Rainbow Land Shops

[pinkpuff]

It's slightly different from communism. As far as I understand, in communism you still have money, you just have a government that rations it. But with this there is no money or government at all so it seems more like an instance of a resource-based economy where there is abundance rather than scarcity (money is based on scarcity).

[FanChan]

A joke, guys :p


You just can't really call them shops or stores if there's no exchange of legal tender. Then again, I suppose they might just call them that for fun.



How about this? They have to bring the store owner something they'd like (something in the store owner's colour) in exchange for what they need. Some flowers, or fruit, or a painted picture. Receiving something without doing anything to work for it just doesn't sit right with me. You can say they all work hard and so deserve whatever they get, but what if Red works a little bit harder than Canary? Etc.



Also, considering Patty's shop was a General store, I'm inclined to think that their stores wouldn't necessarily reflect their colour or personality.

[Dialga-Brite]

You just can't really call them shops or stores if there's no exchange of legal tender. Then again, I suppose they might just call them that for fun.

I like the idea of just calling them shops for fun.

[Chibi Rachy]

A joke, guys :p


You just can't really call them shops or stores if there's no exchange of legal tender. Then again, I suppose they might just call them that for fun.



How about this? They have to bring the store owner something they'd like (something in the store owner's colour) in exchange for what they need. Some flowers, or fruit, or a painted picture. Receiving something without doing anything to work for it just doesn't sit right with me. You can say they all work hard and so deserve whatever they get, but what if Red works a little bit harder than Canary? Etc.



Also, considering Patty's shop was a General store, I'm inclined to think that their stores wouldn't necessarily reflect their colour or personality.

Well, considering it was a kids' show, I do think they'd call them shops for fun. We only try to think otherwise because we had to learn about such things. My 3rd graders just learned about scarcity today. Personally, I think they just tacked a random Kid's name to the general store and then colored it in their color.

I think we're overthinking the society in general for Rainbow Land. Since it's shown that the Kids and Rainbow get along so well, how many of them would suspect that one works harder than another? They use the Rainbow Land Cafe and that's run by sprites. Perhaps the sprites run that because they know that the land they live in is protected from Murky.

[FanChan]

Underthinking is the reason why there are so many holes in the RB universe. As a writer myself, I can't help but want to fill in all of the holes, even with little ponderings like this. Otherwise you find discrepancies later on, as we're all learning quite well. You can't have the kinds of debates regarding the kids the way we do and then say 'don't overthink it', you know what I mean?

[Chibi Rachy]

Underthinking is the reason why there are so many holes in the RB universe. As a writer myself, I can't help but want to fill in all of the holes, even with little ponderings like this. Otherwise you find discrepancies later on, as we're all learning quite well. You can't have the kinds of debates regarding the kids the way we do and then say 'don't overthink it', you know what I mean?

I didn't say not to overthink it. I just said that I think we are. There's really no basis for an economy though unless they do so through the bartering system. They don't have anything to back the system, to bank on. You can't have money without something to back it with. It seems to be a basic society that bartering would work.

As for the shops and personality, that was just for fun I think it's fun to explore the facets of possibilities of various shops that the Kids could own. If we go by random shops, well, I suddenly picture Stormy selling pink tutus XD I don't know where that came from!

[Sukey]

What would they use for tender, I wonder?

Star Sprinkles!




Sukey

[Starvoyager]

I certainly think that the extent of "shops" in Rainbowland is for make-believe purposes. Trading and sharing is going on all the time, so they've just decided to incorporate a bit of roleplay into it. Kids love to pretend, so it's not a stretch to think that they take what they see of Earth and have a little fun with it. Lala is French even though she isn't even from the right planet to be that, Indigo is a famous actress, etc.

On the communism thing, there's actually nothing wrong with true communism. It would be a blessing for this planet if humans could ever achieve such a thing, but individual selfishness ensures that it never has, nor ever will happen. If humans were actually capable of communism, we wouldn't even need law enforcement.

Why does Rainbowland even need an economy, when it obviously does quite well without it? I tend to agree with the kindness concept, although that's too much of a "currency" too. Think of it more like a tribe where the concept of ownership is practically non-existant. Nobody needs to buy something from someone else because it already belongs to them.

Besides, why would we even want to force such a system on the kids? Economy only exists on Earth because humanity came about in this "survival of the fittest/kill or be killed" existence. Competition is practically all we comprehend, so the economy serves as our global "score-keeping" system. The pen isn't mightier than the sword... it IS the sword. Business is just war cleverly disguised as something less messy.

If the kids one day were to decide to have a trackable economy, something like this would probably happen:

• One kid ends up accumulating more wealth than they spend.
• Other kids end up getting a bit extra-friendly with the "rich" kid (remember how everyone in the neighborhood always wanted to hang out with the kid who had the in-ground pool in their back yard?)
• A new social status system begins and a divide forms between the rich and the poor kids.
• Competition grows increasingly fierce. Birthday parties and seasonal celebrations become wrought with advertisements for shops. Some shops even start holding their own promotional events.
• Rainbow is no longer in charge of the planet. Spending so much time spreading color to Earth, she had little time to grow vegetables to sell at a store. Red Butler buys out the leadership.
• The Sprites decide they want a piece of all this action, and form the "Union of Color-Crystal Miners", demanding actual pay, benefits, etc.
• The loss of the "free labor class" causes chaos. Now that color crystals have a value to them, Red decides to announce the existence of Rainbowland to the people of Earth. Color becomes a utility like gas or electricity, and anyone who doesn't pay their Rainbowland bill every month will have to deal with gray grass on their lawn instead of green.
• Murky spends most of the first few years, peering through his telescope at Rainbowland, and laughing hysterically at the degradation of their society. He isn't immune to this new fad either though, and makes contact with the Western allied nations. In exchange for a good deal of wealth, he sells to the U.S., rights to build a military base in the Pits.
• After a great deal of bickering, the U.N. concludes that the Rainbowland kids are too young to live on their own, too uneducated, and too naive to be left in charge of the only source of such a precious resource as color.
• The U.S. invades and annexes Rainbowland, thereby taking total control of its natural resources.
• For their own safety, the 'kids' are sent to an "assimilation" camp where hey can be taught to properly integrate themselves into normal human society.

Oh how wonderful it is promote the spread of capitalism...

[Blondine Arc-En-Ciel]

So tell me, where is the service station that's used to fill up the various vehicles seen in the episode, books and comics?

And what brand does it sell?

Does it have clean rest rooms? I've not heard of any other toilets anywhere else in Rainbow Land.

Is it open 24/7?

How about a shop with it?