Panacea

By Mal Warwick

Copyright © 2006

The cure for all the ills of our society has been staring me in the face. I don’t know how I could have missed it. Now that the truth has dawned on me, it’s laughably obvious: we must abolish money and replace it with chocolate bars.

Perhaps the compelling logic of the situation has struck you, too. However, in the event that you’re not immediately transported by the simple beauty of this proposition, here are the nine leading reasons why the human race must rush to adopt this policy:

(1) The use of chocolate bars as currency will immediately eliminate online commerce, the use of credit cards, ATMs, and every other impersonal mode of financial transaction. Forced once again to deal with one another face-to-face, we will rediscover our humanity, shed our alienation, talk to one another, and form new bowling leagues.

(2) Recent research has demonstrated that the consumption of chocolate releases an enzyme into the bloodstream, creating a chemical effect identical to that of having sex. Think, then, how happy we would all be after a very short time under the new policy. We could abolish conflict, end all wars, and put an end to the mistreatment of small, furry animals!

(3) Replacing money with chocolate bars will reverse global warming. Who, after all, would be capable of lugging tons of candy bars to the car dealer to purchase an SUV or a truck? The market for these gas-guzzling leviathans will collapse overnight, and we’ll all breathe the easier for it.

(4) This far-reaching policy will cure unemployment by creating millions of new jobs in the trading of chocolate bars. Surely, we would have to distinguish between milk chocolate and dark chocolate, chocolate with almonds and chocolate with Brazil nuts, and chocolate with varying percentages of cacao content! We will create whole new classes of experts—all well remunerated, of course, and all no doubt extremely fat.

(5) Replacing money with chocolate bars will quickly eliminate the yawning gap between rich and poor. The wealth gap will disappear, as it becomes apparent to the well-to-do and the ne’er-do-well alike that stockpiling chocolate bars is a losing proposition. After all, how many chocolate bars can you fit in your freezer (assuming you even have a freezer)? Not that many, I’ll wager—and not even if you have two freezers. Similar logic will lead inexorably to the conclusion that the income gap must give way, too. Who would be so crass as to leave work with a mountain of chocolate bars in a wheelbarrow, much less a railroad car? Sheer embarrassment would prevent such a violation of good taste! And if shame doesn’t do the trick, the sun will.

(6) Meanwhile, the gap between rich and poor nations will also begin to disappear. As you’re well aware, cacao, the raw material from which chocolate is made, is grown in poor countries such as the Ivory Coast and Ecuador. Everybody knows that countries like this can’t catch a break. So, by enhancing the value of cacao, we can level the playing field and ensure a fairer distribution of the world’s wealth.

(7) With chocolate bars as the means of exchange rather than money, we can do away with taxes of all sorts! What government in its right mind would want to deal with billions of chocolate bars? Where would they put them? Clearly, even politicians would have more sense than to insist on any confiscatory system. There’s a limit to how much of the stuff even they could eat!

(8) The level of boredom in our society would be sharply diminished as the study of economics is abolished. What’s the point of studying economics in the absence of money?

(9) Once upon a time, you could trade in your money for gold or silver—but no more. For decades now, there has been no intrinsic value to money. Not so with chocolate bars! When all is said and done, if you’re really, really hungry, you can simply munch on your money.