In November of 1992
Pierre Culliford, a renowned author and illustrator published a graphic novel
of tremendous gravity and startling economic insight. The novel would be his last, as on December
24, 1992, Culliford suffered a heart attack at his home in Brussels and passed
away the same day.
Culliford is known by
his nickname, Peyo, and he was creator of the Schtroumpfs, who are better known
by their English name, the Smurfs.
Peyo’s final novel, Finance Smurf, at long last has an
English translation which became available on July 1, 2014.
Seen through the lens
of post 2008 skepticism with regards to the financial system that continues to
hold the world in shackles, the novel seems especially timely, and the
marketing copy on the back cover, which reads:
“99% of the Smurfs
have left the Smurfs Village! No one but
the Finance Smurf wants to occupy the Smurfs Village!”
appears to be nothing
more than an attempt to carry on the rallying cry of the Occupy Wall Street
movement of 2011. However, as one opens
the cover and peers into the world of Peyo’s Smurfs, it is clear that the
author intended to call into question everything the reader thought they
understood about money, and in large part, he succeeded.
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While the Smurfs are,
well, the Smurfs, and as such will invariably be forever adorable and highly
entertaining in the eyes of most of humanity, here at The Mint we will look
past the novel’s obvious merits of providing page after page of blue colored
cuteness and highlight our observations of the merits of the economic arguments
and questions that it raises as well as the metaphors employed via the roles
played by long standing characters in the following review. Enjoy!
Finance Smurf
The novel Finance
Smurf is set in Smurfs Village. It begins
with the incapacitation of Papa Smurf, the Smurf who keeps Smurf Village safe
and orderly, who is laid up by a laboratory accident. In this sense, Papa Smurf may be seen as a
metaphor for a benevolent dictator or embodiment of a divine being for the
Smurfs. This is important, as it is the absence
of the ongoing intervention of Papa Smurf in daily life that gives room for the
mischief in the novel to occur (Smurf fans will quickly recognize this plot
device employed by Peyo).
It then falls to
Finance Smurf to seek an antidote, which takes him to the world of humans. It is there that he learns the concept of
money and becomes fascinated by it. It
is interesting that he does not appear to immediately recognize the creation of
money as a means to enrich himself.
Indeed a hallmark of
the Smurfs is the communist (or socialist) structure of their life in the
Village. Here at The Mint, we do not
find this odd, as we have explored in depth here at The Mint the fact that socialism
is the norm in self-supporting economic systems the size of Smurfs’ Village who
have a Papa Smurf, so to speak, as a universally respected authority figure. What drives people to Capitalism is the need
to tacitly make economic decisions in the absence of a universally respected
authority figure, hence Peyo’s need to sideline Papa Smurf at the outset for
the narrative to play out.
Finance Smurf returns
to Smurfs’ Village with the antidote, as well as a burning desire to introduce
money and the human system of trade to the Smurfs. First, he reasons that he needs gold coins
with Papa Smurfs likeness on them to use as monetary units. He goes to Painter Smurf for the artistic
rendering, Sculptor Smurf for the mold for the coins, Miner Smurf for the gold
(Miner Smurf, ironically, has a pile of gold sitting there which he has no use
for, as he is diligently extracting flint with his pick axe). Handy Smurf then
melts the gold and makes the coins using the mold.
Here we interject
another observation. The day to day
activities of the Smurfs are dependent upon their profession (or lack
thereof). In the absence of money the
Smurfs simply do what they do. There are
rarely specific value judgments made with regards to what the Smurfs do, though
all of their actions appear to be motivated by the needs of their fellow Smurfs
and throwing the occasional party. This
system, while idyllic, assumes that everyone wants to maintain the status
quo. The maintenance of the status quo
is at once the pillar of strength and the Achilles heel of Socialism.
It is clear that for
Painter Smurf, Sculptor Smurf, and Handy Smurf, the requests of Finance Smurf
are outside of the status quo. However,
being good Smurfs, they go along with it and hope for the best.
With the coins made,
Finance Smurf calls a meeting of all Smurfs, introduces the concept of money,
and hands out an equal share of the coins to each Smurf. The Smurfs initially do not know how to
operate in the new system, so Finance Smurf helps them by doing some back of
the napkin costing analysis of their activities. It is worth noting here that this activity is
also the hallmark of Socialist systems, the central planning of prices.
As the Smurfs begin to
trade, the predictable begins to happen.
The productive elements of society, Farmer Smurf, Handy Smurf, Baker
Smurf, and so on, soon have more coins than they know what to do with. They take them to Finance Smurf, who is now
acting as the bank, to be invested. On
the other side, artists such as Harmony Smurf and Poet Smurf find themselves
short of money and then mortgage their houses to Finance Smurf. Lazy Smurf is hardest hit.
If it was not obvious
to readers to this point, Finance Smurf begins to embody Central Banks and Wall
Street. At one point, Baker Smurf calls
out Finance Smurf for lending at 10% but only giving him a 6% return. In a nod to the foreclosure crisis, Finance
Smurf becomes owner of all of the real estate in Smurfs’ Village. There is a reference to privatization of
public works, as when the bridge goes out, the Smurfs look to Finance Smurf to
pay for the replacement, which he does in exchange for the right to collect a
toll. Even corruption is broached as
there is some price fixing for lumber on the bridge project orchestrated by
Finance Smurf.
In short, Finance
Smurf comes to embody everything that everybody hates about today’s financial
system. The rest of the Smurfs, fed up
with the swift disaster that the Money system introduced by Finance Smurf has
brought upon them, leave to build another village. In this action, they take the only logical
step in the face of monetary tyranny. It
is a wonder that more of us do not venture out and do the same today.
In terms of economic
lessons to be taken from Finance Smurfs, there is little more to be gleaned.
The remaining Social/Political
lessons are taught via the intervention of Gargamel, the Smurfs’ arch nemesis. Gargamel counterfeits coins, echoing a form
of economic sabotage employed by nations at war, and lures the Smurfs to them,
relying on their newfound greed to be their downfall. Fortunately, Papa Smurf returns and wisely
guides the Smurfs away from the trap.
In another odd twist,
Papa Smurf, once he becomes aware of the new Money system that has been
introduced during his time of incapacitation, does not act to stop it, instead,
he bumbles along with it as many a powerful emeritus would do, until the Smurfs
ultimately leave to build another village, safely away from the scourge of
money.
Conclusions
As an adult reading
Finance Smurf in the post 2008 socio economic landscape, one gets an eerie
sense that Peyo was on to something back in 1992, and cleverly communicated it
to the world. While the ongoing economic
analogies presented in the novel are quite clear, Peyo proves stunningly accurate
in his depiction of Finance Smurf inventing money and introducing it to the
populace, along with a monopoly on usury, for in this way Central Banks unwittingly
enslave the world by promulgating the debt based money supply.
The Peyo’s final
triumph is his clairvoyant depiction of the Smurfs’ unanimous decision to
simply leave the village that was their happy home before it became the
illegitimate property of Finance Smurf, and build another village just a stone’s
throw away, yet with one marked difference; the absence of money and its
creator.
True to form, the
Smurfs reconcile with Finance Smurf who repents of his ways. For Smurfdom, and indeed our world, was never
meant to live under the tyranny of perpetual debts. The Smurfs in Smurfs’ Village, who had a
small scale debt problem which quickly got out of hand, simply left and went
elsewhere. Jewish law called for a
Jubilee, recognizing both the necessity of money and finance for large scale
commerce and the necessity of liberation from the snares that they created
amongst what would otherwise be a brotherhood of man. What, then, is the solution for an entire
world living under the scourge of a 100 year old debt based monetary system?
Following the Smurfs
may not be a bad idea after all.
Stay Fresh!
David Mint
Key
Indicators for August 22, 2014
