Superb piece by Richard Davies (HT: JP Koning blog).
Davies tracks the economies and currency markets in prisons in Louisiana (also called as Angola):
In many ways, a prison’s official economy is like that of a regular town. In Angola there is a world of work, with jobs and pay, promotions and demotions. And there is a world of shopping, with consumer goods and stores. But prisons are economic systems in which the cost of goods bears no relation to wages or the buying power of the workforce. The most important connections of a market economy – the prices that link work and pay, demand and supply – have been severed, intentionally, by the authorities. The official prison economy exists, but it may as well not, leaving the prisoners to build their own underground markets.
In the underground prison economy, things that might seem simple are hard, and things…
View original post 278 more words
Utopia, you are standing in it! 
Recent Comments