Page 34 - Big Idea

The Big Idea – Act 2

Buyers and sellers both depend on me, it’s true—
Yet both wish to deny me the amount I’m due
For finding and obtaining and hauling the goods
Through rivers and deserts and demon-haunted woods.

My stock has been stolen, gone rotten in the heat;
Pecked at by birds, fallen to pieces at my feet:
These losses I can bear only by increasing
The customer’s cost, and complaints are unceasing!

What I need is protection and stability:
But at a price well within my ability—
Otherwise it might become the type of expense
That grows ever larger until it is immense.

So I have come to this meeting not just to trade,
But to find out if somehow a deal can be made
To help this poor trader make a profit that’s fair—
Then finally the mouse will keep the lion’s share!

(ENTREPRENEUR retreats to back of stage and talks with
WOMEN; RIVALS, who have been listening to him, come to the
front of stage)

RIVAL 1: Aha! Mark well his words, my friend: he is another piece
of the puzzle of power.

RIVAL 2: Him? All he wants to do is peddle his wares. He’s no
warrior, or even a great schemer.

RIVAL 1: But he understands the necessity of compromise. He is
willing to give up something in order to get what he wants, and what
he wants is safety. Those women think he is behaving beyond the
bounds of convention, but in fact his actions are entirely natural. His
business flows like water from higher levels to lower; he will take
great pains to avoid any blockage in his movement toward personal
gain. Thus he can be an ally as a source of whatever commodity the
ruler desires to exact as the price of his protection.

RIVAL 2: You mean he would trade at a loss to you as long as you
could assure him of trade at a profit to others?

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