Og the Caveman - PT I

Og Lives ina cave. It's a nice cave as caves go but it's crowded because the entire clan lives in it. He's not the biggest or strongest but he's fast and aggressive enough to hold his own in the daily competition. Og is just another unremarkable user of the local resources. A hunter-gathering class stiff. He goes out on a daily basis and searches for sustenance. When he has a good day he can work out a little barter with one of the females. It's not much of a life.

One day he's out digging for roots and grubs and he hits a hard patch of dirt that looks to be a payload of goodies. He can see them but he cant get them out of the ground. On impulse he picks up a stick and tries digging with it. Limited success.

He picks up a rock and smacks the top of the stick. The hard earth breaks up a little. He moves the stick and smacks it again The hard earth is coming apart and he can get to the wild yams. He stuffs them into a skin bag. He continues to use the rock and the stick and goes back to the cave with more food than he's ever seen.

He is treated like a rock star by the females. He trades some of the food for a bigger skin bag. He goes to sleep with a woman on each side of him, all of his desires fulfilled, a full belly and visions of getting an early start the next day.

The next day it goes even better. He fills the bigger skin bag by noon and empties it in a safe hiding place and goes back out to fill it again. In the late afternoon, he goes back to the cave with a full bag and empties it on the ground and then goes back to recover his stash. When he gets there he sees that a wild pig is making a meal of his hard work. He wishes he had a club to kill it with be he was unprepared.

He goes back to the cave and the wild yams are gone, divided up amongst those that had nothing to do with harvesting them. It's dark and he goes to sleep hungry. The next day he gets an early start.

He uses the next day's harvest to trade for a big club and another skin bag. He's decided to use one bag for the harvest and the other to carry his tools. A stick, a rock that he uses as a hammer, a wooden club and a sharp rock to sharpen the stick with.

He moves with confidence through his world. He can harvest more and faster than anyone else anytime he wants. He creates more value, and because of that he gets more choices than others.

Og did not have an unfair advantage. He is not oppressing the others by using his talent and tools to excel. He is not raping the environment and spoiling the earth for future generations.

He trades the value he creates for goods and services he wants. He runs a trade deficit, but it's OK because he creates wealth. He is a benefactor of the tribe. His ability to create wealth is resented by some and admired by others but he is universally recognized as powerful and influential.