Volume 4 · The Ledger and the Loom · Essay 170

Monopsony

Some ideas arrive wearing uniforms. Monopsony arrives in a kurta — plain, comfortable, and ready for work.

Strip it to the floor and you find an old instruction: look carefully, judge slowly, act decently. The new name exists because the old instruction keeps being forgotten.

Ask the LIC agent at your door and the trader at his terminal — both will tell you the same thing in different clothes: money listens to discipline and laughs at moods.

Money is a good clerk and a terrible master; the arrangement is entirely up to us. Print it on a card if you like. Better: print it on a habit.