An Economic Intrepration Of Th

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Economics is a way of life: The Lottery is not
A lottery is something that many people would be very excited to win. Most people think of a huge cash reward for winning a lottery. The thought of millions of dollars being awarded just because they picked your name is very exciting. In most cases, the possibility of winning one of these great lotteries is very slim; you would have a better chance of being hit by lightning. Shirley Jackson writes about a lottery that took place in a small farming community consisting of a meager 300 people. The probability of winning this lottery is good; you would have a one in three hundred chance of winning. The lottery is there to insure the season’s crops. If you were “lucky'; enough to be chosen, you would be sacrificed to the gods. This sacrifice would involve the townspeople directing you towards the middle of a circle and proceeding to throw rocks at you until death.
Everybody seems happy with the results of this yearly tradition until they are chosen for the stoning. Before the lottery, people are joking and gathering like it was a party. Once the “lucky'; participant has been chosen their cries of compromise are let out and this has no effect on the crowd at hand. Being one of the stoners, you are unwilling to recognize the screams of pain and the sights of blood. This sacrifice ensures the town’s economic success and their ability to feed the families. Crops are the lives of these families and if they fail there may not be enough food to feed this small town.
Killing one person a year to theoretically save the lives of three hundred people does not seem that bad. Sure the town’s people may follow this cruel tradition blindly, but how are they to know if the sacrifice is actually saving their crops or not? They keep on with their traditions because one bad year could wipe out the whole town. This town is run on economic success and a tradition that is not to be broken. The ability to follow cruel traditions without any remorse for the damage that has been done has a type of cult mentality. The economic well-being for this town is important, but is it important enough to follow a 100 year old tradition which, logically, does not help the crop condition one bit?

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