Did you ever hear about Ecognomia when growing up?

It's a magical planet, as far as I can tell. I heard that a lot of clever and important people are able to visit this place using their imagination. I heard that it is infinitely large, with no environment or animals. It looks nothing like our planet Earth! Can you believe that such a place exists!? Incredible! No wonder that people want to spend their time there. The special Gnomes who live there can eat money! They can also use money to make homes and do other things. Money is useful for everything, so it is their most valuable possession. The Gnomes lead a simple life. They only have to work and try to make as much money as possible. But they get tired from travelling far, and often the closest and best jobs are taken. This makes resources limited, even on an infinite planet.

Limited access to resources has created inequality. Some of the Gnomes have become rich. They buy houses and special clothes – and lots and lots and lots of fancy things – to show off how rich and awesome they are. After all, if they were not so awesome then they would not be so rich. This makes the other Gnomes upset. They are taught from a young age that this type of showing off is very serious. They wish they were that awesome! Unfortunately, though, differences in Ecognomian geography mean that not everyone can be super rich. So not everyone can be super awesome. This has made the Gnomes very competitive. But this is not a problem - everyone in Ecognomia agrees that it's a gnome eat gnome world. Competition is wonderful, it eliminates the weak. It weeds out bad ideas. It eliminates bad institutions. Name a bad thing, competition will get rid of it.

It seems that everything gets better because of competition.

Our clever and important people have been very impressed with the benefits of Ecognomic competition. Competition is so awesome, it even got rid of the Gnome's government. This has left Gnome society with two goals: (i) to make as much money as possible – to grow the Ecognomian pie; (ii) and to make sure that society is efficient. Everything is committed to efficiently making more money and more pie. This makes sense because Gnomes are only interested in money.

Ecognomian efficiency is defined as a condition that occurs when no one can be made better off without making someone else worse off. They have other definitions, but this one is really popular since it means that no resources can be taken from one Gnome and given to another. That would be an inefficient theft from hard-working Gnomes!

The rich Gnomes are very happy with this definition since they can keep all of their money. Society should also be happy because this definition of efficiency means, in effect, that all usable resources are being used. After all, if it was possible to make a Gnome better off without making someone else worse off, then some resources would not be optimally used. The Gnomes are lucky to have such an efficient and awesome society.

Things aren't going so well on Earth.
 

We are suffering from systemic problems. Resource wastage, escalating private debt, skyrocketing inequality, racist outcomes, gender discrimination, political apathy, high levels of depression, burned out workers, planned obsolescence, white collar crime, systemic corruption, environmental catastrophe, biodiversity loss, degradation of arable land, aquifer depletion and contamination, ecosystem collapse and climate change make it impossible to claim that things on Earth are working efficiently. But the Gnomes have solved all of these problems. Ecognomian efficiency allows them to ignore all these types of problems and still have an efficient outcome. How awesome!

How is this possible? The Gnomes adopted a definition of efficient that is not influenced by these problems. This allowed the Gnomes to efficiently assume these problems away. Just like they assumed an infinite planet. Just like they assumed away the environment. Just like they assumed they could eat money. The Ecognomian pie is growing every year! It's wonderfully efficient! If only Earth had such an awesome definition of efficiency, then our problems would be over. On a sad note, I recently heard that the Gnomes are having some very serious problems. They are still figuring out what's going wrong, but I'm sure their awesomeness has nothing to do with it.

Some of the Gnomes have started using their imagination to examine and visit Earth. They are sure that looking at the problems on Earth can help them understand more about what is happening in Ecognomia. Fortunately, our clever and important people are already there to help them out. But alas! It seems that many of our clever and important people went and fell in love with Ecognomia. They got their best ideas from the Gnomes, and some of them have even started to think that there is no difference between Earth and Ecognomia. All they can remember is that efficiency, competition and Ecognomian pie are the best things ever.

The Gnomes have been unhappy with the advice of our clever and important people. They already believe in the stories of efficiency, competition and Ecognomian pie. It’s just that they want some advice on the basis of experiences on planet Earth. Unfortunately, many of the clever and important people have spent so much time in Ecognomia that they no longer remember what is happening on Earth.

The Gnomes are frustrated. They ask: What new things can we learn from clever and important people when they only refer to traditional Ecognomian theories? Tired of the situation, the Gnomish government has advised the clever and important people remaining in Ecognomia to leave their imagination and return to planet Earth.

Who knows, maybe this will help solve the problems on Earth and Ecognomia.

 Published on Law Blogs Maastricht