Garden Variety Economics

There was a Washington Post stand just across the street from my old apartment. It was stocked fresh each morning, and I’d usually grab one on my way to work. The beauty of it was that the latch was broken, which set the price per word at a very agreeable "zero". Mysteriously, it was only filled during the week, but I’d pay full fare for the Saturday and Sunday editions in order to assuage some lingering fear of karmic retribution, which in turn allowed me to continue depleting the resources of this magical newspaper stand free from guilt. And thus the cycle ran.

So what does that make me? In economic terms I guess I'd be a 'free-rider', benefiting beyond my fair share thanks to the oversight generosity of others. Or perhaps I’m just a dreadful SOB who did his small part to hasten the downfall of print.

Regardless of what you'd call me I didn't lose much sleep, but a situation has come about  that forced me to think about this a bit…  

Just recently a community garden popped up a couple blocks over, and I've watched it flourish in spite of drought and vermin through the hard work of a bunch of neighbors that I don't know. The rules aren't overly clear about who works and who takes, so I've been exploiting that ambiguity by picking things here and there while giving very little back to the growing process.

Textbook example of why communism doesn't work. "'From each according to his ability…?' Whatever. Though I’ll be taking that kale now, if you don't mind."

Then this past the weekend I saw something inspiring… the ol' garden finally got smart to the capitalist ways of the world and set up shop on the corner to peddle its harvest. $3/lb for tomatoes and $0.50 each for peppers… Anaheim and Banana. All of that plus some homegrown basil found its way into our supper last night, and, having paid market rate, we enjoyed it... guilt free.