I am reading a fascinating book, The Art of Immersion ^[1], by Frank Rose–I’ll be interviewing him this week for EconTalk and if all goes as planned, the interview will be up on the web on October 11.

The book is a look at storytelling and how the web has made storytelling immersive. Along the way, he discusses Lost, a very immersive story, obviously, for millions of people. I saw a few episodes but never immersed myself in that world. Rose discusses Lostpedia, the Lost Encyclopedia and the wiki available online about everything Lost. In particular he mentions that there is an article in the wiki on the economics of the island ^[2].

I checked it out for fun. It’s pretty bizarre. Written initially (then later edited by others) by a self-proclaimed socialist who at the time was a grad student in economics, it lays out three approaches to resource allocation on the island:

• The socialist approach allocates resources through consensus and planning.
• The capitalist approach relies upon a market to allocate resources based on supply and demand ^[3].
• The tribal approach holds that in small communities economic decisions can be made at a personal level. That such a community is not of sufficient scale to require or manage a formal system of exchange or enforcement of laws. Thus the tribal approach relies on small-scale exchanges and community resources.

Jack represents the socialist approach to resource allocation. Jack is a mostly benevolent person who attempts to solve the problems of the Island imposed by scarcity, even to the point of personal exhaustion. Jack’s surname, “Shephard,” reinforces this interpretation – he exists to care for and organize the survivors.

Sawyer is seen as representing capitalism. In this context, Capitalism is defined as an economic and social system in which the means of production are predominantly privately owned and operated for profit, and in which investments, distribution, income, production and pricing of goods and services are determined through the operation of a market economy.

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