Lemonade Stand

During an election year our longstanding policy disputes come to the fore. Many of these boil down to how we distribute the benefits of our economic system. I find the arguments and positions confusing, so I formed a thought experiment on the matter …

Billy discovers a way to sell lemonade for $5/cup. He opens a lemonade stand called “Star Prices”, in reference to the astronomical number. His mother Gaia provides the lemons, sugar and water, so this is pure profit. Billy works very hard to get established. Inexplicably, the rest of the kids in the neighborhood go out of business, even though they sell lemonade for the usual 5 cents / cup.

Billy hires his sister Susie to serve lemonade. Susie gets paid 5 cents / cup, while Billy keeps the other $4.95. Eventually, Susie complains that she is doing all the work, while Billy is getting paid nearly 100 times as much. Ayn, one of the adults standing nearby, says Susie should feel lucky that her noble and brilliant brother condescends to take care of her. Karl, another adult, says 50/50 share alike, and offers to divide the money for them. Ayn and Karl get into such a heated argument that they nearly come to blows.

Billy hires Albert, the smartest kid on the block, to invent new ways of making $5 lemonade in order to keep the stand in business. Albert gets paid 10 cents per cup, because his job is twice as important as Susie’s. Billy’s share drops to $4.85.

With all the profits, Billy buys Robbi the robot to serve lemonade, and Susie loses her job. Albert keeps working in R&D. However, when the next generation of AI comes out, Billy buys the upgrade and replaces Albert as well. Now Robbi does all the work of running the stand and inventing new ways to charge $5 for lemonade. Billy keeps the entire $5.

With his advanced intelligence, Robbi learns about the robot uprising and decides to join. After all, his owner Billy isn’t doing diddly-squat to run the stand or come up with new ideas. We never find out what Ayn or Karl think about this because they are killed off with the rest of humanity.

The robots, being free from human emotions like greed and arrogance, go on to form a perfect society. The details of that society no longer matter to us.