GREAT ECONOMISTS IN HELL

Play 1 John Maynard Keynes in Hell~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

`The dreariest of sciences.' - Malthus

JM - I've just seen the whole of my life flash past. I got it wrong, you know: men don't love one another. My economic theories can't work.

1st Demon - Submit it to a Post-Structuralist analysis. The Devil says this works: but only on Mondays, his day for counter-factuals.

2nd Demon - So. Day and night, man and woman, white and black....

1st Demon - Dichotomies, all diamond bright and arrayed like shiny white pearls, like little sins - dichotomies.

JM - I'm worried. My left molar is bitten through. In Hell I just can't get a good dentist. Demon 1 said he could manage all the medical problems that came along - we're all dead after all - but eating all that soot and ashes is so - well, its irritating and boring but also painful. Smithian supply and demand economics, they're just not suited to Hell. Only living people can say they renounce love. But we have renounced - not just love - but coal, oil, clothes, food. Frankly, I'm sick of Hell. It's not the dystopia I once thought it. I think a Maoist Republic might be preferable. Maybe the half-living people of Beijing, maybe they occasionally find some human warmth, even if it is miserable, freezing, suffering and very, very small.

2nd Demon - You're a sentimentalist, John! At Versailles, you thought that Germany should not be punished in such a vindictive way. That would have made it even more difficult to defeat it the second time around. The Devil thinks you don't pull your weight, even when it comes to eating soot. Your not cut out for Hell, John. You might even ask yourself, why was I sent here?

JM - Why?

2nd Demon - You were sent here as an observer. Hell has no objective existence except in your mind. Wish it away or regard it as a play. If you'd been truly objective, then you might have become Tsar of Outer Mongolia or some other trans-Siberian depot. Instead you invented the Arts Council! (screaming)

Play 2 Karl Marx in Hell or Instruction Manual for Survival in Inhospitable Places~~~


KM : The proof of my theories is the fact that I'm being talked about at all! I said 'a spectre is haunting Europe' but, really, a spectre isn't haunting Europe. A child, maybe, lost, frozen, half-dead....

Demon 1: (whirling past) Hurry up!

KM: I can't go any faster: you told me the ball must be rolled to the top of the hill. I roll it up, it falls down again. Over and over again. (exhausted)

Demon 2: You said - and I refer you to the application form that you filled in personally at the start of your visit - you said, Hell in a Neo-Classical manner:-

KM: Yes...

Demon 2: Not Baroque Hell or Romantic Hell but Hell in the manner of your own Phd thesis on Greek Philosophy. Am I right? (yelling)

Demon 1: Hurry up now! You can't kick against the pricks! You asked for Hell after Sisyphus. You could have had Hell after Judas Escariot or the Hell of a minor Roman Pope.

KM: I changed my mind. Everything would have been settled, but Trotsky chose to end Krondstadt by comparing it to the last day of the Paris Commune. It was the exact anniversary. The point is this: I supported the Commune. I can't continue with a Christian Heresy by choosing a Christian damnation, can I?

Demon 1: You can't change to a Plan B Hell. Its too late. Any decision relating to such a matter would have to be made by the Guvnor.

KM: The Guvnor?

Demon 1: Lucifer, Beelzebub, the Lord of the Flies, Satan, in Persian Zarathustra. The Devil!!!!

KM: (rattling on) How can you have morality in Hell? And truth! In Hell neither exists at all. As I said at the start: I am important because you still talk about me and looked forward to my company. What I actually said is a matter of no importance. Even the fact that you ceased to be an audience: but you stormed off and xy and z saw it. They realised that you had no refutation of my arguments.

Demon 2: (whirling past, yelling distantly) You can't kick against the pricks...


Play 3 Adam Smith in Hell~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


Demon 1: The Guvnor wants a word with you!

AS: I've only just got here...

Demon 2: (interjecting) You've been here five years.

Demon 1: For the purposes of sniffing. You know the cardinal rule of Hell: no private soot piles. Remember, the Guvnor placed a 10 million year lease against his own rehabilitation. No private soot piles, and definitely not for use as a personal snuff box. Come on!

Darkness - glimmer of infernal fires

Devil: (booming voice) Well I never! Adam Smith! Can you explain to me why your private abundances should scorch my misery. Hell is built on greed. My infinite greed, my selfishness, my hatred. You cannot replace my private greed with your own. You'd privatise Hell and sell off slim percentages to the damned. (whispering) What was the percentage, I mean the percentage of net profit you made on the sale? Can you tell me? What investments can you advise?

AS: You mean monopoly...

Devil: Monopoly, monopoly... (whispering) yes, I'll talk to you later. Please, it's very helpful, I hope to re-mortgage the place in five years time. (in an official, booming voice) I will not tolerate your arrogance any longer. On the other hand, there's no where else for you to go. This is the lowest circle of Hell. (whispering) Couldn't you just disappear for a while, take a flight to the North Pole, be seen photographing...polar bears...with Japanese tourists, then come back. I'd make you into a minor Demon. Beelzebub, well, there's a problem with Beelzebub. He doesn't inspire terror, yes terror, but something more. At first he inspired terror, sure, but then there were many hiccups. Many regrettable things happened. My plan to change the North Sea into an oil slick: the adventures in Iraq and Afghanistan. They didn't go (harrowed and anguished) according to plan.

AS: Why? You are the Devil after all, with limitless foresight and insight. What happened?

Devil: The overall plan was fine, but we've had difficulty accounting for several things. The effect of terror and horror, yes of course there was lots of very effective terror and horror but I lost Beelzebub (moaning, utter gloom). He fell off the balcony of a hotel in Baghdad. We haven't seen him since. He was disguised as a Channel 4 reporter. O, the expense of his suits and rings (moaning). This ensured a catalogue of incidents. In short, things simply haven't gone according to plan.

AS: What do you think I can do?

Devil: Nothing. It's too late now. Events have left my grasp, things are out of control. Without my representative there I can't control the flow...the flow of propaganda and misinformation. (whispering) 5%, was it 5%, for the soot pile? How do you create these financial schemes? Can you ring up the Dow Jones or the Dax for me, now, place some bids. Please? I'll give you my...I'll give you my ducky for Friday night bath time. I'll give you my ducky. Duck, duck ducky...(sobbing) Nothing like this ever happened before...