Act III

Intermission II

Introductory Remarks Followed by a Question and Answer Session

This speech can be given from a lectern set up in front of the chairs (now reduced to 4: Erysichthon, Mestra, Merchant, Poseidon.  The chorus will give its choruses from their seats in front of the stage area. )  After the speech is read, the lectern will be removed.

Merchant (ST): Good evening, Ladies, Gentlemen, remaining members of the audience. I am the Merchant mentioned in your program notes. I thought I might take a little of your time between acts to introduce myself, particularly since the program notes have given me a pejorative title* which deserves some formal response.

Being a merchant, I have frequently encountered objections to my line of business. Inevitably somebody raises the point that neither human nor natural resources can belong to anybody and thus these resources should be exempted from the laws of sale and purchase, ownership and property. I'd like to address this contentious issue of ownership of human and natural resources.

In an ideal capitalist model, or any economic model for that matter, human labor is viewed as a natural resource, just as minerals, lumber, soil, marine products, et cetera are natural resources. Initially nobody "owns" them, it is true. These things belong only to those who are best able to utilize them for profit. Human laborers, like trees, are not initially "owned" by anybody, but whoever has the power to capitalize on them thereby becomes the "owner."  What use is gold when it sits 2,000 feet below the ocean surface? Who owns it? Nature? The owner is whoever can get in there and mine it for public sale and use. It does nobody any good when it just sits inert at the bottom of the sea. The same goes for human work potential. Nobody owns it until they invest in and capitalize on it's value. Investors and entrepreneurs (and merchants like myself) help bring these materials, human and otherwise, to the fullest public good – to create commodities which all have access to.

Of course there are those unfortunate periods in which you do not receive high enough dividends from your capital investment to justify perpetuating its ownership. For example, if you are in a ship loaded with sheep and the ship begins to take in water because of the weight, what is the proper thing to do? Correct: begin throwing sheep overboard. You can always breed more later. Now, if you are running a business and your profits are not what they ought to be, what is the appropriate action? Correct: eliminate excess labor costs. If you are not able to capitalize on your human resources, cast them off - they will be more useful to some other entrepreneur in another area of free labor market. When the value of natural or human resources has been negated by the cost of maintaining possessions of the given resource, dump it. This is not at all cruel, as some say, but in fact is beneficial to society as a whole, allowing labor to be used in full in varying areas. This is precicely what my client (Erysichthon) has asked me to help him with. He is no longer able to maintain his capital investment and has thoughtfully contracted me to negotiate a reallocation of his labor resources, which are rightly his as he has developed and maintained them, that is, his daughter, himself. She will be of greater value to society as an additional member of a social collective (some prefer the word "harem" but this is loaded with unnecessarily unpleasant connotations), than she would be if she were simply slowly starving to death and depleting my client's resources further. In short, my client (Erysichthon) needs money. He has invested a certain amount of capital in some property of his. (That is, his daughter, Mestra.) It is his right to dispose of his property as he sees fit. He has contracted me to find a buyer for his property, I have had no part in either making the decision to sell the property nor will I be making the decision to purchase ownership of this particular property. I merely act as a mediator between the seller and the buyer. So, before you start making moral judgments about my business, I'd appreciate it if you took a look at the facts of the matter.

I can tell you are cultured, intelligent people, who have wisely capitalized on the economic principles which govern us all. And you see, here you are, converting your capital into cultural investment, into civic good. So you, like me, are making the world a better place by utilizing your resources and  redistributing capital within the system, keeping the economy going. So next time somebody badmouths a merchant like me, or uses loaded terminology like, "middle man" or "slave trader", remember, we're all in it together, making the world a better place to live.

Thank you.

I'm now free to take any questions which you might have.

There Merchant is free to field questions from the audience. In any event, once the questions have ended, he will return the attention to the program.