The Assembly Line or the Fat Capitalist: A Mexican Tale by B. Traven

Pierre Dehez () and Victor Ginsburgh

No 2022014, LIDAM Discussion Papers CORE from Université catholique de Louvain, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE)

Abstract: In this article we invite you to meet three characters. The author of the tale we are discussing, a Mexican Indian and an American gringo. The author, B. Traven, had a very strange life: no one really knows where he was born, probably in Germany, but we know that he died in a small village in Chiapas (southern Mexico) where he defended the local poor. He didn't like gringos very much. The second character is a gringo, and the third is a poor Indian weaver. The last two characters met by chance and, of course, the gringo tried to fool the Indian, inducing him into producing more of these small but beautiful baskets at lower prices, baskets that he (the gringo, of course) could then sell at a good price in his homeland. Mucho dinero... The Indian could barely write but was able to do simple calculations. For additional quantities, he could offer lower prices but, faced with a demand for larger quantities, he eventually started asking for higher prices. The gringo didn't understand and, after a long discussion, gave up, saying "These Mexicans don't understand anything." And the Indian went back to weaving his 12 baskets a week.

Pages: 6
Date: 2022-03-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-his
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