Jeremy Black stood behind his desk, surveying his classroom as students filtered in. It was a finely appointed classroom, near the top of the arcology. He reflected, as he watched his young charges socialize in hushed tones, that he had made it to the top in more ways than one. Over many long years of service, he had proven his ability as an educator. More importantly, he had also earned the trust and respect of the local executive class as a whole. Competent, trustworthy, and impartial. He was in the very highest position of trust in their society, as he was relied upon to educate the next generation of leaders.
Such trust also came with a proportionate salary. He could indulge in common executive pastimes and enjoy all the finest (and safest) alcohols and other legal intoxicants. Off the clock, of course. Jeremy would have never reached so high if he allowed such outside frivolity to violate the sanctity of his classroom. Speaking of which…
“Let’s settle down, ladies and gentlemen. Two minutes until class starts, I would hate to have to mark anyone tardy for simply not being at your desk and quiet. You have gone to all the trouble to be here on time, after all.” Truthfully, Jeremy understood their excitement, though that was no cause to allow unruliness in the classroom. There had been an incident yesterday, reported on the news as a catastrophic hardware failure in the mid levels. All subsequent reporting on the matter reclassified it as destruction of corporate property by unruly personnel, though mysteriously, no arrests had been made. Afterwards, network technicians could be spotted everywhere installing who knows what. Was it aliens? Probably. Jeremy knew intellectually that he and his charges would almost certainly be the first to hear about the game, once the testers had ensured that it was safe. But still, to have to wait on such a thing, with only rumors and scraps? That was enough to make anyone antsy.
A chime rang out, both audibly and over the augmentations of all present. Jeremy became Mr. Black, and stepped out in front of his smartboard. This alien stuff was interesting, but sadly, totally irrelevant to today’s lesson. For a moment, he considered moving his lessons around and using the buzz to tie into a lesson on co-opting someone else’s product, but today’s lesson was too important to delay. There would be other interesting events in the near future, he was sure. He looked out at the orderly rows and columns of still, silent students. At their desks, ready to learn. Such a joy to teach, compared to the lower management students he had started with.
“Today will be another critical thinking lesson,” Mr. Black said. He could see some eyes light up, while others seemed to lose that shine of honest attention. His stars and problems respectively. It was difficult to impress on someone who had grown up with servants at their beck and call the importance of figuring things out for yourself, unless their parents had already done so somehow. He had a solid track record though, and still had another year to work on them before they moved up to high school.
He picked up a spare sheet of paper from his desk. The edges had the glint of gold, a faint cloudy pattern was just barely visible on its otherwise pure white surface. He pointed to one of his problem children.
“Ms. Banks, what can you tell me about paper?”
The girl stood and considered for a moment what to say, then spoke, “Paper is a luxury good made from tree pulp. It is often decorated with gilding, watermarks, subtle patterns and color variants.”
She stood there, growing visibly uncomfortable as Mr. Black waited quietly. Finally, he showed a measure of mercy.
“Ms. Banks, what is paper used for?” he asked.
She spoke up at once, “Invitations. Birthday cards. Menus. Um… Books and notebooks obviously.”
“Everyone uses it?” he prompted. There were now a few hands raised, but he knew the girl in front of him could grasp just a bit more before he moved on.
“Oh! No. Only executives and very well off managers and experts. Paper is too expensive for just anyone to use. They only make it from trees that they are already cutting down for whatever reason, since we don’t have room in cities to grow trees just to cut them down. And they take too long to grow.”
“Very good.” Mr. Black praised, “We have reached our first point of interest. Paper is expensive. Mr. Krumb, how do you feel about that?”
The boy, startled as always at being called on, scrambled to his feet and spoke, “I, uh, feel that it’s just fine, sir. Isn’t it normal for scarce things to be expensive?”
“It is, indeed, right and proper for scarce things to be expensive. Thank you Mr. Krumb.”
He could already see the fire in the eyes of some of his brighter pupils, a few of which had their hands raised to contribute to the discussion. Either they had picked up on something, or they had already been taught about this ‘secret’.
Mr. Black pointed to a young lady in the back corner of the room, who had her hand raised.
“Sir, my family vacationed in the Native American Nation this past summer. There are trees as far as the eye can see in both directions for most of the train ride there.”
“Very good, thank you Ms. Pell.”
He addressed the entire class, seeing a substantial number of them had puzzled looks on their faces.
“Capture this feeling, ladies and gentlemen. Confusion is your instincts telling you that something isn’t right. That one of your middle managers isn’t telling you the whole truth of an incident, that your assistant may be using their incidentals budget for something they ought not be. That your boss, your parents, your teacher may be telling you something that you should consider carefully, cautiously, and with as much empirical evidence as you can get your hands on. Confusion means that you do not have complete or correct information, or that you have failed to consider something.”
Mr. Black paced the front of his classroom as he talked. He could see realization growing among his students. Critical thinking was something that could empower them. Not in the way that money or privileged birth did, but it was a sword that they could personally wield. Power, as it so happened, was an excellent carrot for this particular crowd.
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“So, we have something that is a rare, costly luxury. It is made from something extremely common. Anyone have any thoughts?” Many hands were in the air now, he picked them out more or less at random, though avoiding the few especially sharp ones that he knew would give away the game too soon.
“Maybe trees are sacred to the rural peoples?” a girl said, unsure of herself.
“The transportation costs for all those trees is too high to bring them here.” said a tall boy, confident that he had found a flaw in this seeming paradox.
“Maybe it’s on purpose?” another timid girl offered, and not one he would have expected to come to the right answer.
“On purpose?” he asked, “Elaborate.”
“Well, sir, even if it costs too much to ship whole trees, it should be possible for people in rural areas to process them to make paper. Paper should be pretty simple to make, and it isn’t like rural people are primitives. At the very least they should be able to produce some middle form that we can turn into finished paper. Rural people would want to do this because they could make a lot of money from us, or trade for things we can make that they can’t. Since paper is so expensive, companies should want to buy this material and make paper, and make a lot of money. But if that were happening, that would drive the price of paper down, right?”
Mr. Black smiled. Another one taking her first steps. “Very well reasoned, Ms. Gordon. The circumstances you describe would indeed drive the price of paper down. Now, before we conclude that paper is being kept expensive by deliberate action, does anyone think there may be some reason why we don’t just buy paper or partially processed paper stock from rural communities?”
He called on the few who still had hands raised.
“Maybe rural paper is too low quality to be useful?” offered a quiet boy sitting near the windows.
“They probably just want to keep all their paper because it’s so valuable.” suggested a girl in the front row. One of his problem students, and sadly not one that he would be able to correct today.
“Let’s say, for the sake of argument,” Mr. Black said, “that paper is kept expensive on purpose. We could buy raw materials to make it, but we don’t. Why?”
He scanned the room, seeing most of his students deep in thought. He noted a few faces that seemed to just be drifting instead, and one boy that was just watching him, waiting. He checked the time, and it was indeed about time to move on to the second part of the lesson, so he pointed to the waiting boy.
“Mr. Roberts, do you have a guess?” he asked.
“Paper is more useful if it is expensive than if it is cheap.” the boy said. He was soft spoken, but the room was quiet enough that he could be heard, if barely.
“Very good, Mr. Roberts.” he said to the boy, then spoke to the room, “I can tell you all that this is the case. We do not import materials to make paper, though we could. Paper is expensive because it is meant to be. You will each use whatever personal data access or connections you have to secure evidence that this is the case, and present it in class tomorrow. This is something of an open secret, so rest assured that none of you will get in any trouble for digging into this. If you can find evidence and convince me that it is not the case that paper is kept expensive on purpose, you will receive extra credit based on how persuasive your argument is, though good luck to any of you who intend to go down that path. Now that that is out of the way, who can tell me why paper might be more useful when it is expensive?”
He went around the room again, picking at random.
“It makes sure our paper makers can get good prices for producing really nice luxury goods?”
“No one needs paper anymore anyway, so there would be no point making a lot.”
“It’s another thing for people to show off, you can’t brag about it if paper is everywhere.”
And so it went, his students offering thoughtful ideas one after another.
“There are probably elements of all of these things supporting this artificial scarcity. Let me give you another clue. There is actually an entire class of goods like this, and I have heard them called ‘control luxuries’ once or twice by those involved in their production.”
The class considered this new information for a few moments, before confusion started to bloom on their faces once more. Mr. Black called on one of the more confused of the lot..
“Go ahead, Ms. Allan”
“Sir, I don’t see how just paper could help control people. I wouldn’t do something if someone offered me a book or whatever. My dad definitely wouldn’t do something for paper, probably not even for shares in a company that makes paper, unless it was really a lot of shares.”
“True enough. Would any of you be motivated to act if I were to offer some fine stationery as incentive?”
Head shakes and dubious looks among the slower pupils. Mr. Black could see that a few of the others obviously already could see where this was going, but they knew better than to call out the answer. Suddenly, a girl among those confused got that ‘eureka!’ look, and her hand shot up. He pointed to her, and she spoke.
“Then it isn’t for us! It isn’t, is it?”
He smiled and waved for her to sit back down.
“Let me tell you a brief story, class. When I was very young, my family lived in the lower levels of the arcology. My father was an entry level manager, my mother an administrative assistant. My father wanted, more than anything, to rise. There was one year which was particularly bad for his division, and he was considering a transfer. That year, no one was given a bonus, but the executive in charge of the division recognized my father’s ability and sought to keep him. Though he didn’t get a bonus that year, my father was given as a gift a numbered first edition of some popular novel. Though the book probably cost less than the bonus he lost, it was something he couldn’t have just gone out and gotten for himself at the time. He stayed with his division, and never considered transfer again. In time, he was able to buy some books for himself, and was gifted yet more. These days, in their retirement, my parents have a well populated bookshelf in their apartment. My father and mother are not substantially wealthier than the average retired middle management families, but I can see it in my father’s eyes when he looks at that bookshelf. Pride.”
He looked around the room. Some students listened with rapt attention, some were daydreaming, some had thoughtful looks. Only time would tell who got what from the hints and clues he had left them on the topic.
“In addition to the research I assigned earlier, each of you will write me a brief explanation of why you think these goods are called ‘control luxuries’ and why it might be worth having goods that exist outside of optimal market conditions.”
The chime rang out again. Mr. Black was gratified to see that none of his students made any immediate moves to leave. He let the chime finish completely before he spoke again.
“Class dismissed. Enjoy your lunch.”