The Economic Organisation of a P.O.W. Camp
Posted: Thu Jan 03, 2013 6:49 pm
This paper has some really fascinating insights such as the lack of production or labor not being necessary for an economy to exist, cigarettes being used as a medium of exchange, constant deflation intersped by bursts of high inflation, spontaneous co-operation and equilibrium, Gresham's Law applied to cigarettes, etc.. Well worth reading!
Although a P.O.W. camp provides a living example of a simple economy which might be used as an alternative to the Robinson Crusoe economy beloved by the text-books, and its simplicity renders the demonstration of certain economic hypotheses both amusing and instructive, it is suggested that the principal significance is sociological. True, there is interest in observing the growth of economic institutions and customs in a brand new society, small and simple enough to pre- vent detail from obscuring the basic pattern and disequilibrium from obscuring the working of the system. But the essential interest lies in the universality and the spontaneity of this economic life ; it came into existence not by conscious imitation but as a response to the immediate needs and circumstances. Any similarity between prison organisation and outside organisation arises from similar stimuli evoking similar responses.
http://facstaff.uww.edu/kashianr/POWCampRadford.pdf
Although a P.O.W. camp provides a living example of a simple economy which might be used as an alternative to the Robinson Crusoe economy beloved by the text-books, and its simplicity renders the demonstration of certain economic hypotheses both amusing and instructive, it is suggested that the principal significance is sociological. True, there is interest in observing the growth of economic institutions and customs in a brand new society, small and simple enough to pre- vent detail from obscuring the basic pattern and disequilibrium from obscuring the working of the system. But the essential interest lies in the universality and the spontaneity of this economic life ; it came into existence not by conscious imitation but as a response to the immediate needs and circumstances. Any similarity between prison organisation and outside organisation arises from similar stimuli evoking similar responses.
http://facstaff.uww.edu/kashianr/POWCampRadford.pdf