Most fairy tales are designed to teach moral principles like being honest and treating others kindly. Yet such moral lessons don’t seem to work in the real world where corporations lay off people while recording record profits, politicians rewrite laws for their benefit, and government leaders ignore the needs of the people to fatten their own bank account when cooperating with oppressive regimes.
To help people prepare for the real world, I’ve written a new e-book called “99% Fairy Tales (Children’s Stories the 1% Tell About the Rest of Us).” For a sample of the types of fairy tales you can find in this e-book, which are based on the stories from the Brothers Grimm, here’s a typical example:
The Elves and the Shoemaker
There once was a shoemaker who worked very hard and was very honest, but still he could not earn enough to live upon because capital gains taxes and union labor costs drove his expenses so high that he could barely afford to stay in business, let alone donate money to lobbyists who could influence the politician of his choice. After struggling for years, soon everything he had in the world was gone except for just enough leather to make one pair of shoes.
He cut the leather out for the next day, meaning to rise early in the morning to his work. His conscience was clear and his heart light amidst all his troubles; so he went peaceably to bed, left all his cares to Heaven, and soon fell asleep because he knew he was praying to the right God who would one day take him to paradise while letting three-quarters of the world’s population suffer for eternity because they happened to believe in the same God but called Him a different name.
In the morning after he had said his prayers, he sat himself down to his work. To his great wonder, there stood the shoes all ready made, upon the table. The good man knew not what to say or think at such an odd thing happening. He looked at the workmanship; there was not one false stitch in the whole job; all was so neat and true, that it was quite a masterpiece, almost as precisely crafted as if by the illegal immigrants he had once employed in his shop to lower his expenses while exploiting their labor. That had lasted until the conservative politicians in his town had passed laws to drive illegal immigrants out and force business people like himself to hire native citizens. Such native citizens refused to do the work at the pay he could offer, which was why he had been reduced to working by himself and steadily losing money in the process.
While he was mulling over the idea of blaming an entire race of people for all the problems of the world, since that line of thinking had always worked so well throughout history, a customer came in, noticed the finely crafted pair of shoes, and willingly paid a price higher than usual for them.
The poor shoemaker was overjoyed and with the money, bought leather enough to make two pairs more. In the evening he cut out the work, and went to bed early so he might get up and begin the next day. When he got up in the morning, the work was done once more. Soon more buyers arrived, who paid him handsomely for his goods, so that he bought leather enough for four pairs more. He cut out the work again overnight and found it done in the morning, as before; and so it went on for some time: what was got ready in the evening was always done by daybreak, and the good man soon became thriving and well off again, which demonstrated the superiority of capitalism, especially when propped up on the backs of an unpaid, heavily exploited work force.
One evening, about Christmas-time, as he and his wife were sitting over the fire chatting together, he said to her, “I should like to sit up and watch tonight, that we may see who it is that comes and does my work for me.” The wife liked the thought; correctly guessing that it wasn’t union workers willing to work outside the restricted bounds of their limited job descriptions, so they left a light burning, and hid themselves in a corner of the room, behind a curtain that was hung up there, and watched what would happen.
As soon as it was midnight, there came in two little naked dwarfs; and they sat themselves upon the shoemaker’s bench, took up all the work that was cut out, and began to ply with their little fingers, stitching and rapping and tapping away at such a rate, that the shoemaker was all wonder, and could not take his eyes off them because they worked faster and better than the illegal immigrants he had once hired before. When the job was quite done and the shoes ready for use upon the table, the two naked elves bustled away as quick as lightning.
The next day the wife said to the shoemaker. “These little wights have made us rich, just like the illegal immigrants we used to hire, except now we don’t even have to pay them. Perhaps we ought to be thankful to them, and do them a good turn if we can because a public show of gratitude can often make up for hours of neglect and exploitation. I am quite sorry to see them run about as they do; and indeed it is not very decent, for they have nothing upon their backs to keep off the cold. I’ll tell you what, I will make each of them a shirt, and a coat and waistcoat, and a pair of pantaloons into the bargain; and do you make each of them a little pair of shoes.”
The thought pleased the good cobbler very much; and one evening, when all the things were ready, they laid them on the table, instead of the work that they used to cut out, and then went and hid themselves, to watch what the little elves would do.
About midnight in they came, dancing and skipping, hopped round the room, and then went to sit down to their work as usual; but when they saw the clothes lying for them, they laughed and chuckled, and seemed mightily delighted.
Then they dressed themselves in the twinkling of an eye, and danced and capered and sprang about, as merry as could be; till at last they danced out at the door, and away over the green.
The good couple saw them no more; but everything went well with them from that time forward, as long as they lived. Except one day a government official tried to interfere with the shoemaker’s business and asked how he managed to make so many shoes each night without hiring any union workers who would gladly work half as hard for twice the pay while still failing to do a job unless they could also earn overtime for the work they should have completed during their regular work shift.
Not knowing what to say, the shoemaker invited the government official to wait until midnight until he too spotted the elves sneaking out to make the shoes all night, before darting away at the first sign of daybreak.
At first, the government official was furious. “How dare you employ illegal immigrants in your shop without giving me a piece of the profits to look the other way? I shall have to fine you for your irresponsibility.”
Thinking quickly, the shoemaker replied, “But sir, those were not illegal immigrants. Did you not see the size that they were?”
The government official paused as he remembered that the elves were no taller than the workbench at which they toiled.
“And did you not see,” continued the shoemaker,” that I did not even pay them for their labor? Even illegal immigrants would not fail to stop work without any form of compensation.”
“So who are your workers?” the government official finally asked.
“Children!” the shoemaker exclaimed happily. “You see, if we get rid of all illegal immigrants to do our work and no native citizens will take their jobs, our only other option is to take kids from poor neighborhoods, give them work, and repeal all our child labor laws so these children can undercut the wages of union workers and do the same work much cheaper. As you said, you did not see me pay them, which proves that I am not hiring illegal immigrants, but instead am exploiting child workers. In the land of radical conservative thought, cutting costs with child labor is perfectly acceptable as long as we only exploit children from poor parents who can’t afford to influence policy through generous donations to elected officials, such as yourself.”
And after paying a bribe to the government official, the shoemaker, his wife, and the government official lived happily ever after on the slave labor of the magical elves who did all of his work for free every night to prove that child labor really can work in the land of conservative thought.