Equestrian Economics at Sweet Apple Acres
Applejack snorted impatiently as she watched the human in the distance struggle towards her at a half-run. She glanced behind herself, then gave the apple tree a well-aimed buck. A shower of apples rained down, with most going into the baskets around the tree as intended. She circled the tree in a slow trot, picking up the strays with her mouth and putting them into the nearest basket. When she was done, she looked up to see that the human had finally arrived, bent over with hands on her knees, gasping for breath.
“Sorry, I…” she wheezed between gulps of air. “More out of shape… than I thought… haven’t been… biking lately… been locked in… apartment for months now.”
Ellie looked up, still gasping, to see that Applejack had already done both her own work and hers, and unlike the human seemed not at all winded.
She took another couple of deep breaths. “Oh, right. You see, an apartment is a type of building from my world. It’s tall like a castle, except it’s not just princesses living there, and instead of magic stones it’s made of— "
“Ah know what a high-rise is!” Applejack interrupted, annoyed. “Ah’ve been to Manehattan before.”
“Oh, right, sorry,” Ellie said, apologetic. Applejack frowned at her.
“Why don’t we just stop here for the day?”
“Yeah… that’s fair…” she looked back at the trees they had done so far, towards the farmhouse. “So, how many bits is that?”
“Well, we got to about twenty-one trees so far, so Ah’d say a just less than half a bit.” She paused to consider. “Ah heck, Ah’ll be Rarity this time an’ round up to a full bit. Not bad for a day’s worth of honest work.” Applejack smiled smugly.
“No, it’s okay, you can keep the change,” Ellie sighed, defeated. “I get enough charity from Princess Celestia, I don’t need it from you, too.”
“Well, Ah gotta be honest, when Twilight told me you never worked as a farmhoof before, Ah figured this is how it would turn out.” She began to trot to the next tree, at a slow enough pace that the human could keep up while still catching her breath. “Still, twenty-one! Figured you’d last a bit longer than that!”
Applejack would have felt more guilty about rubbing it in, had the human not gloated before the work started about how her long limbs could “keep up with those stubs you ponies call legs any day”.
“Yeah…” Ellie said, voice tinged with embarrassment. “You ponies run fast. I definitely underestimated how hard it was going to be.”
“Don’t you feel too bad about yourself, sugarcube!” Applejack reassured her, now that she had finally shown humility. “You’re not the first city pony to underestimate how hard a day of farm work is.”
“That obvious, huh?” she smiled. “What gave it away?”
“The way you hold yourself when you walk. All close like you’re expectin’ to press through a crowd any second. The way you breathe in the fresh air like you’re not used to it. How awkward you are when you meet new ponies. Though that’s probably more ‘cause you spend your whole day holed up in a room readin’ books like Twilight insteada talkin’ to ponies. Did Ah get that right?”
“Yeah, something like that…” If old Reductress articles on a tablet counted as a book, she thought and did not say.
“There’s also that cynicism,” Applejack continued unprompted. “Ah mean, most city ponies don’t have that neither, but when Ah do meet somepony with that attitude, it’s usually a city pony.” She paused. “Sorry, Ah meant city creature.” She shook her head. “Ah know we’re tryina use that more inclusive language now, but Ah’ve been outta practice since the School of Friendship closed for the summer.“
“Oh, it’s okay!” Ellie reassured. “It’s nice that you’re trying to be inclusive, but I understand! People forget!” she shrugged. “I mean, ponies forget. I mean, creatures forget.” She laughed. “See? It’s meant for those like me but even I get confused by it sometimes.“ Ellie paused and got a faraway look on her face. Then she yelled a word Applejack did not recognize as Ponish, though it sounded very harsh, then continued, “How did that follow me across dimensions!?”
Applejack did not pry, nor was she interested. Luckily, they were at the next tree. She revved up and gave another buck, and Ellie actually did her job this time in picking up the spares. They continued at the slow pace.
“Hey, that’s twenty-two now!” Applejack said with mock pride. “At this rate, you’ll actually earn a full bit by sundown.”
“Ha, imagine that,” Ellie said wistfully. “The first bit I earn in Equestria. Isn’t capitalism grand?”
“Capi-whatnow?” Applejack asked, confused.
Ellie lit up. “Oh, that’s right! Your market economy would seem so natural to you that you wouldn’t even have a name for it!“
Applejack did not like the tone of voice that Ellie was using. Like she was talking more to herself than the pony in front of her. Twilight had warned her about it. How she would begin by explaining the non-Ponish word with other non-Ponish words, then would have to explain those in turn, sometimes getting halfway through before saying “never mind” and dropping it. The conversations always ending with nothing actually being explained and Ellie saying “I’ll have to think about this a bit to really explain it well, I’ll get back to you”, and then never doing that. Even Twilight found it frustrating, and she loved doing similar things about esoteric magic spells or obscure Equestrian history facts.
But even Ellie could read the room here. Instead, she took the Socratic method.
“So… since a lot of ponies in Ponyville run their own businesses, not everyone brings in the same amount of bits, right?”
“Yeah, that’s right,” said Applejack. “Sometimes we get a great harvest, sometimes we don’t. Sometimes we come up with a great product everypony loves, sometimes we waste half a harvest on somethin’ nopony does. Changes every year.”
“Yeah, so it’s not just a direct function of hard work, right?” Ellie was excited. “Sometimes it’s just luck. Like you said, sometimes there’s just a bad harvest.”
“Yeah, an’ sometimes ponies fall an’ break their legs. Luck’s a part of life.”
“Yeah, that’s right. But once you do have a bunch of bits, it’s easier to make more, right?”
“Of course.” Applejack waved a foreleg around. “Sweet Apple Acres wasn’t always like this. Mah family used the extra bits we earned from every harvest to make it better every year. Plantin’ more trees, buyin’ more equipment, raisin’ more barns. Lets us harvest more apples an’ make more products every year, so we can earn more bits an’ keep improvin’.”
“Ah, eternal growth…” Ellie said wistfully. The weird tone was back, just for a moment. “But getting back to it. Since having more bits makes getting more bits easier, eventually there are ponies that end up not only having more bits than other ponies, but are set up to keep making more bits even if they don’t necessarily work harder or contribute more to society. They just got lucky.”
“Yeah, that happens,” Applejack agreed. “Ah guess it technically ain’t fair, but lotsa things in life are like that. Fluttershy’s got the looks of a model, Twilight was just born with more magic than the average unicorn, an’ Ah got a closer-knit family than most ponies do. None of us earned those things neither.”
“Yeah, I kinda wanted to get into that whole magic thing with Twilight earlier…” Ellie shook her head. “But never mind. Anyway, what I’m saying is that there have to be ponies that just have so many bits that they can wield more power in the world than other ponies. Not because other ponies agreed to it, like how you elect Mayor Mare, but just because they have so many bits. Really rich ponies.”
“Yeah, we do have one of those. Filthy Rich.”
“His name is Filthy Rich!?” Ellie guffawed, incredulous. She looked like she was about to burst into laughter, but barely stopped herself. “I mean, wow. What does he do?”
“He runs Rich’s Barnyard Bargains. His dad actually started that business by resellin’ our Zap Apple Jam,” she added with a hint of pride.
“What, so his cutie mark is jars of Zap Apple Jam?”
“No, of course not,” Applejack said as if that would be more ridiculous than any of the other ridiculously specific cutie marks she’d seen so far here. “It’s three bags of bits, the big ones like you get at the bank.”
Ellie stifled a laugh again. “Okay, sure. Never mind. But yeah, what if Filthy Rich decided one day to buy up all those cute little owner-run shops you see at the center of Ponyville?”
Applejack raised an eyebrow. “Now, why would he ever do that? Even if he tried, he’d maybe be able to buy two or three before havin’ to sell off his house an’ his business to get more.”
“Huh,” Ellie blinked. “Disparity’s not so bad then. Okay. Well, what if some rich Manehattan pony came here and tried to do that? There have to be some ponies out there with enough bits to do it.“
“Yeah, Ah guess,” Applejack conceded. “But that makes even less sense than Filthy Rich tryin’ to do it! What could possibly be the reason anypony would do somethin’ like that?”
“Well, you know, once all the shops belong to one pony, they could raise the prices however high they want to! Ponyville ponies would have no choice to pay, and the rich pony could take all the profits they want.”
“Now wait just a minute,” Applejack said. “This hypothetical rich pony, who must have gone plum-crazy, by the way, is payin’ these shop ponies for their shops, right? So what’s to stop ‘em from just reopenin’ their shops down the street with all the bits they were just given?”
“Ah, good point,” Ellie mused. “What if as part of the deal the crazy rich pony makes them sign a contract where they aren’t allowed to do that?”
“What?” Applejack said in an offended tone. “Nopony in Ponyville would ever sign a contract like that!”
“Really? Even if it was a lot of bits?”
“No!” Applejack yelled. They had stopped walking some time ago. She pointed a hoof at her cutie mark of three apples. “If some crazy rich pony came up to me an’ offered me enough bits to buy all of Equestria on the condition that Ah can’t ever run an apple farm with mah family again, I’d tell ‘em to go straight to Tartarus! An’ it’s not just me. Bon Bon’s cutie mark is candies. She’d never sell her candy shop. Mr. Breezy’s is a fan. He’d never give up his weird little fan store. Same for the rest of ‘em! Ah can’t imagine anypony givin’ up not only their livelihoods but their life’s passion just for a big ol’ pile of bits!“
There was a pause as Ellie considered this.
“Well, it doesn’t have to be voluntary. What if crazy rich pony, I don’t know, decided to open up a candy shop right next to Bon Bon’s? Then what if they imported all the best candies from the best candymakers in Manehattan and sold them at a huge loss, undercutting her? They’d be selling as good or better candies at a lower price, and nobody would ever go to Bon Bon’s little shop ever again!”
“That ain’t true!” Applejack protested. “Even if this other candy shop sold better candies at a lower price, it’s not like Bon Bon was chargin’ a hoof an’ a leg! Ponies’d still be choosin’ between a pony they know who’s able to tell ‘em all about her passion with a smile an’ this crazy stranger who ain’t.“ Applejack paused a second. “Well, knowin’ Bon Bon maybe ‘with a smile’ is a bit of an exaggeration…”
“No, the logistics of it isn’t the point!” Ellie was getting frustrated. “The point is that having way more bits means you have more power that you can use to hurt other ponies without it being illegal! Like, what if the rich pony just really hates Bon Bon in particular, and starts giving away candy or paying ponies to take them? Or they pay a newspaper to write bad reviews of her candy shop, or they start paying suppliers to not sell her the ingredients she needs, or who knows what? Whatever it takes, it ends up with Bon Bon never being able to sell a candy again. Then she goes bankrupt and has to sell off her shop knowing she will never do what she loves again and she cries a lot. What then, Applejack?“
“Well, if anypony tried anythin’ like that, Bon Bon or any of us would just take it up to Princess Celestia! She’d put a stop to it right quick.” Applejack’s conviction was firm. “An’ don’t you start on about the rich pony somehow bein’ so rich that they could bribe her to not do anythin’. As the highest sovereign, Celestia has no possible incentive to do anythin’ other than what’s fair!“
Ellie opened her mouth to speak, then closed it again. The thought for a second, opened her mouth, then closed it again. Then she opened it again. “I would have a lot of arguments against that, but most of them don’t really apply to an immortal magic goddess who has led your society for a thousand years and is literally responsible for the sun rising each day, yet somehow has the time to get involved in the details of every little pony’s lives.” She rubbed her neck and grimaced. “I mean, from what I’ve seen so far, I guess can’t argue with the results. Things seem to work pretty well around here on the surface.”
“See, there’s the cynicism Ah was talkin’ about!” Applejack retorted. “Sometimes an apple’s just an apple, ya don’t hafta cut it up lookin’ for the worm. Besides, even if some crazy rich pony made it so that Bon Bon couldn’t sell candies for awhile, she’d just hafta wait it out! For the rich pony to get bored an’ give up or run outta money or get run outta town or somethin’. She wouldn’t hafta sell the shop.”
“What do you mean, ‘wait it out’?” Ellie asked, confused. “If she can’t sell candies, how can she buy food or… or do things?”
“The same way you are now?” Applejack raised an eyebrow.
It slowly dawned on Ellie. “Oh, Celestia’s bit…”
“Everypony— everycreature in Equestria gets it. Ah get it, Big Mac gets it, Granny Smith gets it. Applebloom just got old enough for a half-share. Even Filthy Rich gets it, an’ he needs it least of all. Don’t matter none.”
Ellie stood in silence, the gears in her head turning. Applejack looked at her with a smirk.
“What, you thought that you were special or somethin’, just ‘cause you’re from another world?“
“Well, a special charity case, maybe…” she trailed off. “I just thought it was just until I got settled in and found a job or something. You mean I’ll just keep getting it?”
“Well, yeah.”
“But then I really wouldn’t ever need to work, unless I wanted to. Or if I wanted to go on vacation or buy something fancy. And if I was ever in a job that wasn’t treating me fairly I could just leave.”
“Well, yeah,” Applejack said as if all those things were the most obvious things in the world. “What, you thought that you might one day have to live off just that farmhoof income?”
Ellie rubbed her neck and muttered something to herself, but not loudly enough for Applejack to make it out, so she just continued.
“You’d hafta work somethin’ ridiculous like thirty, or even forty hours a week, just to buy enough food an’ have a place to live! You wouldn’t even be able to buy anythin’ just for fun or go relax at the spa or take any trips! What kinda life is that?”
“Well, it’s not,” Ellie sighed in agreement. “But that’s how it works where I come from. That’s the deal most people get. My dad worked sixty hours a week when he first immigrated, and some of my friends are doing that even now.”
“Well, that just sounds awful. If ponies hadta work all the time like that, they wouldn’t have time to go support our team at a buckball game in the middle of the day, or wait in line all mornin’ for Apple Family cider on the first day of cider season, or join in on any of the festivals or fairs we do all the time here. What kinda town, what kinda community would we be?”
Ellie took it all in.
“Yeah… It would awful, wouldn’t it?”
“Yeah…” Applejack paused. “Wait, what is it that you do for a job? Since apparently everycreature in your world needs one to be alive?“
She winced. “It’s a long story. Are you sure you want to know?”
“Ah’ve got time. After all, Ah don’t have to work in order to not starve to death.” Applejack sat herself down to emphasize the point.
So Ellie explained what an engagement data analyst for a clickbait news site actually did for a living. It was far less difficult than she would have expected to get the gist across. “Magic newspaper” bridged a lot of the conceptual distance.
“Ah must not be understandin’ you correctly, because that shouldn’t be a job,” Applejack remarked skeptically.
“No, I think that means you are understanding me correctly.”
“No, Ah mean that shouldn’t be a job! As in, by doin’ the job better you’re makin’ your world worse.”
“I know!” Ellie sighed. “That’s why I don’t exactly put in more than the minimum I need to not get fired. I was actually even going to quit right after I bought my condo, but then a stable job I could do from home suddenly got a lot more appealing…”
“So you understand the problem?” Applejack sounded even more skeptical. “You said earlier that there was apple buckin’ jobs in your world, too. Why would you choose this over an honest job like apple buckin’?”
“Well, it’s called apple picking where I’m from, actually.” Ellie chuckled and looked at her hands. “Hey, I just got why you call it apple ‘bucking’ and we call it apple ‘picking’! Hah. But yeah, I mean, besides preferring to not do actual work, my job pays a lot more than apple picking.”
Applejack somehow got even more skeptical. “Well, that seems wronger than a rattlesnake wearin’ pants at the Grand Gallopin’ Gala, but even if that were true, Ah can’t imagine even you choosin’ a job like that just for a little bit more money than an apple ‘picker’.”
“Well, it’s not exactly a little bit…” Ellie rubbed her jaw nervously. “It’s more like four to five times as much?”
Applejack’s jaw hung open.
“Actually,” Ellie corrected. “That’s assuming you meant an apple picker in my country. The median apple picker probably works in China, so I actually probably make something like twenty to thirty times as much.”
Applejack’s jaw hung open even wider, somehow.
“Yeah, I feel ya…” Ellie sighed, having nothing else to add.
“Y’know…” Applejack started. “Ah gotta be honest, an’ Ah really mean no offense. But Ah’m glad there’s just one of y’all here.”
Author's Note
Continued in And She Was