Prepare Thyselves, Our Days As The Dominant Species On The Planet Are Numbered

So Keith Chen, a behavioral economist at Yale, had this great idea: teach monkeys to use money and see if they behave like humans do. They did this more than he could have possibly imagined...

A Google search of the phrase “monkey prostitution” yields many results, some of which are even articles. Clearly the fact that monkeys exchange things for sex is not new or groundbreaking. What makes this particular incident so amazing is that it was carried out with money. As mentioned in the article, as well as in Macroecon, one of the characteristics of money is its fungibility. The idea that this inherently valueless item can be substituted for various items with real value is one of the six defining characteristics of money. That these two monkeys met in a market, agreed on a price in exchange for services with varied personal values, carried out this transaction with money, and happiness was thusly created blows my freaking mind. One could argue that all that truly separates us from animals is a perception of time and an understanding of symbolism. This interaction, completely devoid of external influence, indicates that these monkeys are capable of those two fundamental levels of higher understanding. They behaved like humans do in regard to price shocks and risk games, and then carried things a step further. In 60 million years they will likely re-invent the internet.



Something else I was pondering about was the reason for ending the experiment. The animal folks didn’t want to disrupt the social structure of the monkeys through the introduction of money. While some people may not be a fan of money at this juncture, I believe it performs a vital function not only to society, but our species as a whole. In human society money is not just a store of value, but often is seen as an indication of personal value. Nobody idolizes the poor, and, apart from the occasional Paris Hilton, most people who are rich either worked incredibly hard to get that way or possess some sort of skill or ability that made them that way. (one could argue, as in class, that if you are born rich you will grow up to be rich. For the purposes of this example that doesn’t matter, because somewhere along the line somebody displayed some preferred trait and became rich. Those person’s genes are somewhere in that vapid debutante…) Whatever the reason, all of these traits can be seen as evolutionarily advantageous to our species as a whole. In the animal kingdom it is often the physically superior that get to breed. With the establishment of money humanity has devised a way to quantify advantageous traits that may be less tangible than simple physical characteristics. Bill Gates’ genes now have a much better chance at being passed on than if we were spear-hunting in the jungle, and humanity as a whole benefits from this. Is it a perfect system? Of course not. But I do wonder how monkey society would change if the monkeys who were smart enough to steal, save, or make money had a greater chance of breeding than they do now.