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The parable of the fisherman
- asah 13y agonice story, Hang.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- epi8 13y agoMaybe taking siestas with his wife was his passion. Or maybe catching a million fish with machinery isn't as exciting for him as catching one himself. Maybe he had self-actualization up to here. Formally, you are making assumptions about a fictional character. In addition, check out the "criticism" section of that link you provided. There's a fair amount of doubt as to whether the pyramid is a useful organizational tool.
- shalmanese 13y agoServer is struggling, here's the text: A vacationing American businessman standing on the pier of a quaint coastal fishing village in southern Mexico watched as a small boat with just one young Mexican fisherman pulled into the dock. Inside the small boat were several large yellowfin tuna. Enjoying the warmth of the early afternoon sun, the American complimented the Mexican on the quality of his fish. “How long did it take you to catch them?” the American casually asked. “Oh, a few hours,” the Mexican fisherman replied. “Why don’t you stay out longer and catch more fish?” the American businessman then asked. The Mexican warmly replied, “With this I have more than enough to support my family’s needs.” The businessman then became serious, “But what do you do with the rest of your time?” Responding with a smile, the Mexican fisherman answered, “I sleep late, play with my children, watch ballgames, and take siesta with my wife. Sometimes in the evenings I take a stroll into the village to see my friends, play the guitar, sing a few songs…” The American businessman impatiently interrupted, “Look, I have an MBA from Harvard, and I can help you to be more profitable. You can start by fishing several hours longer every day. You can then sell the extra fish you catch. With the extra money, you can buy a bigger boat. With the additional income that larger boat will bring, before long you can buy a second boat, then a third one, and so on, until you have an entire fleet of fishing boats.” Proud of his own sharp thinking, he excitedly elaborated a grand scheme which could bring even bigger profits, “Then, instead of selling your catch to a middleman you’ll be able to sell your fish directly to the processor, or even open your own cannery. Eventually, you could control the product, processing and distribution. You could leave this tiny coastal village and move to Mexico City, or possibly even Los Angeles or New York City, where you could even further expand your enterprise.” Having never thought of such things, the Mexican fisherman asked, “But how long will all this take?” After a rapid mental calculation, the Harvard MBA pronounced, “Probably about 15-20 years, maybe less if you work really hard.” “And then what, señor?” asked the fisherman. “Why, that’s the best part!” answered the businessman with a laugh. “When the time is right, you would sell your company stock to the public and become very rich. You would make millions.” “Millions? Really? What would I do with it all?” asked the young fisherman in disbelief. The businessman boasted, “Then you could happily retire with all the money you’ve made. You could move to a quaint coastal fishing village where you could sleep late, play with your grandchildren, watch ballgames, and take siesta with your wife. You could stroll to the village in the evenings where you could play the guitar and sing with your friends all you want.” Sensing skepticism from the fisherman, the businessman moves onto the next boat and finds a more receptive fisherman. The two, sensing an obvious business opportunity, decide to go into business together. They raise a venture capital round and a year later, return to the pier outfitted with a dozen high tech fishing boats. Immediately, the price of tuna at the pier drops threefold with increased supply, forcing the young Mexican fisherman to increase his hours at sea just to maintain his existing standard of living. Shortly thereafter, all of the shallow water tuna have been caught and the young Mexican fisherman discovers his tiny boat is incapable of deep water fishing. Because of his limited savings, he does not have enough capital to invest in a deep water fishing boat and he is forced to sell his tiny fishing boat for pennies on the dollar as scrap because advances in technology have made it obsolete. After discovering that there is limited demand for an employee whose only skills are watching ballgames, playing the guitar and taking siestas, the young Mexican fisherman finds his only option is to take a job working minimum wage on one of the businessman’s fishing vessels. Several years later, the fisherman’s joints are shot through from the hard manual labor of operating on a commercial fishing vessel and an ill timed lift of a 150lb pallet of tuna finally causes his back to give way, causing permanent crippling. The fisherman discovers intensive lobbying from the businessman has weakened workplace protection rules and the fisherman is summarily let go with only a paltry settlement. After years of expensive medical treatments and crippling bills, the fisherman is finally forced to sell his land, passed along to him from generation to generation, to a development conglomerate run by the businessman who is buying large tracts of the entire village. Unbeknownst to the fisherman, the businessman has lobbied for the village to turn into a protected nature reserve, allowing for the rehabilitation of the environment and the restocking of fish in it’s pristine waters. The businessman painstakingly recreates the quaint, costal charm of the village he once visited, making it a paradise where the wealthy flock to when they want to retire into a life of easy indolence. Finally, 15 – 20 years after the original conversation, the fisherman and his wife are found dead in a homeless shelter. Meanwhile, the businessman retires to the village having made two successive fortunes first in fisheries and then in real estate development. He spends his days sleeping late, playing with his grandchildren, watching high def ESPN ballgames on a 70″ TV, and taking siesta with his wife. He occasionally strolls down to the village in the evenings where he regales his fellow millionaires with the story of how he found an unexploited niche in the marketplace and then took full advantage of it to make the fortune that got him to the comfortable retirement he enjoys today.
- michaelwww 13y agoWith no other opportunity and with a deep resentment towards the millionaire, the fisherman's sons become involved in the drug trade. Violence escalates in the village to the point that kidnappings for ransom become a popular way to finance the importation of drugs for resale. The sons kidnap the millionaire's wife for ransom and kill her when the businessman fails to follow instructions. Later the millionaire and his new trophy wife are gunned down in the street. See Acapulco: http://www.borderlandbeat.com/2013/07/violence-in-acapulco-intensifies.html http://www.borderlandbeat.com/2013/07/violence-in-acapulco-i...
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- rturben 13y agoThis got very dark very quickly. It does make me wonder though, to what extent are we responsible for the repercussions of our actions? Where along that chain did it stop becoming the fault of the businessman, if ever?
- sliverstorm 13y agoWhere along that chain did it stop becoming the fault of the businessman, if ever? Current ethics would probably say, it was never the fault of the businessman. The profits were ripe for the taking; under a capitalist worldview, someone would have taken them, whether or not it was this businessman. As far as we can tell, the businessman did nothing expressly immoral- the consequences were externalities, and our moral systems are rarely developed to encompass anything beyond externalities of the first degree, because let's face it- externalities are damn hard to predict, understand, or even monitor.
- rhyme 13y agoThe profits were already being enjoyed by the fisherman. The problem is that the profits were rapidly extracted at a rate that the environment could not support. Sucked dry. Enter stage left: Sustainability. As someone posted above, the Triple Bottom Line presents a different concept of capitalism that takes into account the limited supply of resources that make profitable life possible. At our current rate of growth, if we do not refocus efforts on sustainable consumption, we will all end up like the fisherman.
- sliverstorm 13y agoIt is obvious that is the problem. I am not disputing that.
- deepvibrations 13y agoLast sentence particularly rings true for me! Where ever there are profits, there is also a deficit elsewhere, this is one of the core problems with our monetary system. We are brought up not to be greedy and to be generous, then as soon as we enter the real world as adults that need to earn a living, many are forced to make decisions that are not ethical in order to survive/support family etc. I have been spending a lot of time looking into the Resource Based Economy recently and this model seems far superior to anything we have at the moment, unfortunately, it is so radically different from what we have that it is going to take a lot of educating and a lot of work to start abandoning our current failing system in favour of another. Still, I have a lot of hope for the future, we have everything we need right now to change the world, we just need everyone to be willing and ready to accept this change!
- sivers 13y agoBrilliant re-write. If you skipped this link, thinking it was going to just be the well-known tale, look again.
- gojomo 13y agoIndeed, I thought it was a repeat, until verifying today's posting date. For reference, here's a variant of the 'original': http://renewablewealth.com/the-parable-of-the-mexican-fisherman/ http://renewablewealth.com/the-parable-of-the-mexican-fisher...
- mhb 13y agoThe movie "Local Hero" tells the tale in a much less heavy-handed way. And great soundtrack.
- mr12 13y agoI think the better story would have been of the 2nd fisherman that was approached. Same end result only it would have given a better contrasting perspective.
- vvvVVVvvv 13y agoI'm not sure how it could have been more interesting. The success story ? The happy ending ?
- bowerbird 13y agodynamite. sounds like real life. modern greek tragedy. unless we humans decide to harness greed, and quickly, we will shortly follow all of the other large mammals to the mass extinction which we engineered ourselves. -bowerbird
- 3pt14159 13y agoTragedy of the commons => common anti-capitalist fodder, whether fish, pollution, fur, logging, etc. Also what is not shown here are the millions of people that were able to eat fish due to its drastic drop in price. The omega balance raising IQs and resulting in more eco-scientists, sociologists, and general income for the government or charities for retooling of bronze-age fisherpeople.
- ta38383 13y agoExcept of course when it's true. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overfishing#Instances http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overfishing#Instances
- 3pt14159 13y agoCapitalism isn't designed to handle non-ownership. That is why it is an easy target. Either privatize or regulate, but don't blame it on a system that is DESIGNED to maximize profit.
- mbetter 13y agoJust avoid that system.
- djillionsmix 13y agodon't blame the system for having massive, glaring flaws! or... do, do that THE SOLUTION IS TO REGULATE, except that capitalists use their enormous wealth to lobby against any and all effective regulation, but that's not capitalism's fault lolz
- icebraining 13y agoCapitalism is based on private ownership. Is it really a flaw if it applies badly to an area of public/common ownership? Is a plane flawed because it doesn't fly underwater?
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- karl11 13y agoNothing is permanent, innovate, disrupt, adapt or die... So this parable is about Silicon Valley (businessman) crushing the complacent entrenched corporations (fisherman) with new technology? Am I missing something?
- jrochkind1 13y agoNo, the fisherman represents fishermen, and the businessman represents businessmen. It's about just what it says it's about: the businessman crushing everyone else to satisfy his own greed, and destroying the quality of life for anyone that's not rich. You know, like real life, as oppposed to the self-serving silicon valley fantasy where getting rich is somehow socially beneficial.
- Houshalter 13y agoThe businessman didn't "crush" anyone, he just made the fishing industry a thousand times more efficient through technology. You see the fisherman losing his job, not the thousands of villagers who now have cheaper food. The problem is all the wealth created from this went to the businessman alone and the fisherman was left with nothing. Because we stupidly live in a society where everyone depends on the value of their labor to get by. When technology makes your labor obsolete, as it should, then you have nothing.
- TheSOB88 13y agoThe villagers don't have cheaper food... First of all, if they were villagers, they were self-reliant and gathered, grew, or hunted their own food. Second of all, do you really think this asshole got rich selling fish to -villagers-?
- yen223 13y agoCall me naive, but I actually believe it is possible nowadays to make labour obsolete, without making the labourer obsolete.
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- jrochkind1 13y agoMuch more realistic than the usual version that ends early.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- paulorlando 13y agoNice re-write. The most interesting part: the businessman never knew what impact his actions had on the fisherman.
- cstrat 13y agoI doubt it would have changed his course of action. In his mind, if he didn't take advantage of the niche opportunity, someone else would.
- paulorlando 13y agoTrue, it wouldn't have changed his actions, but it's interesting to think of how all that we do has an impact somewhere else. People reading this now are creating jobs for some and destroying jobs for others. Such is business life.
- marquis 13y agoHe knowingly lobbied for lower compensation rights for his workers. At the protests outside the fisheries he may not have noticed our protagonist given he was wearing crutches at the time and his hair had grown unkempt.
- throww1e9u09 13y agoThis is a famous German short story by Heinrich Böll, from 1963. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anekdote_zur_Senkung_der_Arbeitsmoral https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anekdote_zur_Senkung_der_Arbei...
- epaga 13y agonope read it again, this one has an alternate ending
- triplesec 13y agoThis isn't a story about all capitalism. It's a cautionary tale, a story of what happens when capital is not responsive to local conditions and social factors. This is why the concept of Triple Bottom Line accounting was created http://www.economist.com/node/14301663 http://www.economist.com/node/14301663 . However, power in late American capitalism still stems from short-term decisions in finance, ignoring the issues of natural finite resources, ably conceptualised by the Rocky Mountain Institute: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_Capitalism:_Creating_the_Next_Industrial_Revolution http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_Capitalism:_Creating_th... . I also recommend the writings of American economist and sociologist Thorstein Veblen from 100 years ago on how it is remote capital that increases the likelihood of businesses to have terribly deleterious effects on the physical, biological and social environment. http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/438 http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/438 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorstein_Veblen http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorstein_Veblen Change happens, and often it brings benefits: but unless we are mindful, as say Elon Musk attempts to be, in our desires to improve the world with our technolgies, then dystopias will follow. I can also recommend the various works of David Brin on the near to medium future, whose mind is quite as sharp as Musk's and other meta-systemic thinkers we know and appreciate. http://www.davidbrin.com/ http://www.davidbrin.com/
- oddshocks 13y agoThis is the post Hacker News needed. Thank you. Thank you so much. -- A fellow Hacker
- jerlundy 13y agoCommunist propaganda. Shame on you successful one percenters.
- jonperl 13y agoWell that was a surprise turn around. Great for the entrepreneur, not so great for the kind natured protagonist. Also http://assets0.ordienetworks.com/misc/patfitty.gif http://assets0.ordienetworks.com/misc/patfitty.gif
- TheSOB88 13y agoAnd what about the thousand other guys in his village? Think they fared well?
- DateK 13y ago"democracy cannot survive overpopulation. Human dignity cannot survive it. Convenience and decency cannot survive it. As you put more and more people onto the world, the value of life not only declines, it disappears. It doesn't matter if someone dies." by Isaac Asimov http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Overpopulation http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Overpopulation
- VladRussian2 13y agoit isn't just about capitalism, it is generic principle of living systems evolution - it isn't possible to stay in static balance with environment forever as environment will change [will be "disrupted" or "paradigm shifted" in local parlance] sooner or later.
- poopicus 13y agoI was under the impression that the story was actually about taking chances when they're offered to you, and about the consequences of letting great opportunities pass you by. Not so much about the whole ethical responsibilities of big business.
- mbubb 13y agoA tangental question (and not meant to be a critique): Is this a parable? It too closely mirrors reality and there is no openended quality (ie Talmudic writings or Jesus parables). Neither is it an allegory. What do you refer to a story like this? An Epitome? ANecdote? Vignette?
- jzf 13y agoin the original, the fisherman returns to a life he had before the MBA came into his life. The original story was meant to teach us the evils of money. But!! The thing that is missed is that the fisherman made a fortune and now has Health insurance good medical care can pay for his kids to be well educated can fund his nations defense his tax dollars help fund stuff like figuring out the cure for cancer Has helped to produce wealth money is not evil folks.