I couldn’t resist that title … as a writer, sometimes an idea comes to mind, and you don’t really know what it is until you write it … it’s as much a process of discovery as creation.
You probably know the saying:
“To a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail”
… and clearly the joke in the title does not need explaining (or shouldn’t anyway).
But the reason I want to write this, is because along with the title and the joke, comes an idea …
So I’d like to share that idea.
An economic analogy:
The analogy here is that to the economist, the hammer is currency based economics, the profit motive, market forces, micro/macro-economics, and all these other “tools” he’s been using to successfully “nail” his profits … and by which standards, he deems his actions a success.
However, our economist is now faced with a situation he doesn’t understand … he’s used to nailing the loose nail at the bar … but now he meets a loose screw … and while it seems to work at first, he doesn’t understand why things keep coming loose again after he nails them.
What he’s failing to see is that, as he uses his extremely blunt and crude instrument, which he always thought was so sophisticated, to ram this screw as if it were a nail, he removes the wood that would normally have been gripped by the thread … it’s very difficult to get it in, requiring much more force than usual … it damages the surface he was trying to leave clean, and in the end he has to try other things to bodgy the job.
Translation of the analogy:
This is what the difference is between property / trade / currency based economics (in dealing with nails and belting things), versus Open Empire … which is more like one of those Leatherman or similar tools … more like an entire toolbox … so we’ve got many options, for many different types of nails, screws, and other fasteners, hinges etc. … in fact, we’re even carrying spares so that we can switch both tool and fastener to fit the purpose and desired outcome.
More importantly … if we meet anything sufficiently interesting and loose in a bar … there’s plenty of room to store a fucking vibrator.
The right tool, for the right job.