The Little Red Hen

There was once a little red hen.  She owned a wheat field.  When duck came asking for a job working on the farm, the little red hen told him that she did not need any help, because she had an automatic system for planting, watering, harvesting, and separating the wheat.  The little red hen also owned a flour mill, but when pig asked if there was anything he could do to help, the little red hen told him that she had an automatic delivery system from the farm to the mill, and the processes for milling the wheat and bagging the flour were automated as well.  The little red hen had a bread factory, but when cow asked if there was something she could do to help, the little red hen told cow that the factory was so well automated that she did not even need someone for quality control.  The little red hen had a bakery as well.  When horse asked if he could help sell the bread, the little red hen showed him rows of completely automated bread vending machines, and she told him she already had it covered.

When it came time to harvest the wheat, the automatic harvester harvested all the wheat, it dumped it into a thresher, which separated the grain from the chaff.  The wheat was then pour into buckets on a conveyor belt, which carried the wheat to the mill next door.  Machines at the mill dumped the buckets into the milling machine, and the flour cascaded down a funnel into bags.  Another conveyor carried the flour next door to the bread factory, where they were dumped into huge mixers along with water and other ingredients, then divided into loaves, cooked, bagged, and sent to the bakery on yet another conveyor.  A complex mechanical system hidden behind the vending machines filled each one with bagged loaves of bread.  The little red hen then waited for customers to buy her bread.

After a few hours with no business, the little red hen looked out the front window.  Standing outside, across the street, stood duck, pig, cow, and horse, looking longingly at the bakery.  The little red hen walked outside and called across the street, asking why they were looking but not buying any bread.  One by one, each of them explained that they had been unable to find any jobs, so they had no money.  They just could not afford the bread.  The little red hen stuck up her beak and went back inside.  She did not need friends who were poor, when she had so much.  If they did not have any money, then they would not have any bread.

Duck, pig, cow, and horse lived on the streets until they starved to death.  Only the little red hen was left in the town, but she was content.  She had plenty of bread.  Her lack of friends did not bother her.  She was rich, so she did not need any friends.  Her money and her property could be her friends.  At least, this is what she told herself when she started feeling lonely.


(In case someone thinks that this story is about the evils of automation, read my opinion on that subject: Dehumanizing.  Automation is not evil.  People who succumb to greed are what is evil.)