The Imaginary Economy: a new conception

by Mario Fabbri

  CARLO But that is a blessing from Heaven!

  GAETANO Your Majesty, it is the opposite. Even though all the inhabitants of Ylati, each in their own way and as best they can, are striving to consume as much wheat as possible, it is no longer possible to get rid of all the wheat produced, not even by feeding it to oxen and pigs. I thought we would in any case be able to export it to our neighbouring islands, but they see themselves as already too heavily indebted to us, and even though we sell them excellent wheat at a very low price, they are becoming threatening. They say that we want to destroy their agriculture, and forbid us further shipments. We should really go out to sea and dump the whole load in deep water, and a couple of times we could even do so, but for all my efforts I cannot think of a way to convince the people that this is a wise and beneficial operation and not complete folly, as it would appear to simple minds.

  CARLO My good friend, is this such a serious problem? I think there is a simple solution: we just reduce our efforts and produce only what we are able to consume.

  GAETANO Your Majesty, you have hit the nail on the head. We must absolutely stop the increase in output which, if it continues at its present rate, would bring the harvest to twice its present level in just ten years, something that makes me shudder just thinking of it. Yes, we have to limit production, but the problem is how to do so.

  CARLO And if we were simply to tell the inhabitants of Frigida to work less and to enjoy life more? They could work on alternate days, or maybe alternate years, in turn.

  GAETANO I wish it were that simple! For years we have been telling people that no one should have wheat unless he is a worker, and now working, being employed, as they say, is everywhere deemed to be a noble, praiseworthy state for any healthy man. What everyone wants to do is to leave the house in the morning, to go to work, as they say, and after having spent the day doing something, it doesn’t matter if useful and real or absurd and imaginary, to return home in the evening, even complaining a little, as the absurdities created by all the fake jobs are not always easy to digest, but persuaded deep down that he has earned his daily bread by his work. Your Majesty, even the elderly, who could sit back and enjoy their pensions, often find that their lives are empty and they miss the activity of the time they spent at work. And many good women who diligently look after home and children, and often work much harder than their consort, think they are worth little and want a job like their husband, or at least want their work to be recognised as true and honourable, by receiving a regular wage and well-prepared pay slip. Alas this desire to be employed at all costs and to work has become a universal folly, and to reason with the mad is unwise.

  CARLO So what can we do? I know you well, and am sure you will have contrived a remedy.

  GAETANO That is true, Your Majesty, even if this time I really am not inventing anything; I am just watering seedlings that have sprouted spontaneously but are growing too slowly. First of all, to lower the number of workers we will set limits on the working age: we will hold young people back, forcing them to study for many years before they can be employed. Then we will give pensions to anyone who reaches the age of fifty, or even earlier. Then I have thought of a way to significantly increase the number of useless workers even outside the public sector, and above all to trick and confuse those who actually produce wheat. The current tax rate of five tenths is simple, and it is very easy to calculate and collect.

  CARLO This is not a good thing?

  GAETANO It would be, Sire, if we were short of wheat or had to put all able-bodied people to work in the fields, but our problem now is to reduce the harvest, not to increase it. And for every productive worker we divert, there will be a hundred or more measures of wheat that we take away from the harvest. So I have devised this system: instead of everyone paying the same amount, we will create a different tax for each one. We will say we are inspired by a spirit of equity and, for example, that whoever takes more will pay four fifths and who only takes a little, will only pay one fifth.

  CARLO But that is foolish and will subvert social order because the most eminent citizens will be ruined while the down-and-outs will live the good life.

  GAETANO No, Sire, we will do everything figuratively and gradually, and at the end, the important civil servant whose pay slip now reads gross two thousand, tax one thousand and net one thousand will become gross five thousand, tax four thousand and net, still, one thousand. While the young civil servants whom we now hire at eight measures gross and four net, will be hired at five gross, and after paying tax of one will still receive four… all will look different but will remain exactly the same.

  CARLO All right, but I do not see how this complication will change things.

  GAETANO Sire, the fact is that today, with the universal tax of five tenths, whoever has income from many sources, calculates and pays what is due separately for each one and rapidly fulfils his obligations and is immediately able to go back to producing without distractions. Tomorrow, with the new system, he will not be able to do so rapidly, but will have to keep a precise account of what he does for the entire year, then add up all his income, and only then will he be able to calculate his tax and discover how much he owes.

  And I am not just thinking of reorganising income tax, but of adding several other tributes. Some will be paid once a year, others more often. Some people will pay them all, others only a few. I will multiply them so much that everyone will be afraid of forgetting one and will have to keep checking whether by chance one of the new rules applies to him. And to calculate and pay taxes everyone will have to spend whole days filling in complex forms, and scrupulously collecting lots of pieces of paper and receipts to submit to the tax officers.

  And I will not write the rules once, but will continue to change them out of the blue. So everyone will spend his time learning them again, until everything will be so difficult that useless new jobs will be created, and many people will leave the fields and stop producing wheat in order to become experts in all these rules, and will be maintained by others just to explain to them how to pay their taxes without making mistakes.

  The large plantations will have to remove many people from the fields and keep them busy preparing the documents and everything necessary to pay taxes and to allow our tax collectors to make surprise visits at any time and to check whether they have done things in the right way or have tried to cheat.

  CARLO My noble friend, I am afraid we will create a too strange system: I can see clearly that in this way the people would be so overwhelmed by all these formalities that they would neglect the fields and produce less wheat. But I think that we should find something less bizarre to divert our over-efficient farmers from their work.

  GAETANO Beloved Sovereign, what you say is very correct, but this contorted construction also protects us from another serious problem I have not yet mentioned. I am sorry to have to recognise this, but in spite of all we have done for the country, which has never been so rich and prosperous, I see that the number of discontented is rising constantly.

  Instead of being pleased that they have plenty of healthy meals, those who until a short while ago lived hand to mouth look with malevolence at those who are better off and drink wine every day, and think they only have water because of the imperfect laws of the country. While those who do drink wine every day are discontented because they envy those who wear rich clothes.

  When conditions improve too rapidly they generate not joy but envy and discontent. But I am hoping that this enormous new fiscal framework will channel toward tax evaders the discontent which could easily turn against Your Majesty. In fact the new tax increases we are introducing will be fictitious for our civil servants and officers, as we will just need to modify the pay slip, increasing gross and tax by the same amount; but they will be real for the other people who actually earn their wages. These will certainly try to cheat the new rules, which I will make so complex and contorted that in any case it
will be difficult to comply with them. So we will always be able to repeat: “If things do not work, don’t take it out on us, because the blame only lies with those who do not pay what they should”, or “Oh, if everyone paid what they ought, every problem would immediately be solved.” And I am certain that most people will believe us and when they see their neighbour better off than they are, they will immediately say, “It is not fair he should have more than I do; and if he were to pay more tax, he would have less in his pocket.” And they would be convinced at once that all the ills of the country are caused by their neighbour being too well off and paying less tax than he should. And so playing individuals off against one another, we will be able to govern more securely.

  As you see, Your Majesty, this system is like a huge handbrake, and every time I pull it I reduce excess wheat production, at the same time making your power more secure.

  CARLO What you say is serious but I would not like this handbrake to get the better of us; however, I am, as usual, won over by your arguments: do what you have suggested and Heaven help us.

  And so, over the years, the system that Gaetano had imagined took shape and was implemented.

  The continuous multiplying and varying of taxation and other laws, and the continually increasing number of fake jobs, fully captured the minds of the inhabitants of Ylati who were successfully distracted from cultivating too much wheat, because this activity now appeared secondary and almost superfluous, compared to the useless occupations and highly complex rules and conflicts between individuals and requests for justice and strivings for secret favours, with which they were now filling the greater part of their time.

  Everything seemed to be going rather well when Gaetano, who was by now quite elderly, was struck by a serious illness and died in few days, and Carlo, before following him to the grave soon after, as his only son was still a child, entrusted the government of the country to young ministers, but without having succeeded in thoroughly explaining to them the subtle system that Gaetano had devised.

  And the new ministers, who like everyone else, were misguided by Gaetano’s representations, bore little concern for the good of the people and much for their own. They appeared to be very honest and to monitor each other strictly, while they concurred in secret to take advantage of the country’s wealth.

  And so Ylati was burdened in two ways: first by the sweeping and extravagant expenses that the ministers and their followers embarked on for their grandiose lifestyles. But the real problem was that, to make their situation more secure, they used, without understanding it, the great Gaetano handbrake that boosted the power of the rulers but also had the effect of reducing crops.

  And instead of lowering the grain production to the right level, they acted so that the number of men in the fields remained too low and, despite the new techniques, the harvests fell below the country’s needs.

  This caused considerable discontent. The ministers were deposed and, to everybody’s surprise, were found guilty of endless misdeeds. But this was not enough to bring prosperity back to Ylati or to find the true reasons for its problems.

  The situation had now become so entangled that not even the brightest could understand how to revive a country whose fields were untilled and almost empty of farmers, while the towns were full of strange workers engaged in producing paper, complaining that they deserved to receive more wheat, because they were all honest citizens, as was certified by their many impeccable, well-crafted pay slips, receipts and correctly filled out forms.

  But it was impossible to give wheat to everyone for, except for the more fertile fields, no one wanted to cultivate them anymore, because every farmer could only keep a very small part of the wheat for himself and had to send all the rest to the towns to feed a dozen or more paper producers.

  This that we now leave is the story of Ylati, the strange country that instead of producing wheat ended up producing paper, but which I believe is too fanciful and cannot really have existed.

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