A Little Mind Experiment

Follow along if you will, with a simple little experiment we can conduct in our minds...

Ready?

Here we go:

1) Let's begin with 100 people.
2) Let's ship them to a deserted island.
3) Let's leave them alone for 90 days.


Now, say we come back to find our colonists all doing well. All of them are alive, all fed, clothed, and sheltered to varying degrees.

We ask them what transpired during the last 90 days, and how they managed to take care of themselves during that time.

Here's what they say:

1) We started to work together to take care of our mutual problems and provide for ourselves.
2) But some people didn't do much work. Some things were done that weren't needed, and some things were needed that weren't being done.
3) So we made an incentive system to balance out productivity with need.
4) We did this by creating a money system.
5) This put everyone to work and let talented people do what they do best, so other people wouldn't waste time and effort doing something they would never be able to do well. We had farmers, builders, people who sewed, people who fished, etc. and thus provided well for ourselves.


Now, given the situation thus far, what conclusions would you have to come to if the following piece of information was true as well:

99 of the colonists were "in debt".


What happened? What are the consequences of this? Who is owed? How much? Why? Is it reasonable? Rational? Justifiable? Necessary? Productive?