In response to my recent blog on the economic systems within P.O.W. camps, Robin Kalhorn sent the following e-mail:
I greatly appreciated your post on the Lewrockwell.com blog about the economics of World War II POW camps. My great uncle Frank Samethini was a POW of the Japanese. His memoir goes into some detail about the brisk trade in goods and services among prisoners. At one point he had his own “barber shop.” Here are several excerpts, with hyperlinks to the relevant chapters:
Like Tamarkan, Chungkai is not too bad as far as POW camps go. The Japs are reasonable because their commander is humane, the work is not too hard, and the food is pretty good. There is even a canteen where one may buy fried eggs, omelets, spicy snacks, ginger bread, and rice flour doughnuts! Finely cut native tobacco, properly cured by former tobacco experts from the British-American Tobacco Company in the Indies, is rolled with cleverly constructed tools into cigarettes of reasonably thin paper. Scores of men, unfit for manual work, are being employed by the “factories,” the entire profit of which is donated into the hospital fund. On “concert” days the theatre ground resounds will the calls of cigarette peddlers, all for obvious reasons picked from non-smokers. They sell light, medium, and strong blends.
One morning while I’m shaving, a brilliant idea pops up. I’m just about to start on my chin, the old fashioned razor blade in my hand coming into view in the mirror, and there and then it hits me that this kind of shaving knife does not require replacement as ordinary blades do. In our circumstances it is difficult if not impossible to obtain new razor blades, while this knife can be sharpened on a strop. Costs nothing to do that. So, why not use it to earn some money on the side? Be a barber, use the knife to cut off other people’s beards for a fee. What could stop me?
“Manslaughter, that’ll stop ye,” says Joop.
“Oh, come on now, Joop. I can always learn.”
“Not on me face, ye won’t. An’ I’d ask them to pay in advance ’cause them jokers will refuse to part with their dough when you’ve finished with them!”
Harry offers to stand by with a club, protecting me against the wrath of next-of-kin.
Indeed the first customers bleed profusely, and bluntly refuse to pay the five cent fee. But after a while I get the hang of it, and there is the time when half a tikal, about fifty cents, is easily made on a busy afternoon. Because the extra money is used to sustain our daily menu, Joop and Harry call me affectionately “Mister Figaro,” telling everybody that they never had any doubt as to the successful outcome of their friend’s career.
One evening every one of us is issued with a box of Red Cross gifts from the U.S.A., containing such refined luxuries as powdered milk, corned beef and other delicacies, plus six packages of American cigarettes. It is overwhelming! I see some men take out their cans one by one, only to put them back in the box again, their faces lit with pure rapture. Others begin slowly and with concentration, bobbing their bony Adam’s apples with every bite, nibbling, licking, munching and swallowing, now and then blowing an audible sigh of utter enjoyment over milling, fat-moistened lips. Almost at once a market in Red Cross goods is set up for those who wish to swap. Throughout the evening until deep in the night we can hear the calling of the latest quotations: “One pork, two raisins and coffee,” for example, meaning that for one tin of pork (Spam), two packets of raisins and one tin of instant coffee can be bought. The hardest currency is cigarettes. Nonsmokers will be making a fortune, is the general prediction.
Even in totalitarian prison camps, the market order emerges!
