Money

It is thought that 200,000 people work for McDonald’s Corporation, it earns about $6 billion every year. All the workers do what they are told because if they do what they are told then they get some of the corporations money. Why does everyone want this money? Money is just another story that people believe. It’s just a piece of paper. But along come some really good storytellers called bankers and politicians, people will believe almost any story that bankers and politicians tell. If everyone believes this story, that piece of paper is worth 3 mangoes.

Of course, you can use this piece of paper to buy anything you want. You can buy books or toys anything else. This is something that monkeys can’t do. Chimps do occasionally give one chimp a scratch on the back, and the second chimp might pick thorns and flees off the other chimp. But if a chimp gave another chimp some money and wanted a delicious mango in return, all the chimps would be so confused. Chimps don’t believe in money or corporations.

So that’s how stories make it easy for millions of people to cooperate with strangers. Without the story of football, we wouldn’t know how to play the game, you could kick a ball around with other people, but you couldn’t play football. Without the stories the stories of corporations and money, you couldn’t go to McDonalds and buy a burger.