Sales as a dietary regulator.

The evolution of human thought has given us capitalism, which is used as a framework for all sorts of great things. One of the great inventions is sales. You know, "buy one, get one _{of the same or lesser price} free" kind of thing.

As with most achievements of capitalism, sales serve the general public rather indirectly: while they do provide stuff cheaper than normal, quite often you can either find the same thing somewhere else for the same price, or just don't need the item. As usual, it benefits "corporations" (in general sense): they can get rid of the goods with expiring shelf-life, or they lure people into the store with a loss leader.

There is, however, no reason to abolish sales in a neo-monarchy. The Wise Monarch should use every means possible to keep his subjects happy and healthy... Perhaps even more healthy than happy, because the projected lifespan (and hence the generated tax revenue) of the healthy but unhappy people is longer than of the happy but fat unhealthy.

And since most people would buy only the thing that are on sale, this mechanism can be used for regulating what people eat without the atrocities of older monarchies. No, the Wise Monarch would just put fatty fish on sale for one week, thus forcing his subject to get some Omega-3 acids. Then he'd replace fish with beef, beef with chicken and so on. He would constantly put different vegetables on sale to make his subjects happier with alternating fiber sources and their bowel movements regular, which also contributes to happiness.

The rich would, of course, avoid these regulations by buying whatever they want (since they can afford it), but they already do mostly healthy choices, so the Wise Monarch shouldn't be too concerned with them.

For extra happiness of the general public, the periodic costumed parades could be held and TV shows themed after the current week's Food. Next week is the Fish week. Come watch the Fishwalk at the Main Street this Friday. Don't miss the Salmon's intern next Tuesday at 8!

Non-monetary motivation

I am having a cold sore these days, so I have a great chance to think about why don't we have a cure for herpes yet. Just as there's no cure for many things, but lots of fairly effective treatments.

Certainly, our understanding of how our bodies work is limited, and probably never will be complete, but it would appear that -- and I'm certainly not the first one to notice -- there's less incentive to search for cures. Because, obviously, if you cure an ailment, you're shrinking your own market (you may end up eliminating the disease altogether!), while a good treatment provides you with a profit forever. Therefore, those who actually can find cures -- pharmaceutical companies -- benefit more from providing treatments, rather than cures, because, just as any corporation, they are in a business of making money.

So it appears that while monetary rewards do work great for us (the humanity) in some areas (see how cooler our cell phones are getting every year!), maximizing the profit may sometimes take you into a direction opposite to the one that the common good might suggest.

Obviously, this is something governments should regulate, and it is equally obvious that modern "donation"-based governments would never do that. Interestingly, this particular case does not actually require much intervention. A wise monarch would solve the issue with a single edict, something like: "No healthy person should be in the board of directors in a pharmaceutical company". And let the market take care of things ;)