Gilligan … the Skipper too … the millionaire, and his wife … the movie star … the professor and Mary Ann: Remember them? They all knew better. When the SS Minnow ship-wrecked on that uninhabited island off of Hawaii in 1964, I don’t recall the hapless crew’s first thoughts being: Let’s see, how can we create food and shelter out of nothing, without any effort on our part?
I don’t recall the wealthy passenger Thurston B. Howell, III passing out stimulus checks to his fellow travelers so that they could rush out and spend their way to a vibrant island economy.
They understood that before consumption, you must have production. They understood that to have production, you need real people doing real thinking and real labor – i.e., they needed to act, themselves, which is exactly what they did. That silly little 1960s sitcom that as a teenager I loved so much was way to serious a show to allow the writers to run an episode that portrayed Mr. Howell assuming the role of banker, and telling everyone: “Stand still, and watch my millions shower you with prosperity!” It would have failed after one episode. They understood that money is not wealth.
Gilligan’s Island is a monument to economic common sense compared with much of what comes out of Washington and the academic ivory towers today.
But, let no one think that I am making light of James Galbraith’s mental garbage here. To the contrary, I agree wholeheartedly with Mr. Hsieh that this nonsense must be taken very seriously. I’m finding it very difficult to get my arms around the notion that Galbraith actually believes this stuff, which makes me question his motives. But whatever they may be, “The uncontested absurdities of today are the accepted slogans of tomorrow” is another warning we must heed from Ayn Rand.
