fable

There once lived a community of Hawks, flying freely above fields and meadows, always able to acquire ample food and water. Each hawk had a nest, some being sturdier, more spacious, and made of more precious materials than others’ nests. However, these nests were not common. Only the Hawks that worked the hardest were able live in these nests. The majority of the Hawks, who did not work did not work as hard as the other hawks, lived in poorly built nests that were often too small for them. Eventually, the Hawks who did not work hard began to feel outraged towards the Hawks living in the nice nests, and wanted to find a solution in which all Hawks could live in the same quality of nest. They then confided this notion to a Wolf and voted him their leader. The Wolf decided to outlaw the building of large, extravagant, nests made of precious and rare materials, and outlawed the living in poorly built, unfit nests. He then ordered a collective workforce for the Hawks to all build new mundane, mediocre houses. The lazy Hawks did not feel like working hard, and the usually motivated Hawks decided working hard would be futile since they would end up living in a mediocre nest no matter what. With all the hawks feeling unmotivated or lazy, the quality of the nests degenerated, ultimately leaving all the Hawks to live in the same poorly built nests. The Wolf, who had been observing this degeneration, took all the precious materials from the hardworking Hawks’ old nests and became very rich.
This fable displays how a collectivist form of community or society, does not eliminate class structure, but rather increases the range of inequality between the rich and poor. Moreover, hard work is depicted as the sole means of class divisibility, and when it is eliminated, society degenerates, leaving greed and power to develop in situ of hard work’s absence.