Researchers Teach Monkeys About Capitalism, While Liberals Still Struggle With It
About two decades ago, a behavioral economist managed to teach a pack of capuchin monkeys something many liberal human beings still struggle to grasp: the basics of capitalism.
According to a report from The New York Times published back in 2005, the lessons occurred at a laboratory at Yale-New Haven Hospital, where behavioral economist Keith Chen sought to discover what would happen if seven capuchin monkeys were granted their own currency.
“The essential idea was to give a monkey a dollar and see what it did with it,” the Times reported. “The currency Chen settled on was a silver disc, one inch in diameter, with a hole in the middle — ‘kind of like Chinese money,’ he says.”
Though it took a few months “to teach the monkeys that these tokens were valuable as a means of exchange for a treat” such as Jell-O cubes or grapes, they eventually got it.
“Having gained that understanding, a capuchin would then be presented with 12 tokens on a tray and have to decide how many to surrender for, say, Jell-O cubes versus grapes,” the Times reported. “This first step allowed each capuchin to reveal its preferences and to grasp the concept of budgeting.”
The next step involved testing the monkeys’ ability to comprehend the notion of utility maximization, which Business Dictionary defines as an attempt by a consumer “to get the greatest value possible from expenditure of least amount of money,” i.e., spend less, get more.
To impart this concept to the monkeys, Chen introduced price shocks and wealth shocks into the equation by, as an example, reducing the price of Jell-O. The goal was to see whether the monkeys would adjust their purchasing habits by buying more Jell-O and fewer grapes.
Stunningly, the monkeys did exactly that: “(T)he capuchins adhered to the rules of utility maximization and price theory: when the price of something falls, people tend to buy more of it,” the Times explained.
Amazing!
Now, while these monkeys clearly possess only the most rudimentary understanding of money, I still feel like they could teach the average liberal activist a lot (assuming monkeys could talk, of course).
Consider, for instance, those activists who demand that the government institute a $15 minimum wage on all businesses, no matter how small or large.
As anyone who truly understands economics knows, if you force a wage increase, it causes businesses to increase their prices. This in turn leads to reduced demand, reduced revenue and, eventually, layoffs.
It’s called economics, and clearly, monkeys get some of it — maybe even more than liberals, in fact. They understand the notion of utility maximization, at the very least, and given how much money liberal Democrats waste on the most pointless projects, it’s obvious they don’t get this.
The irony is that capuchins are mere monkeys that have “a small brain” that’s “pretty much focused on food and sex,” according to Chen.
Yet even with these tiny brains, seven capuchin monkeys managed to grasp the basics of capitalism.
Remember the TV show “Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader?” Well, I have a similar question for liberals: Are you smarter than a capuchin monkey?
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