Monrovians - Unite!
You may have heard earlier this year that Cuba has a shortage of toilet paper. I don't know the precise reason why this occurred, but it got me to thinking, and I hope it gets you thinking too. I imagine it went something like this:
Fidel Castro grew up in a capitalist society and witnessed that the wealthy seemed to have unlimited rolls of very soft TP.
While the poor often had to stretch their limited rolls of what seemed like sandpaper, or even cactus.
.
Fidel Castro decided it would be Progressive to have government take over TP (along with everything else). Why should the rich have more and better TP than the poor! The State declared that every citizen has a right to adequate TP.
and no one has the right to waste it.
The capitalists had argued that each person used the amount of TP he or she wanted to - some people put a higher priority on softness, others on quantity, others on using as little as possible so that they could devote their scare resources (money) to some other area entirely that they personally deemed to be more worthwhile, enjoyable, or necessary.
After Castro took over the government and murdered or imprisoned all who opposed him, he was very busy for several decades trying to run all of Cuba -- this was a big job even for Castro, for even someone as brilliant as Castro finds it challenging to determine what is best in every area of life for every single person on the island of Cuba.
For years, there was a variety of TP in Cuba, and people chose whichever type they wanted, and used as much or as little as they personally preferred.
But when some stupid capitalist manufacturer developed an automated method to produce a slightly softer TP at 80% of the cost of most TP, it created a crisis of capitalism. Surprisingly, there were not yet any government regulations preventing the automation of TP manufacture, or restricting how soft it could be made.
The people of Cuba loved the value of the new TP, and they bought lots and lots of it. The inventor of the process, having met the needs of millions of Cubans, was going to get very, very rich.
But some of the people were very, very unhappy about this. You see, the makers of the sand-paper and other less desireable TP would be driven out of business, since they were no longer 10% cheaper than soft TP.
As for the others, their union contract would not allow them to adopt any manufacturing process that required fewer union workers. Soon, many TP businesses shut their doors. Unemployment, failed businesses, the unfairness of capitalism had somehow returned.
This could not be allowed to stand.The first thing Castro did was to put the owner of the automated process in jail. The next thing he did was slap a heavy tax on automated TP.
To save the country from heartless TP manufacturers, the government set up a competing company, to provide a GOVERNMENT OPTION for TP. This new company employed the union members whose jobs were threatened, and since it was owned by the government, it paid no taxes. What we need here, said Castro, is MORE COMPETITION. All the government-run mews media announced that the goal was not to move to a SINGLE WIPER system, but to ensure competition. It sold TP at 50% less cost than the New TP
When the business owners complained, Castro said that this proved they cared more about filthy profits than the needs of the Cuban people. Castro was sure that he and his brilliant team could handle a simple thing like TP much better than those stupid, greedy, morally bankrupt business owners who were always trying to cut costs and increase profits, and the mis-informed consumers who couldn't be trusted to make smart decisions. Castro also decreed that the GOVERNMENT OPTION TP would be made by Service Employee International union members only.
Some bright person in the Cuban government was then appointed the TP Czar, and commissioned a study which discovered that the average family in Cuba uses two rolls a week. Not wanting to be discriminatory, and thinking that if anyone used more than the average it must be their own fault and would probably lead to Global Warming, the TP Czar then ordered the Government Option factory to produce exactly two rolls for every family, which were promptly distributed.
At the beginning of the year, as he was bringing a truck load of rolls for Fidel Castro's private use (the leaders are ALWAYS exempt from the rules they impose on everyone else), the TP Czar proudly reported that policies and procedures had been put in place so that every Cuban would receive a fair share of TP.
Within weeks, however, the Cuban government was shocked, shocked to learn that more than half of the Cuban households now reported a shortage of TP. Some families were obviously using more than their allotted share of TP, contributing to Global Warming and the growing TP shortage.
Having decree that the principles of Progressivism required that every person should have an equal right to TP, it would not be politically correct to begin giving out more TP to some families (other than the leader's family, of course).
The entire population was ordered, in an emergency decree, to conserve TP.
Henceforth, each family would be given three rolls every two weeks, with one roll held in reserve by the all-knowing government to meet emergencies. In addition, over 2,000 pages of regulations were written for all the exceptions, caveats, and political patronage. Rules on the proper placement of TP in the bathroom were promulgated, though they were a bit confusing. Much of the TP was lost creating the maze of TP regulations.
If, AND ONLY IF, a person could establish that the entire family had done everything possible to conserve its TP, could the family receive an additional roll to meet the emergency. People began sending in pictures to prove they had done everything they could think of to conserve.
Naturally, the Czar made sure that those who worked for the Czar, and their families, received all the TP they wanted, for it would be unseemly to have the Offices of the TP Czar denigrated by a certain foul odor that seemed to be infecting every other government office.
Now even MORE Cubans complained of a shortage, and some subversive elements began quietly protesting. "GOVERNMENT RATIONING STINKS!" some said. Others put their objections in writing.
But if they complained too loudly they risked having their ration cut off entirely, or delayed, which amounted to the same thing - no TP.
The following year, the Czar announced WE HAVE FELT YOUR PAIN, don't worry, YOUR GOVERNMENT WILL SOLVE THE PROBLEM CREATED BY THOSE NASTY CAPITALISTS. THE PROBLEM IS NOT ENOUGH REGULATIONS. The Czar mandated that the size of each roll would be doubled, and a total of FOUR rolls would be produced for every family, and that additional regulations would be written to allocate the rolls, and new taxes and rules put in place to force people to use less TP.
TP Day was invented, and a catchy new advertising slogan invented to attack those whose habits led to the waste
Children were taught songs to encourage them to use only two rolls per family per week.
To pay for all the additional TP, the people who monitored and enforce the TP rules, the advertising, and the song writers, the government imposed a new tax on TP of 50%. The cost of buying two rolls would now cost what it previously had cost to buy three. GOVERNMENT SERVICES AREN'T FREE, and don't forget the whole problem was caused by a LACK OF GOVERNMENT REGULATIONS, decreed the czar.
To finance the fourth roll, the government borrowed the money, confident that the little ones learning the songs in the schools would be happy to do their patriotic duty and pay for the TP when they became adults.
No longer would each child be free to use whatever amount of TP they thought best.
Children were taught to monitor each other's technique, use, and disposal of TP, to consider before eating how this might affect their TP use, and so on.
Those children who simply refused to follow the rules, would have to be dealt with. Examples would have to be made of them.
And so it was that at first certain families were deprived entirely of their TP, then some arrested for stealing TP and jailed, and others fired from their government jobs because they or their spouse seemingly refused to obey the government's directive which, after all, was for the good of everyone.
Many years later, when for some strange reason the economy had fallen apart, the union convinced Castro to to inform the people that it was their patriotic duty to use MORE TP to create jobs, some of which was made from recycled papers from the United States, but that's an SEIU for another day.
Every day at 7 a.m., you can find Alfred Sirleaf working inside a small shack on a busy street corner in Monrovia, the capital of Liberia. He reads the papers, consults with his small staff of reporters, and checks text messages from tipsters around the country. Then he picks up a piece of chalk, goes outside, and writes the day’s news headlines in large, clear letters on a blackboard facing the street. He may be the world’s only analog blogger.
