grnzbra

Fjolnirsson

I checked out your BLOG and noticed you have Grossman's piece on sheepdogs. It's a very nice analogy and makes everyone feel good. However, what he neglects mentioning is that the sheepdog works for the farmer, not for the sheep. He isn't there to protect the sheep, but rather to protect the farmer's investment in the sheep. He may come to care for the sheep on an emotional level and doing his job and protecting the farmer's investment in the sheep, coincidentally, protects the sheep. But that's just a side benefit.

Meanwhile, the farmer must maintain the sheepdog, which costs money. Let's assume that if the farmer has 10 sheepdogs, the investment in the sheep will be absolutely and totally safe; ain't no wolf getting at those sheep. However, 10 sheepdogs are a negative cash flow while sheep are a renewable resource. The farmer may consider laying off (or if he's just starting out his sheep farm, may never consider hiring) 3 sheepdogs. So instead of 10 sheepdogs, he only has 7, who can protect the flock most of the time. Perhaps he'll only lose 1% of his flock in any year. But new births can make up for that).

But 7 sheepdogs are still a drain, so getting rid of 2 more will save even more money. Somewhere in here, the farmer will do a cost/benefit analysis and determine the opitmum number of sheepdogs vs sheep losses to wolves.

The farmer is happy, and the 5 laid off sheepdogs can possibly take up another career, and the remaining 5 sheepdogs do the best they can and feel very satisfied when the catch a wolf that has been killing sheep.

Meanwhile, most of the sheep feel thankful that the sheepdog is there "protecting" them by catching the wolves that kill the sheep. But some of them begin grow teeth and realize that they would stand a better chance of survival if they used those teeth to defend themselves. (Grossman mentions this in his Bulletproof Mind when he talks about why we are so much safer in the air today than before 9/11)

The farmer, however, realized that if all the sheep grew teeth, they would no longer be sheep, would no longer need his "protection". The sheepdogs also realized that with teeth, the sheep would no longer need their "protection". The farmer, looking at bankruptcy if his sheep went off on their own, and the sheepdogs looking at having to join their bretheren who became used car salesmen both took whatever steps were necessary to to keep the sheep in their state of sheepness. Killing them would be counter productive so they had to convince them that they were, by nature, helpless and stupid and that their only hope for salvation was the benevolance of the farmer and the bravery of the sheepdogs.

So the farmer tells the sheep how he is protecting them by maintaining a sheepdog force, even though he knows perfectly well that he isn't interrested in protecting them but rather in protecting his investment in them. And the sheepdogs willingly go along with this because they belong to an exclusive club of sheepdogs that have certain perks like having teeth. (The farmer has ordered that all sheep must have their teeth pulled "for their own safety"). And together they work to convince the sheep that they are protected when the only thing that is being protected (subject to the cost/benefit analysis) is the farmer's investment.

And some places (usually referred to as People's Republics) the sheep have enthusiastically bought into this. And in some other place, they have not.

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