I couldn’t help thinking though – this barter society might possibly work if everyone has a great memory of who owes who which type of ob and is a meal the equivalent of wallpapering a room or delivering a baby? How do they work out who owes how much labour? Also, there seemed to be a secondary market in obs, so that you could deliver a lot of obs to somebody (such as when the local firefighters put out a fire in a clothes shop) and then the shopkeeper can work off all these new obs by supplying clothes to other people the firefighters owe obs to, so he doesn’t have to keep giving the firefighters clothes they don’t need. Answer is that all of society would ghost that reprobate, they would be frozen out of everywhere and eventually they would starve. Oh and the soldiers ask – what if a person collected lots of obs, got free meals, free clothes, etc, but then refused to pay back.
They are always trying to locate the capital city but their isn’t one, the whole planet is just small towns and villages where everyone knows everyone else. So this is a pleasant social satire full of 1950s blokeish humour (“you dumb galoots!”…”Zipping meteors!” he exclaimed) about an anarchic society which just can’t be organised and controlled, the soldiers find it’s like trying to herd cats. Finally the penny drops that “Myob” mean mind your own business. They also demonstrate their inalienable individuality (aside from the eccentric dress, men wearing four foot long pigtails and nose rings) by saying “Myob” very frequently to the pompous military types trying to get to meet with the president of this ridiculous planet. They call themselves Gands, from an ancient Terran philosopher named Gandhi. Everyone is busy putting obs (obligations) on other people and getting rid of the obs put on them. So, for instance, if I go to your restaurant and eat a nice meal then I have an obligation to you to do something in return, like fix your roof. They think money is a terrible idea that enslaves everyone.
The galactic patrol battleship bulging with 500 military men finally reaches a planet colonised 300 years ago by people who had some odd ideas about how society should work.
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