Principles of Political Economy

We Get to Choose

Look! A big plate of cookies.
Warm and round and sweet.

Who gets a cookie?
Does the plate decide? No.
Do the cookies decide? No.
We do.
We get to choose.

That’s the secret. (Say it with me: we get to choose!)

We could give them all to one kid.
We could leave some kids with none.
Then some kids would be sad.

So we choose another way.
One for you. One for me.
One for her. One for him.
Everybody gets some.

Nobody is in charge of the cookies but us.
And we get to choose.

When something feels unfair,
like the snacks, the turns, the toys,
remember the plate of cookies.
It was never the plate that decided.
It was us.

You can help choose, too.
You can share a cookie with a friend who has none.
You can say, “Let’s all get some.”

We get to choose.
So let’s choose to share.

A note for the grown-up

For the grown-up reading aloud: This comes from John Stuart Mill’s Principles of Political Economy (1848). Its most lasting idea is that the hard rules of how things get made can’t be wished away, but how people share out what has been made is a human choice, so fairness is something people decide and can change. Economists since have added a caution Mill only half-saw: the sharing rules also affect how much gets made, so the choice has consequences. With your child, keep the choosing a shared “we” (“what feels fair to you?”) rather than letting it slide into “I get to decide who wins.” The point is that sharing is a choice people make together.

Save Some Seeds

Here is a big red tomato.
Juicy and ripe.
Inside are tiny seeds.

You could eat it all.
Yum! All gone.
Then what grows next year?
Nothing new.

Or you could eat most of it,
and save some seeds.
Save some seeds! (Say it with me.)

Dry them on a paper towel.
Keep them in a jar.
When spring comes, plant them.
Water them. Wait. Wait some more.

Up comes a little green plant.
It grows and grows.
Yellow flowers come out.
Then, maybe, more tomatoes.
A tiny seed made all that.

Saving isn’t keeping everything.
You still eat your tomato.
You just keep a little back,
so you can grow more later.

The seeds don’t stay in the jar.
They go in the dirt and get to work.

What could you save a few seeds from?
Your apple at lunch?
A slice of pepper?

Put them in a cup of dirt.
Give them water.
Save some seeds.

A note for the grown-up

For the grown-up reading aloud: Mill’s Book I argues that the tools, seed, and food that let people make things tomorrow come from saving part of what they have today instead of using it all up, and that saved wealth isn’t hoarded: it gets spent on making more. The seed jar carries that mechanism. Mill built a further claim on it, that a fixed fund of saved capital sets everyone’s wages, and he abandoned that claim himself in 1869; this primer teaches only the saving half. Not every seed sprouts, which is why the story says maybe.

Same Blocks, New Things

Here is your box of blocks.
Red ones. Blue ones. Long ones.

Yesterday you built a tower.
It fell. Crash!

Today you build again.
Same blocks.
But now you know a trick.
Big blocks go on the bottom.
This time the tower stands.

Did you get more blocks? No.
Did you get better? Yes!
Same blocks, new things. (Say it with me.)

Tomorrow, try a bridge.
The next day, a house with a door.
The box stays the same size.
You keep learning.

Last week, a wobbly tower.
This week, a bridge that holds.
The blocks didn’t change.
You did.

Show a friend your trick.
Now they know it too.
Nobody got more blocks.
Everybody got better.

Sometimes it falls again.
That’s okay.
Look at why it fell.
Then try another way.

You don’t need a bigger box
to make something new.
You need your hands,
your ideas, and another try.

What will you build today?
Same blocks, new things.

A note for the grown-up

For the grown-up reading aloud: In his chapter on the “stationary state,” Mill argues that a country can stop growing bigger and richer and still keep getting better, in its skills, its ideas, and how people live. His forecast that growth would soon level off was wrong, since invention kept economies growing, but the value he defended is still argued for today. This primer carries only that value: getting better doesn’t have to mean having more. Don’t let it turn into “wanting new things is bad”; the point is that learning and trying again are where the growth is.