[A short story I wrote after reading too much 1984. The names were assigned pseudo-randomly and are not related to the person's character or opinions.]
FREE AS IN MARKET
“Today we celebrate 15
years of Freedom...”, spoke the loud voice over the microphone. The
owner of the voice was a fat man dressed in a hand-made silken suit,
with neat golden buttons and a bright red colour – a stark contrast
to the mass-produced dark coloured rags everyone else in the room was
wearing.
The speaker was the
Manager of the local WeSave, the largest supermarket in the parts. In
fact the only supermarket left in the country. To be exact the only
food market of any kind left. The crowd in front of him was pretty
much everyone in the village, including a particular young lady named
Chantelle.
She wasn't there because
she wanted to be there. Saying she was forced would be too hard, it
was a free world after all. However at these sort of events they
generally handed out coupons, so it was always worth spending 20
minutes cheering and clapping.
The speech went on for
longer than expected, but the crowd never ceased its feigned
interest. He went on to speak of how much better the world was
without government interferences, about how much content the world
was when the government signed in the “Freedom of Economy” act,
which greatly reduced the power of the government. Nobody had seemed
to notice that the Honourable Dr Byron was the owner of the largest
Telecommunications company in the country. It was the first time in
history that both political parties had agreed that they both liked
money, and they would be able to make much more without pesky
interferences. Of course this was not part of the speech, the speech
was all about how now everyone was free to live their own lives, and
how they now had a choice what they wanted to do.
Finally the speech was
over, and Chantelle, not feeling much more comforted, walked over to
her car. She drove a Walzbach – same as a third of the population.
A few days after the Freedom of Economy act, the Union of Car
Manufacturers had a meeting.
Within this meeting, the
three largest car Manufacturers reached an agreement. Research and
Development, and producing different styles of cars was too
expensive. Moreover the market was already big enough to divide
amongst three without needing to waste additional money trying to
compete. And so the three companies produced a car each, and pulled
the rest out of market. There was no difference between the cars –
equal price, equal specifications, equal body. The only difference
was the symbol on the front of the car. Of course there were people
who would bet anything that the Walzbachs were the most fuel
efficient, and others used to choose the rarest car in their
neighbourhood so they'd be different – but the truth was,they were
exactly the same inside.
She got into the car and
sighed deeply. Fuel was running low again. It was always running low.
She decided to go to the supermarket and cash in her coupon, she
could use the food anyway, and there was still an hour left until she
was needed at her job. She pulled her car into gear and drove off
the the local WeSave.
She reached the store
within a few minutes. A large sign bore over the entrance “WeSave :
The Only Place to Shop”. It was true, literally and metaphorically.
All the other shops had be bought by the WeSave company a while back.
Those which resisted were undercut with special offers and coupons
being handed out. That's how progress works of course. If you can't
compete, you disappear into nothingness. That was also part of
today's speech of course.
She walked in. An
exceptionally large queue each register caught her eye. It seemed as
if everyone chose the same hour to go shopping. Around the shop stood
a number of private security guards, keeping an eye out for
shoplifters and those who were banished from the shop. A large wall
of shame stood near the entrance, with photographs of those who were
disallowed entry. Chantelle spotted one such character being dragged
out of the shop by a pair of security guards. A third was walking
behind them and having a loud conversation with the man who was none
too happy at being dragged outside.
“Sir, you're not allowed
entry for this week. Its your own fault for complaining about the
queue the other day. Next time if you shut up and just waited like
everyone else, you would be able to get your groceries. If you don't
like our policies you can just go to another shop, or start your own.
That's how the free market works.”
The man being dragged out
yelled loudly back, “There is no other store for 30 kilometers, and
the closest store after that is another damned WeMart. As for
starting my own, when Mr Andreas tried to do that, no supplier wanted
to give him anything, citing exclusive agreements, and you kicked him
out of here for life.”
The guards finished
dragging him out of the building, and the chief security guard
muttered “Troublemaker” to himself as he modified the length of
the banishment to account for this latest event.
Chantelle sighed a bit.
She had seen it happen tons of times already so she wasn't impressed.
Eventually they'd all go in, beg for the general manager to forgive
them, or turn to stealing. Anyone found giving foodstuffs to one of
those banned ones would be banned themselves, though there was a
minor black-market for such goods.
She found the bakery
section and picked up some WeMart branded Flour. It was the only
brand available, and was composed mostly of chalk – apparently an
unpublished scientific article discovered that adding chalk minimised
a large amount of Medical Problems. WeMart themselves had paid for
this research of course. It was a good thing too, she thought to
herself as she placed it into the basket, for she couldn't afford the
hospital if she got ill.
At least, she was free.
Free as in Market.
