Lew: Yesterday’s RIP about the actor, Peter Graves, reminded me of his wonderful film, Stalag 17. Graves played a German spy (Price) placed inside the barracks in a P.O.W. camp for American prisoners. The hero (Sefton) was played by William Holden, the prison-camp entrepreneur whose economic successes — among other attributes — led to his being disliked by the other prisoners. Sefton was a free-trader — negotiating with the Germans, Russians, et al. for economic gain, and his co-prisoners found it easy to suspect him of informing on his fellow-Americans (which he had not). At one point, the other prisoners undertake a very violent Thurman Arnold style antitrust act against Sefton, and redistribute his earned wealth.
There is more than just artistic license in this treatment of a P.O.W. entrepreneur. This trait was common throughout such camps, and illustrated the effectiveness of the pricing system — cigarettes or chocolate were the usual currency — to respond to increases or decreases in goods made available to the prisoners. One also saw the emergence of a very active “service” industry, with budding entrepreneurs offering such services as the cutting of hair, laundering of clothing, etc.
As prisoners generally received the same quantities of food and other supplies from their German captors, or the Red Cross — there were occasional packages individual prisoners received from home — the camps provided the opportunity to discover how a condition of equality in wealth very quickly evolved into inequalities brought about by entrepreneurial insights and skills. In many instances, the prison camp proletariat — i.e., those who had neither the inclination nor the talent for effective trading — would demand (as was done in Stalag 17) a “redistribution” of wealth earned by those who succeeded through voluntary exchanges with others.
There is a wonderful study on the economics of such camps. Written by R.A. Radford, and titled “The Economic Organization of a P.O.W. Camp,” it was published in vol. 12 Economica (1945).
