On the 28th of April, 1789, Fletcher Christian and his crew of disaffected seamen seized control of the Royal Navy vessel HMS Bounty and set their captain, William Bligh, and 18 others adrift in the south Pacific. 10 months later Christian and some of his fellow mutineers, having picked up women they had met on their travels in Polynesia, settled on Pitcairn Island. They chose Pitcairn for its remoteness, isolated as the island is in the middle of the Pacific Ocean – and it worked: The Royal Navy only rediscovered their colony in 1814.
Today, the Pitcairn Islands is still home to some of the mutineers’ distant heirs. It is a British Overseas Territory, which comprises Pitcairn Island proper as well as three other islands. Population: 56. It is the least populous national jurisdiction in the world.
The Pitcairn Islands’ economy is, of course, basic: some agriculture and fishing, as well as a bit of adventure tourism. The islands are served by a passenger and cargo vessel, MV Claymore II, at the request of, and subsidised by, the British Government. Claymore II connects the islands to Tauranga, New Zealand – 12 days away – and Mangareva, French Polynesia, which has the nearest airport. She makes a total of ten trips every year. As there are no port facilities on Pitcairn, passengers and cargo are landed by longboat.
Despite its small size and extreme isolation, living standards on Pitcairn are quite modern. The islands have electricity and internet. There is a social worker and a medical centre. The general store is open three times a week, though orders must be placed every three months to allow goods to be shipped from New Zealand.
But how does Pitcairn uphold such standards of living, despite their very basic economy? When we think of isolated island nations we tend to imagine tribes of hunter-gatherers living off the land, much like their ancestors have for hundreds, if not thousands, of years. But not on Pitcairn. Why? The answer will surprise no-one, but there is a useful insight to be learned from the Pitcairn Islands nevertheless; an insight into the heart of a capitalist economy and the benefits – and cost – of participating in it.
There are many definitions of “capitalism”, but a basic one is this: it is specialisation of skills and free trade. That is what has made us so good at so many things and allowed us to exchange what we produce skilfully for what other produce that we can’t. As David Ricardo was the first to note, we don’t even have to be the best at what we do to enjoy the benefits of specialisation and trade, it is open to all. But it requires us to be close to each other. In sparsely populated areas, technological advance is stunted. Trade networks are what allow us to prosper. When your only connection to the world is a ship once a month, the ease of trade is heavily compromised. And with a population of around 50, specialisation is simply not possible: specialist skills cannot be maintained through generations and there are very far from enough people to master a huge variety of skills as is characteristic of our combined knowledge in the highly inter-connected modern capitalist economy.
So, if you live in isolation, in order to maintain a standard of living comparable to your more interconnected peers, you must beg. And beg the Pitkerners do: in 2017, the islands received almost £3,500,000 in subsidy from the British government to share between the 56 inhabitants. 98% of the cost of running the islands are paid overseas tax payers. The EU spent £2,100,000.
It should be noted that, apart from funding the party on Pitcairn, the British government also contributes to the difficulties for the islands: it is illegal to bring children under 16 to the Pitcairn, making it an unattractive place to migrate to for most people of working age. Projections show that by 2045, the working age population of the islands will be three!
But the inevitable conclusion is this: taxpayers in dreary British cities toil at work to fund the island dream of a few dozen nominal compatriots thousands of miles away in the South Pacific. And they do so because that dream is fundamentally incompatible with a modern standard of living. It is a lifestyle choice for which others are forced to bear the cost. If you want the benefits of capitalism you must participate in the capitalist economy: you must hone a specialised skill, work hard and trade your product on the free market. It is the only cost of enjoying the benefits of free market capitalism, but it is a cost: you must participate. Expecting anything else is to demand money for nothing.