Listen, Grocery Strikers, and I’ll Tell You a Tale

Union fliers in the grocery strike include a parable about a man who is granted his wish for a goat and another man who is jealous and is granted his wish to kill the goat. The moral, we are told, is that we should all work for free health care rather than object to grocery workers getting their care free.

This is a cute story but not an accurate portrayal of the situation. Here is my version of that parable, tuned to something closer to reality: Once upon a time, a miller went into the forest and labored all day and all night to fell a tree and cut the wood and load his wagon and haul the lumber into town to sell. With the money he earned he purchased a goat, which he took back to his mill, and there he rested.

When he awoke he went to the barn for milk and discovered a hose attached to one of the teats on the goat. He followed the hose as it traveled out the barn and across his field and into the house of his neighbor, a laborer who sometimes worked for the miller carrying grain. The miller was angered that the laborer had helped himself to the milk, and he cut the hose.

When the laborer discovered that the hose had been cut and that he would receive no free milk, he howled in displeasure. He went into town and declared that he would not labor for anyone unless his free milk was restored. And he stood at the gate of the mill and hurled insults and cabbages at anyone who brought their grain to the miller for grinding.

After many weeks the laborer was without food and still without milk and was even angrier. He blamed the townspeople and he blamed the miller and he even blamed the goat. But as he sat and shouted, still the free milk did not come to him.

Finally, an old man happened down the road. He was a traveler and a stranger to those parts. He came upon the laborer, who began to shout at him. The traveler asked him why he was so angry. After hearing the laborer’s story, he asked the laborer why he did not go into the forest and cut down his own tree and make his own lumber to carry into town to sell so that he could buy his own goat, as the miller had done?

“That is foolish,” the laborer replied. “The goat can provide enough milk for two. The miller is trying to shame me by doing the work that I do every day and then hoarding the goat for himself. The miller can simply run his own hose to the barn and we both would have free milk.”

“But,” the traveler observed, “the goat wouldn’t be there without the work that the miller has done; there would be no animal for you or the miller to run a hose to. So the milk can never be free for the miller, for he has had to pay his share for the goat. What share are you paying?”

With this the laborer became even more upset. He picked up the traveler and threw him into the river and returned to shout his insults. He remained convinced that someday his milk would be free again. He waits there to this very day.

Eric K. Hainline is a senior systems and integration analyst in Los Angeles.