The castaways

Imagine a deserted island in the middle of a distant ocean.  It has never known a human occupant and is too far from any civilized nation to have been charted or claimed.  But late one night a group of castaways washes up on its shores, survivors of a terrible storm that has swept the decks of a number of fortuitously passing ships.  Let us suppose that these castaways are from many places, that none of them knew any of the others before their stranding, so have no ties or shared obligations.  They might hope for a rescue, though the outside world does not know of the island or of their stranding, having concluded that all missing persons drowned in the open ocean.  So there is no prospect of immediate deliverance.  The survivors, fifty altogether, are stuck on the island for the foreseeable future.

What do they do first?  A bit of crying, then a lot of praying.  But come the morning they begin to notice their hunger and a threatening sky.  Being human and sociable, they instinctively gather together, tend one another’s injuries, and agree to form a council to strike a plan for their common survival.  Being unknown to one another, they are wary of excluding anybody from participating in the meeting.  Any of them might possess skills or expertise needed for their collective well-being.  And as they all came to this uninhabited island at the same time, no one can claim precedence over the others.  But once they have agreed to deliberate as equals, what next?  In the heat of the afternoon they gather in the shade of a great rock and work out a plan.

They will undoubtedly start with practical concerns—finding food, locating fresh water, building shelters, scouting the island for potential threats and resources.  They will probably divide up the tasks for the sake of efficiency, perhaps form small committees—a fishing committee, a coconut-gathering committee, a water-carrying committee, a hut-building committee, a fire-tender.  Likely they will inquire among their members to find out who might have experience in any of these areas.  One thinks she knows how to divert water from a cliff-top spring down to the common area.  Good—the council approves her plan and she selects a few helpers to begin building a crude piping system.  Another says he learned how to build a lean-to in a scouting program, and so is dispatched with volunteers to gather materials for a community shelter (private huts to follow later).  Another says she has a love of hiking and wouldn’t mind finding a trail to the coconut trees she spied across the island.  Soon she is off with like-minded scouts and the blessing of the council.  Another says he has a lot of backwoods fishing experience and is immediately dispatched to the lagoon to try his luck with another who is clever at fabricating lines and hooks.  A retired nurse is put in charge of cuts, scrapes, sunburns and sprained ankles while a young man with a hobby in rock collecting is sent off to find flints for starting a fire.  They will all gather at the council spot again at dusk.

It’s a good start, but soon the castaways run into difficulties.  There’s a middle-aged man with an expensive monogrammed tied around his forehead who says he has a bad back and can’t do anything physically strenuous (doctor’s orders!), even so much as tend the fire while the rock-hobbyist goes off to gather more dry wood.  A young college-age woman with a suspiciously even tan says she’s never had to do physical labor before and wouldn’t know where to start but might agree to be in charge of the Lu-au Planning Committee.  (Does anyone know a good caterer?)  A few of the others are heard muttering under their breath but decide not to press the matter until the evening council.  The fishing committee has had poor luck, finding a few mussels and crabs but no bites on the line—they’ll try a new location tomorrow.  Then the hiking enthusiast returns just as the sun sets to report that there are indeed some very nice coconut trees in a grove on the far side of the island.  But there’s a man lounging on a deck-chair in the midst of the trees who says they all belong to him.  He says he might be willing to sell some of his coconuts in exchange for a supply of meat and firewood and someone to build him a proper hut.  “What does he mean they’re his?” asks a voice in the darkening assembly.  “Did you tell him about the Island Council?”  “He just says he owns them.  Always has.  Inherited them or something.  I told him about the Council but he says he’s fine on his own.  Willing to trade as a sovereign commonwealth equal to our so-called Council.”  “What?” laughs another as the others shake their heads.  “How can he say he’s always owned them?  Or inherited them?  If you were able to talk to him at all, that means he arrived here like the rest of us.  And why would he need someone to build him a hut if he’s fine on his own?”  “He says he had a perfectly good hut, until yesterday, but it blew away in the storm.  Thinks it’s our fault somehow.  He’s talking about suing us for damages.”  Some in the council are still laughing in disbelief, but a few raise their voices in anger.  “How ‘bout we just go pick the coconuts for ourselves, then hang him from one of the trees?”  “Yeah, or maybe we build him a nice hut—on a raft—and send him on his way!”  “Wait, wait, wait,” says the distinguished grey-haired woman who has been acting as moderator, “Let’s keep our heads.  We can work through this.  We just have to reason with him and get him to see we’re all in this together.”  “Don’t think he wants to,” says the hiker.  “He seemed pretty determined.  Says the trees are definitely his property and that he won’t let anybody take a single coconut until they meet his terms.”  One young man with a wispy beard and long hair stands up and demands that the Council vote immediately on sending a very large committee over there in the morning to take the coconuts whether he likes it or not!  And now the middle-aged man with the bad back (who has somehow located a deckchair and planted it in a position of honor) says, “Well, if it is his property, we can’t just take it.  We may have to send a negotiator, see if we can talk him down on some of his terms.  Now did you notice some sort of fence around the trees or a sign posted about—”  But the young bearded man interrupts to demand an immediate Council vote on banning all lawyers from the island as well as all talk about owning stuff.  But the man with the bad back just sighs and says, “Well, if he is a sovereign commonwealth he has the right to pass whatever laws he pleases about property and legal protections.  We can’t do much about that.  We’ll have to appoint a diplomat for formal talks.”  Now others begin to grumble from the darkness about the time they’re wasting on this ridiculous matter.  What about all the other things they need to get done, like building emergency shelters and forming a rescue plan?  But coconuts do matter, a few others point out, as they are the likeliest and most accessible source of necessary fats and nutrients.  Then one clever voice pipes up, “Well, if he is a sovereign commonwealth, there is one thing we definitely can do.  Declare war!”

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What do you think you would do in such a scenario?  (Allow a bit of time to your imagining.)  Would you declare that this new-found island and all its life-sustaining resources are the property of no one (since no human being was there before the castaways arrived) and that they should therefore be equally available to all the castaways?  Or would you entertain the private claims of ownership (and the implied inequality of resource allocation) made by a few bold members?  Would you insist on sharing the work and the decisions of government equally with all the others or would you prefer to follow the strongest voice, the one who seemed most like a natural leader?  Or might you try to be that leader, asserting your superior ability and refusing to cooperate if the others did not recognize your special standing?

Now most people presented with this scenario will agree that no one should be allowed a monopoly of any of the island’s resources.  (If you’re dubious of this assertion, try the scenario out with a group.)  They will generally insist on establishing a government of equals (such as the Island Council) rather than letting anyone assert authority.  They will usually make provision for the injured and disabled, and allowances for those with special needs (such as age or chronic conditions), but they will insist that everyone contribute as far as they are able (and more or less equally) to the well-being of the group.  Few will agree that an individual’s social advantage or possession of property prior to arriving should be translated into advantage on the island itself.  But special skills and experience will always be welcomed.  Thus nurses and scoutmasters are more heartily cheered by the island community than politicians and business tycoons.  (Again, test this for yourself with a roomful of people.)  And the majority of those presented with the deserted-island scenario will insist that no one should be allowed to make personal claims of property—at least at the outset.  Few will stand for much overt inequality, except of natural talents and personal experience.  (Or, at least, they will not voice such preferences aloud.)

Yet these same responders—who sound like ardent socialists and egalitarians when presented with the castaway scenario—seem strangely unwilling to translate these views back into their present and familiar world.  Here, they insist on preserving notions of private property.  That is yours, this is mine.  Not only do they maintain fairly fixed ideas of personal ownership, but seem suddenly disinterested in equal access to resources.  In fact, they seem remarkably at ease with a very unequal sort of property distribution.  Why should this be?  Why are they egalitarians in their imaginations but something else in their real lives?  It may be a relic of human nature, a seemingly baked-in urge to protect what we already have—a demonstrably stronger need to defend what we currently possess than to acquire something we don’t, even if it is of equal or slightly-greater value.  Our familiar situation doesn’t permit us to think about the starting-over-from-scratch possibilities that the deserted-island scenario affords.  Our first instinct is to preserve our familiar, whatever it may be.  We are conservatives by our nature.  And so—most of the time—we allow the ambitious and opportunistic resource-hoarders to hold far more in our present world that we would ever allow if forced to start again from nothing.

Does the deserted-island scenario really suggest we would do things differently if forced to rethink our private property arrangements from scratch?  Would we allow manifestly unequal control of resources in our best-imagined society if we didn’t have familiar arrangements to distract us?  We have trouble answering because we are almost never presented with such a starting-over opportunity.  Our present society always assumes that we begin from where we are right now, rather than from a fundamentally equal begin-again position.  But at least the scenario makes us aware that there are other possibilities.  We could do things differently if we chose to.