Political Economy Lessons from Childhood Stories

One of my favorite childhodood anecdotes, which the passage of time could not wash away from my mind, concerns the story of a young preacher of an ideological creed and an old lay passerby at the dawn of an ideological movement.

The story goes that a new convert to an emerging ideology was passionately preaching about the leader of the ideology in an old town, describing how perfect the world would have looked like had his leader’s ideology prevailed, how beautiful life would have become and how justice would have ruled the land had the leader been in charge…

The passerby who happened to hear those words stopped and asked the preacher:

–  "Son, does your leader have a belly or not?"

–  "Yes." Answered the preacher.

–  "Then, he is no different.” Said the passerby and strolled away indifferently…

So insightful, timeless, and universal are the lessons of our childhood parables.

For more on the insights of the story, listen to this EconTalk episode with Bruce Bueno de Mesquita on his book "the Logic of Political Survival".