The study of our monetary system might be “the most important subject intelligent persons can investigate and reflect upon“, but as a component of the dismal science, it can also be numbingly humorless. After all, if you listen to the likes of us here at EconomicStability, civilization as we know it does hang in the balance.
So I offer this little passage from Cannery Row as comic relief. Leave it to Steinbeck to tease some playfulness out of the topic.
There are those who argue persuasively for a gold standard; there’s the “mixed basket” crowd.
Steinbeck envisioned the “frog standard”.
As background, Cannery Row is a tiny California coastal town (near Salinas) depicted here in the years of the Great Depression.
Three key characters are Lee Chong, Mack, and Doc. Lee Chong, a Chinese immigrant, owns the general store.
A group of hobos lives in an old warehouse, the Palace Flophouse; their leader such as he is, is Mack.
Doc runs a biological specimen collection business, selling squids, starfish and such to universities back East. Just prior to this passage, Doc has contracted with Mack and the boys to go up country and harvest frogs, for which he has a seemingly unlimited market.
The depiction of Mac and the boys catching the frogs is priceless, but in passage quoted below, they have returned to Cannery Row with the harvest. Doc is out of town, however, and cannot pay them for the frogs. That’s when Mack pulls Lee Chong into the arrangement and Lee agrees to become a banker, of sorts. From Chapter 20:
In mid-morning the Model T truck rolled triumphantly home to Cannery Row and hopped the gutter and creaked up through the weeds to its place behind Lee Chong’s. The boys blocked up the front wheels, drained what gasoline was left into a five gallon can, took their frogs and went wearily home to the Palace Flophouse. Then Mack made a ceremonious visit to Lee Chong while the boys got a fire going in the big stove. Mack thanked Lee with dignity for lending the big truck. He spoke of the great success of the trip, of the hundreds of frogs taken. Lee smiled shyly and waited for the inevitable.
“We’re in the chips,” said Mack enthusiastically. “Doc pays us a nickel a frog and we got about a thousand.
Lee nodded. The price was standard. Everybody knew that.
“Doc’s away,” said Mack. “Jesus is he gonna be happy when he sees all them frogs.”
Lee nodded again. He knew Doc was away and he also knew where the conversation was going.
“Say, by the way,” said Mack, as though he had just thought of it. ”We’re a little bit short right now—” He managed to make it sound like a very unusual situation.
“No whisky,” said Lee Chong and he smiled.
Mack was outraged. ”What would we want whiskey for? Why we got a gallon of the finest whisky you ever laid lip over—a whole full God damned running over gallon. By the way,” he continued, “I and the boys would like to have you just step up for a shot with us. They told me to ask you.”
In spite of himself, Lee smiled with pleasure. They wouldn’t offer it of the didn’t have it.
“No,” said Mack, “I’ll lay it on the line. I and the boys are pretty short and we’re pretty hungry. You know the price of frogs is twenty for a buck. Now Doc is away and we’re hungry. So what we thought is this. We don’t want to see you lose nothing so we’ll make over to you twenty-five frogs for a buck. You got a five-frog profit there and nobody loses his shirt.”
“No,” said Lee. “no money.”
“Well, hell, Lee, all we need is a little groceries. I’ll tell you what—we want to give Doc a little party when he gets back. We got plenty of liquor but we’d like to get maybe some steaks, and stuff like that. He’s such a nice guy. Hell, when your wife had that bad tooth, who gave her the laudanum?”
Mack had him. Lee was indebted to Doc—deeply indebted. What Lee was having trouble comprehending was how this indebtedness to Doc made it necessary that he give credit to Mack.
“We don’t want you to have like a mortgage on frogs,” Mack went on. “We will actually deliver right into your hands twenty-five frogs for every buck of groceries you let us have and you can come to the party too.”
Lee’s mind nosed over the proposition like a mouse in a cheese cupboard. He could find nothing wrong with it. The whole thing was legitimate. Frogs were cash as far as Doc was concerned, the price was standard and Lee had a double profit. He had his five-frog margin and he also had his grocery mark-up. The whole thing hinged on whether they actually had the frogs.
“We go see flog,” said Lee at last.
In front of the Palace he had a drink of the whisky, inspected the damp sack of frogs, and agreed to the transaction. He stipulated, however, that he would take no dead frogs. Now Mack counted fifty frogs into a can and walked back to the grocery with Lee and got two dollars worth of bacon and eggs and bread.
Lee, anticipating a brisk business, brought a big packing case out and put it into the vegetable department. He emptied the fifty frogs into it and covered it with a wet gunny sack to keep his charges happy.
And business was brisk. Eddie sauntered down and bought two frogs worth of Bull Durham. Jones was outraged a little later when the price of Coca-Cola went from one to two frogs. In fact, bitterness arose as the day wore on and prices went up. Steak, for instance—the very best steak shouldn’t have been more than ten frogs a pound but Lee set it at twelve and a half. Canned peaches were sky high, eight frogs for a No. 2 can. Lee had a stranglehold on the consumers. He was pretty sure that the Thrift Market or Holman’s would not approve of this new monetary system. If the boys wanted steak, they knew they had to pay Lee’s prices. Feeling ran high when Hazel, who had coveted a pail of yellow silk arm bands for a long time was told that if he didn’t want to pay thirty-five frogs for them, he could go somewhere else… (Cannery Row, Penguin paperback, pp. 116-119)
I have to stop somewhere, so I leave it there, but there’s plenty more where that came from.
I hadn’t meant to make any point about the passage, and really just wanted to share it because its delightful, gentle humor and because it presents a monetary system in a way I can grasp.
I have a few observations, though. The tale shows:
1) An increase in the money supply inflates prices.
2) The use of “like” as a meaningless filler didn’t start with Valley Girls in the 90′s (“We don’t want you to have like a mortgage on frogs…”)
3) In one important way Steinbeck’s monetary system is like our own: it is impermanent.
