chip.

When it comes time to eat, no one has a poker chip to place in the bowl, so the food sits on the table uneaten.

The bowl is now filled with all the poker chips that there are, and no one is circulating them.  The robots are working away producing produce, cooked meals, and clothing, but no one is getting any use out of any of them.  The five people are sitting around, hungry, dirty, dressed in ragged clothing, with absolutely nothing productive for them to do.

Eventually, one of them suggests that they need to either abandon the poker chip system or get rid or the robots.  They soon find that the robots are self-repairing, and any attempt to shut one down will result in the robot just starting itself back up again.  So they turn their attention to the poker chip bowl.

One person suggest that they just go back to taking resources as needed, with no poker chips at all, but another person points out that this risks someone taking more than their fair share.

Another person suggests giving each person five poker chips per day, but another points out that since none of them did any work, there's no way to know how many poker chips they each deserve.

Then someone suggest that they pretend to be working, standing alongside the robots and going through the motions, thereby showing a willingness to work hard, even if the work isn't needed.  However, they soon find that they are only getting in the way of the robots' speedy work, and their presence is actually doing more harm than good.

Finally, one of them suggests that they be awarded poker chips for individual merit, for things like writing a poem or making a scientific discovery, but another points out that no one really has the right to decide what achievements have value and which ones don't.

Out of ideas, the five of them leave the community, searching for a place to build elsewhere, where they can get back to the way things used to be.

In the end, five robots worked in a community of no people.  They farmed, cooked, weaved, made repairs, and cleaned up the place, but no one was around to get any use out of any of this.  At least the bowl of poker chips was full.