by Robert Gore
Straight Line Logic
Your cruise ship sinks, you and one other person, a stranger, are the only survivors, and your lifeboat lands on a deserted island. The two of you have no provisions. Your survival depends on wresting your sustenance from the island. You quickly learn the essentials of both economics and moral philosophy. Or you die.
Lesson one, the foundation for everything else: you are more interested in your own survival than that of your companion, and likewise. You’re both self-interested, because you have to be. The next lesson: production is the foundation of your island economy, not consumption. You can’t eat a coconut that hasn’t been gathered.